You should go read the source for this paraphrased and quoted summary here from Glenn Greenwald.

Basically, the Bush administration and the Congress both agreed in 2002 that the circumvention of the FISA laws was unconstitutional. A Congressmen named DeWine submitted an amendment

. . . .to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to modify the standard of proof for issuance of orders regarding non-United States persons from probable cause to reasonable suspicion. . . .

"During that time, the Administration was asked to advise Congress as to its position on this proposed amendment to loosen the standard for obtaining FISA warrants, and in response, they submitted a Statement from James A. Baker, the Justice Department lawyer who oversees that DoJ's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review" which thanked the Congress for the Patriot Act lee-way of 72 hours before a FISA court had to be notified. Furthermore, Baker said in the statement:

This modification has allowed us to make full and effective use of FISA's pre- existing emergency provisions to ensure that the government acts swiftly to respond to terrorist threats. Again, we are grateful for the tools Congress provided us last fall for the fight against terrorism. Thank you.

Mind you they were already breaking the law at the time of the above Statement. So why are they lying? Why did they need to monitor 18,000 persons inside the United States without bothering to inform the FISA court, when they were gleefully touting the 72 hour leeway provision?

Because they are spying on "political" opponents, trying to blacklist them like J. Edgar Hoover did when he ran the FBI like his own personal fiefdom. The FBI (pushed on by the Nixon administrations operators) were infiltrating peace groups and Democratic Party functions in the early 1970's. There is a history here folks. We already know that John Bolton used wire-taps from the NSA on two occasions: to try and derail Joe Wilson's excursion to Africa, and on a diplomatic excursion to North Korea. We already know that Karl Rove has used bugs and a plethora of dirty tricks throughout his career.

Here is the 4th Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Is that absolutely clear people? Don't let the corporate media jackals dumb it down, or try to use weasel words. If the Bush administration can't notify the FISA court 72 hours after they wire tapped someone -- or whatever -- they are violating the Constitution and breaking the law. They want to make this a "fighting terrorism" issue, but they are completely full of shit. They were spying on political groups not at all related to "terrorism" and this is why they keep feebly changing the story and why they ignored the laws for 3 years. They quite obviously understood the law in 2002, and in a signed statement to boot.

But this is their modus operandi. They want to center all authority in the executive department and the judicial branch that they think they can control. This is the central idea behind Samuel Alito's "unitary executive" theory. What the biscuit! We got a constitution for a reason, and this is not a god- damn scientific inquiry. Were we to allow "theories" about the constitution, than what theory do we pick? I got a few theories myself.

And as far as the executive goes, we aught to heed the first inaugural executive our nation ever had ... George Washington, who himself respected the right of Congress to deliberate, who obeyed the Constitution in its infant stages, and who understood the true role of the executive as meant by the fore- fathers. Washington always worked through Congress during a time when the Colonies were being freaking invaded by the British Army, but this "unitary executive" theory proposes just the opposite in this new dangerous world that is supposedly different from the old dangerous world.

Again, this is how the Aristocracy builds and creates an Aristocratic state. You make narrow and whittle-down the interpretation of the laws until the vast numberless people who aren't super-rich find that they are surrounded by bureaucratic intermediaries between themselves and their rights.

As to the tripe of "Oceans do not protect us" and "we live in a dangerous world" I have two responses.

When has the world not been dangerous? When? Give me a decade, or any year in a decade. There has always been something that was dangerous that could quite possibly harm us. That is why we need representative democracy and the rule of law more than ever. What we have "now" is not something so completely new that we must dismantle the constitution and obviate the rule of law. That is the stuff Adolph Hitler said back in the 1930's.

Uh, Oceans have never protected us morons. Washington was burned by the British during the War of 1812. Immigrants flooded the country between 1880 and 1910. Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. The Oil shortages occurred in 1973.

The Bush administration deliberately ignored the evidence that was abundantly available during the first 8 months of 2001. Cheney could have multiple meetings with Energy conglomerates where oil maps of Iraq were looked at, but could not hold one single meeting on Terrorism, despite the heated debate from ex-Clinton officials and Richard Clarke.

