Comments (25)

shadow wrote on June 15, 2007 4:40 PM:

If these "black bag" guys are in my home and I murder them with my Second Amendment-protected weapon of choice, am I a good guy or a bad guy?

Anonymous wrote on June 15, 2007 4:50 PM:

NIXON LIVES!

Anonymous wrote on June 15, 2007 5:07 PM:

If you kill Feeb, you are automatically a bad guy, and they will have five witnesses saying the dead guy identified himself as a Feeb before you shot him.

Security code: bent, as in corrupt cops

Seamus wrote on June 15, 2007 5:07 PM:

If you kill Feeb, you are automatically a bad guy, and they will have five witnesses saying the dead guy identified himself as a Feeb before you shot him.

Security code: bent, as in corrupt cops

Anonymous wrote on June 15, 2007 5:12 PM:

Note that congress is informed, and aware of this activity. they are briefed on the budgets associated with this.

Members of congress, after these briefings, who whine, "How shocking," need to explain why -- despite their knowledge of this illegal activity -- they have not been enforcing the warrant requirement as required under the Constitution.
If Congress is going to review the NSA issues, then it needs to review this no-knock/no-warrant approach the FBI is taking.

A. When was Congress briefed on these entries;

B. Why were warrants "permitted" without actually issuing them;

C. What percentage of the intelligence community's $60B budget is allocated for this illegal entry against domestics

D. How are the FISA-oversight issues as they related to obtaining warrants in re US citizens being factored into "this program" which the AG may or may not have alluded to in his 6 Feb 2006 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee?

E. How does this "black bag" entry square with the DHS warrantless surveillance and interrogations of US citizens: Have legal counsel not been informed; and what cause of action under 42 USC 1983 has been planned to obtain damages against named FBI agents for this illegal entry?

F. What errors have occurred; what judicial review ha been thwarted; and what court oversight has not been included to ensure that the affidavits -- if any -- were supported by bonafide reasons, not fishing expeditions based on grudges, as have been the case in re GTMO POWs who were targeted because of grudges by civilians in Pakistan.

It is troubling that the US government, despite the revelations of GTMO in detaining innocent civilians because of bogus evidence, does not wish to ensure that the same errors related to GTMO prisoner abuses is not occurring in re US civilians. This reckless conduct -- as it appears to be outside court review -- appears to be the very arrogance which inspires the Taliban and Iraqi Insurgency to refuse to embrace the American model. It was Saddam Hussein's alleged "late night entries" and the former USSR's "late night knocks" in Eastern Europe that supposedly inspired the world to oppose this abuse of power. surely, the US government cannot possibly ask the world to have a different view bout the US despite the many years of asserting that warrantless intrusion by the USSR was unacceptable.

We've also learned that the Congress on the run up to the Iraq invasion was briefed on "other views" which contradicted the president's public statements. What briefings have members of Congress been given about this illegal FBI activity, but have not publicly challenged the President and AG on this activity; and is there a reason that Members of Congress, when they leaned of the illegal activity, did not shut down funds for this, as required under Article 1 Section 9, prohibiting expenditure of funds for unlawful activity?

Time for the Congress, EOP, and OVP and GOP legal counsel to come clean: What review did they make of the DC Bar rules 1.16 and 1.6 as they related to mandatory withdrawal when their legal expertise is used to support this unlawful US government action; and did Members of Congress, as required under 5 USC 3331 fully assert their oath to review this illegal activity; or have they not timely taken action to ensure the FBI leadership is called on the carpet to account for the warranties entries?

Did the congress and FBI not think that the judicial branch would have no say on this matter?

Who knows about this, and who has resigned because of it; did the appropriate audit standards for the AICPA get applied; or have they been ignored as was done in the Iraq DoD audits; which auditors have been targeted because they raised concerns; how many have been forced to resign because of their refusal to sign off on government audit findings that have been whitewashed?

When did DoJ OPR learn of these; and how do these findings square with the DOJ IG promises to review various AG issues; how was this planning for these FBI entries factored into the DoJ workflows which we've been reading about in re the US Atty firings; an what role did Miers and Rove play in reviewing these entries?

How many informants identities has local LE and JTTF compromised in an effort to get the subject of the investigation to "go after" those who dared to share their concerns with LE and JTTF?