... Because he sees through all of the Bulls**t. [SOURCE ]

I imagine that there are some out there who wonder why a factual error in an ombudsman's column combined with the dismissive attitude about complaints pisses people off so much. It's very simple. Time and time again those of us who pay attention see how right wing narratives grow to dominate ongoing news stories. Factual errors, distortions, and general misinformation on which those right wing narratives are hung are repeated over and over again both by right wing hacks and mainstream journalists.

Since the Abramoff story broke there has been a concerted effort by right wing hacks, journalists, and their editors to paint this as a bipartisan scandal when it simply isn't one. Doing so requires a degree of ignorance about who Abramoff is and what his role was which, no matter what one's opinion of the general intelligence of the Washington press, simply has to be deliberate. Reporters understand how lobbying works in DC. They also understand who Abramoff was, what his history was, what his role was, what his entire existence in Republican politics was about.

Small factual errors aren't in themselves the biggest deal in the world, but nor are they in the words of the increasingly wankerific Michael Crowley "foolish semantics." The propogation and repetition of these errors provides the structure onto which the false narrative can be hung.

Are their corrupt Democrats in congress? Quite possibly. I have no illusions that having a 'D' after your name guarantees your purity. Will their be lobbying scandals which bring down Democrats at some point in the future? Quite possibly. But this isn't a general "lobbying scandal," this is a Jack Abramoff scandal. It is a Republican scandal. That is what this story is about, and any seasoned media observer who hasn't yet figured out how bullshit right wing narratives are constantly wrapped around "foolish semantics" just hasn't figured out how this game is played.

Thank you Atrios, a true patriot.

Recently Monsieur Chris Matthews compared Michael Moore to Bin Laden, calling what Bin Laden said in the latest terrifyingly scary audio similar to "Michael Moore."

Then Scarbourgh on Scarbourgh Country brings on Clinton smear-artist Kellyanne Conway to say

Conway: If you held a piece of tissue paper between some of the comments that Bin Laden today and some of the comments that the president's detractor's say-it would be very difficult to stick more than a piece of tissue paper between--there's not much of a difference.

Scarborough: When you look at what Osama Bin Laden said it sounds an awful lot like what we hear the President's political enemies domestically--- not only like what a lot of democratic senators have been saying, but also what one or two movie makers have been saying over the past several years...

I mean just look at this B***h !

Look at that smug smirk she has on her face, posing as the "expert" who somehow knows soooooooo much that she deserves the make baseless speculative assertions akin to taking a crap outside in an open pit.

This is absolutely disgusting.

The time to act is now folks. We need to stand on the streets on January 31st when Herr Bush attempts to lie once again to the American public in what is called the State of the Union. You know this is true. All we have to do is stand outside where we live, together. That's all we have to do.

The rest will follow, right after we all go back into our houses and quickly turn the televisions on to tell us what just happened.

"A feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him. The faint, mad gleam of enthusiasm had come back into O'Brien's face. He knew in advance what O'Brien would say. That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better. That the party was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing was that when O'Brien said this he would believe it. You could see it in his face. O'Brien knew everything. A thousand times better than Winston he knew what the world was really like, in what degradation the mass of human beings lived and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept them there. He had understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no difference: all was justified by the ultimate purpose. What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?"

Dear Chronicle headquarters,

-- or should I say Hearst Corporation headquarters?

I must say, your paper not only sucks, it sucks real bad. But let me not just utter pejorative iconography. Allow a few recent examples.

You publish a story about the horrible mining accident, but never mention once that the company had violated 105 federal regulations -- 54 alone during the prior 30 days to the accident. You didn't detail that Bush administration appointee Jack Spiderro's interpretation of coal dust might be related to the high levels of coal dust that was 40% of the above mine violations. Methane gas and coal dust are the 2 reasons mine explosions occur, which your pathetic paper also neglected to discuss. You didn't also outline that the same mining corporation has other mines that also have a history of problems.

Instead, the story you put on the front page was how you made a mistake, and that actually 11 of the 12 miners died. Yep, that was THE story. Then the story became what this political hack said, and how it was a sad event, and how the surviving family members would have a hard time adjusting. Oh but at least the paper did say that mining is a dangerous occupation. Wow, that's really chomping at the bit folks, telling everyone the obvious.

No kidding. But how did that particular mine get to become dangerous? How come that story was not on the front page?

And today's earth-shattering events on the frontpage ... ( January 13, 2006 .)

3 killed at store in 1980
- Stacy Finz

Big changes sought in how UC raises pay
Regents asked to give president more power to set salary levels
- Todd Wallack, Tanya Schevitz

Bleak audit of S.F. public golf courses
- Becky Bowman

Parents, teachers fight for schools S.F. education board postpones vote to close or merge 26 of them
- Heather Knight

SOMBER PROCESSION FOR SLAIN EAST PALO ALTO OFFICER

State steps in to help seniors get medicines

Golf courses? Seriously, on the front page?

Way back in ... 1980? Wow.

Sad people at a police funeral. Like Duh.

Stay on that pay raise story. The public really, really needs to know about how the public university system is not causing pay raises to get outta hand. We can't let that happen, right?

Hmm, how'bout a story about how nominee Alito promised the Senate that he would recuse himself from any cases involving the financial company that manages his stock portfolio, which he breaks the very first time a case comes up, makes odd legal decisions, and then writes an adamant letter complaining when another judge asks him to recuse himself from the very case. Or a judge who rules that it was acceptable to strip search a teenage girl when she didn't have her id? Or ... ?

Oh but how nice of the state to help Seniors? Don't you think an in depth detail of the pork of the Medicare Act of 2004 would be a great idea? Or actions by Schwastikanigger on California medical regulations?

Seems to me like you don't want to leave the shoe box to get to the bigger picture, and in that box are only three things : 1) opinions of political hacks, 2) over-flowing grandeur about the personality or hard-ships involved without the details or even an outline on the connections between the people and the historical context, and last but not least: 3) loaded adjectives with subtle conjectures not supported by facts.

Look at the way you numb-skulls stretch to avoid to put a story about Alito's judicial history, or anything relevant on the NSA circumvention of the FISA laws, or anything about the details concerning the pathetic "reconstruction" process going on during Katrina, or how the Diebold and ES systems corporations are having their voting machines recinded in counties of North Carolina, Florida, New York, Texas, and Minnesota when Governor Schwastikanigger's appointed Secretary of State is currently reinstalling the Diebold machines that Kevin Shelley himself recinded after the Schwastikanigger recall hoax election.

Oh but Shelley did what over a $10,000 check? Did y'all bother to even print the fact that he was NEVER indicted after he resigned because "the irregularities were not sufficient to warrant a full investigation." How come you could'nt give that fact the same everyday frontpage treatment that the hoax scandal got?

And was Schwastikanigger paid $1 million by Chevron? And what was the 9 billion Energy Market Rigging lawsuit that Schwastikanigger cancelled his very first day in office? And how much digging did your paper due into this man our Governor when he meet with various Enron and Reliant energy officials during the summer of 2001 at a Los Angeles hotel? But that $10,000 check was front page for close to 2 weeks.

How come the attack dogs have highly selective noses?

Oh, and nice job printing 5 pages of high-quality photography trying to prove that only 65,000 people attended the 2003 protest. Now that was quality journalism morons. You'd think you would also print the White House's involvement with the tainted justifications used to drag the country down their megalomaniacal path to war and dictatorship. Scotter Libby, Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley, Bolton, Wolfowitz, etc could have used at least 20 percent of the space you filled up with trying to prove that an exact number of people filled Market street completely for 8 hours.

Christ, don't you idiots recognize historical moments at all. When was the last time that many people marched down Market Street?

And what the blarney-stone is Laura Slanders doing on any paper news staff? A Conservative philosophy is not equivalent to a lying, deliberately misleading stale ruthlessly opinated hack.

And I won't forget how you served as the springboard for mendacious propagandista Kenneth Garcia's entrance into the world of columnists with opinions so biased that they manage to obviate the relevant issues rather than enlighten the public with ideas and thoughtful perspectives. Kenny-boy has since moved over to the less sophisticated but still slanted pages of the Examiner, but it was you who gave him some years as a farce of reason.

And how can the Sunday paper be ready for sale on Saturday morning? Ugh, I want to throw up.

You disgrace this city. It disgusts me that you actually publish and yet can't even be even 20 percent close to the quality of the Sacramento Bee or the San Jose Mercury News. How much of the staff was fired when the Hearst corporation decided to double the profit margin at the expense of the paper's content? Ever wonder maybe that is why subscriptions are down and a lot of folks are having the New York Times delivered?

So when will you guys just admit the Chronicle is just a haven for corporate shills.

Sincerely,

Gino Napoli.

"When they came for the trade unionists and socialists, I said nothing because I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the homosexuals and the gypsies, I said nothing because I was neither.

When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I was not a Jew.

When they came for the Catholics, I said nothing because I was not a Catholic.

And when they came for me, there was nobody left to say anything."

-- Rev. Martin Niemoller, A German who lived through the 1930's in Germany.

From James Moore, author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential. These quotes are culled from a syndicated op-ed Mr. Moore penned on October 28, 2005 . [SOURCE ]

Leaking the names of CIA agents is not politics; it is a crime. Lying to congress about evidence for a war is not politics; it is a crime. Failing to tell a grand jury that you met with a reporter and talked about the CIA agent is not forgetfullness; it is a crime. Deceiving your entire nation and frightening children and adults with images of nuclear explosions in order to get them to support a bloody invasion of another country is not politics; it is a crime. Anyone other than Karl Rove and Lewis Libby and Tom Delay who does not get this, please raise your hand. The three of you will need to stay after class for further instruction in civics.

Fortunately, as the leaves of the Aspens continue to turn in Colorado (where she vacations) the suspects are also turning in Washington. Targets will be pleading and dealing and soon will be singing. We are, hopefully, seeing the beginning of an investigation that will broaden until it disabuses the final few million Bush supporters of their naievete'. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald must surely just be at the beginning of rendering justice. An indictment or two will hardly serve to answer the critical questions. The leak and any lies to the grand jury were most likely motivated by a deep and abiding fear that a much greater crime was at risk of being uncovered. Karl Rove is vindictive, yes. But he is not stupid. Rove would never risk treason unless he thought it served a political purpose. And this was the most important political purpose of all: protecting his most precious asset, George W. Bush. Ethics have never been a consideration of Rove's and he sees the law as only marginally instructive. Karl might have been more concerned about the leak and talking to reporters if somewhere along the line he had been held accountable for any of his other political tricks. But he has not.

We the people expect Fitzgerald to do more than indict a few leakers. There was a grand scheme behind what happened and it was put together by the big brains in the administration. Unlike the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Rove will have a hard time making an argument that this leak just spontaneously occurred to harm Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife in a timely political fashion. What is hiding back there behind the curtains? The mainstream media is now beginning to report on the forged Niger documents in Italy and the names of Bush administration operatives who met in Rome with Italian intelligence and defense officials before the phony yellowcake papers began to circulate. Is that what Fitzgerald is beginning to pursue? If Joe Wilson was threatening to uncover the fact that our government had deployed agents to act as covert operatives against the very citizens they are sworn to serve, well, that's more than a crime; that's a John le Carre' novel. Small wonder Democrats suspect Rove of a smackdown of Wilson.

We have no real shot at the truth without Patrick Fitzgerald. And he will soon be demonized. He will discover that being 42 and unmarried makes him the practitioner of an alternative lifestyle and that he may have once had a beer at an airport in Milwaukee with a Democrat. First they called him accomplished and capable when he was appointed. What will they call him now? Perjury was a high crime when Bill Clinton fibbed about the blue dress girl but it is being spun into a technicality when you stand accused of historic deceptions that have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents. And that's not politics. That's a crime.

Ain't him a good writ-ah!

Mr. Moore has now found himself on the TSA "No fly watch list" because his criticisms of the Bush Administration and Karl Rove in particular have gotten his attention to these sick-nazi mentalities. This is true. James Moore is no terrorist, but he is on the "No fly watch list", so what else are we left to conclude? Why else would this veteran journalist from Texas find his name on the "No fly watch list"?

Now, to clarify, this does not make Mr. Moore unable to fly per se, but he has to now go through a timely procedure where he has meet with a special TSA agent. The forms that get filled out and sent to get off the list aren't working at all, and Mr. Moore has to go through this everytime he wants to travel. In other words, it's a form of harassment. Apparently, there are another 80,000 persons on this list, and the list is getting bigger everyday.

Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi also found themselves on the list. Accidentally I'm sure, but then how come no Republican legislator or "book-writer" media type has yet to find themselves "accidentally" on the list?

Answer: this is no accident. The NSA spy program is not about terrorism either. They are tapping the phones for other less patriotic reasons, as will eventually be revealed.

Thinking hurts too much these days. The nazi's are crawling everywhere, inhabiting and destroying everything.

Remember all the hubub made about Al Gore meeting a Chinese buddhist in a temple in 1996, that turned out to be nothing at all? Well now we have George Bush pioneer fund raiser Jack Abramoff involved in the largest web of corruption since the Credit Mobilier of the 1870's, involving fake charity funds that accepted $100,000 checks from a law firm in England that got the money from Russian lobbyists.

Oh but will the corporate nazi media pound on this story like they pounded on the Buddhist temple?

Of course not.

Today's f***ing Chronicle headline blasts out that Abramoff is a "rogue lobbyist" as if Abramoff was all alone and independent in bad guy land. Hey hack Chronicle reporter : would you care to mention his already convicted or being prosecutied cohorts in crime over the last year : namely, public relations executive --and former aide to House Majority Leader DeLay-- Michael Scanlon; chief of staff at the General Services Administration David Safavian, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Ohio Bush Pioneer Tom Noe? ALL ARE CONNECTED dumb asses.

And David Safavian was appointed by George Bush in 2003. [Read on ...]

So what the hell then does Bush mean when he says that Abramoff was "equal opportunity" corruption? Oh, Byron Dorgan(North Dakota) and Harry Reid(Nevada) both accepted small donations by local indian tribes ($18,000 and $5,000 respectively) in their districts that also happened to be clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- but that is and was not illegal.

Bush himself got more than $100,000 from Abramoff and his other connected pioneers, in addition to appointing officials helpful to the purposes of Mr. Abramoff. There's more here from Lou Dubose at the Texas Observer:

"In May 2001, Jack Abramoff’s lobbying client book was worth $4.1 million in annual billing for the Greenberg Traurig law firm. He was a friend of Bush advisor Karl Rove. He was a Bush “Pioneer,” delivering at least $100,000 in bundled contributions to the 2000 campaign. He had just concluded his work on the Bush Transition Team as an advisor to the Department of the Interior. He had sent his personal assistant Susan Ralston to the White House to work as Rove’s personal assistant. He was a close friend, advisor, and high-dollar fundraiser for the most powerful man in Congress, Tom DeLay. Abramoff was so closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the President. "

Some "roque" operator.

And from the Bloomberg News: [SOURCE]

"Now you have two people instead of one," said Stan Brand, a former counsel to the House of Representatives when it was controlled by the Democrats. "What you're building is a ladder. You have Abramoff at the intermediate step, elected officials above him, and Scanlon and Safavian underneath."

In other words, this vast network of corruption was orchetrated and abetted by the Republican party.

Liars and heinous hypocrites. They speak of themselves when they pilory the perceived opposition.

Bush even gets to recess appoint the prosecutor Alice Fisher -- during the weekend of the Hurricane Katrina debacle -- to oversea the Abramoff investigation. Alice Fisher has no prosecution experience but used to work with the law firm of now Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff and has done work with Tom Delay's legal action network. At law.com she is lauded a bit maniacally for her "great" work investigating Enron. Oh you mean that lame investigation where all but a few scapegoats (including the two big boys Ken Lay, and ex- Secretary of the Army Thomas White) walked away scott free.

Yeah, she's great at investigating.

But even from law.com , you can still get a glimpse of why Bush had to sneak her appointment over the Katrina weekend ...

Fisher first worked with Chertoff in 1995, when he hired her as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater investigation. She had graduated from the Catholic University of America School of Law in 1993, and worked as a litigation associate in the Washington office of New York-based Sullivan & Cromwell.

Then Chertoff brought her into the Senate investigation of investments that President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton made in the troubled Whitewater Development Corp.

Following her work in Whitewater, Fisher moved into the Washington office of Latham & Watkins in 1996.

So I'm sure she'll be spiking the investigation. Why else would Bush so secretively appoint her over that particular weekend? Was her services in such dire need that Bush had to rush her through without following the Constitutional requirement of Senatorial "advice and consent."

I really, really hope I am wrong.

I thought this was hilarious