J. Edgar Hoover wrote on June 15, 2007 5:12 PM:

It's high time we call in al Qaeda to protect us from our own government.

Anonymous wrote on June 15, 2007 5:26 PM:

Posted by: J. Edgar Hoover
Date: June 15, 2007 05:12 PM

there's a "proactive" and "pre-ventive" program that does just this: It hides US government pans to incite terrorism. Once incited, with full knowledge of the USG, the leaders then say, "Look how great we are at defending you."

There's an acronym, and it's associated with DoD: Something like P2POG. It's a psecial operations group, supposedly disbanded. Ha!

Mrs P wrote on June 15, 2007 5:30 PM:

Way off topic but for almost five years, I've been convinced that Enron's purchase of Garden State Paper Mill from General Media in July 2000 for $76 million in cash was, at least in part, a disguised campaign contribution.

Garden State Paper Mill wasn't worth $10 million. In fact, it was shut down in December 2001 after Enron went under and the property was eventually sold for $6 million.

General Media owns a newspapers and television stations in the Southeast. Garden State Paper, carried on GM's books at $110 million, was a drag on the balance sheet. But Garden State wasn't an easy sell because it came with a pension liability and environmental problems.

Did some of Enron's $76 million fund advertising for the Bush campaign in 2000? Do you think the GOP wouldn't engage in that sort of illegal activity?

I think I'll do a post about Enron and the paper mill purchase at the TPM Cafe.

Anonymous wrote on June 15, 2007 5:49 PM:

I was wondering who moved my car keys!

osama bin laden wrote on June 15, 2007 5:54 PM:

we hate you for your freedoms america!

Anonymous wrote on June 15, 2007 5:57 PM:

Tired of this FBI no-knock? Jonathan Turey at Georgetown talked about prosecuting a sitting President. Sure the GOP can refuse to convict, but that doesn't mean the House can't impeach.

How many lawyers know about Jonathan Turley and his paper about prosecuting a sitting President? 5 USC 3331 means asserting all your lawful options to defend the Constitution. We the People didn't take that oath: Members of the legal community took the oath.

Next time you hear about the FBI doing something bad, think, "Hay, there's something that can be done outside impeachment: We as legal counsel could resign and not allow our legal services to be used for unlawful purposes." let the DOJ OPR know; and the dc disciplinary board if you know about WH legal counsel supporting the FBI illegal entries.

These FBI no-knocks sound like the FISA violations and the President saying, "We're too good for court." time for the legal community to get to together, talk amongst yourselves, and ask: "How much more non-sense are we going to endure, get humiliated with, and not respond to before we admit, 'we have a real integrity problem, no leadership, and recklessness by our peers, we need to do something.'" You can: get with your state AG and leaders in the CrimLaw practice groups to discuss how to prosecute a sitting President.

Once you mention Turley's name, you've fatally admitted you're aware of the option, but haven't done what your oath of office requires: To assert all options to ensure the FBI does not engage in illegal searches. Same kinds of "illegal activity based on accusation" that we saw in GTMO in re Pakistan [Pakistanis accusing others of being terrorists because of personal grudges] is going on in America.

Time for the courts to have some oversight of thee data bases, and find out what kind of remedies there are for the incorrect information provided anonymously to the FBI and DHS. Sounds alot like the Eastern European informant files. Didn't we win the cold war against them on the grounds that "our system" doesn't do this?

USA Kettle Meet former-USSR Pot.

Mark Richards wrote on June 15, 2007 8:32 PM:

Unbelievable. Disgusting. Heart wrenching. Anyone who loves our nation will likely feel the urge to vomit.

I should think that entry into a private home or business without a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate, and absent exigent circumstances (knowledge that a crime has or is about to be committed), is *breaking and entering* no matter who does it. If the "black bag" folks manage to put themselves in a bit of a jam without the right paperwork well tough noogies if someone happens to shove a flag up their ass.

And someone tell me: how on earth will these "government servants" prosecute based on illegal entry and ill-gotten evidence? There is, I believe, the "fruit of the poisonous tree", or has this also gone that-a-way with the current mal-administration?

Likely this has all been considered. The victim will not be the criminals, but the poor slug who happened to be home or in the office at the time.

'scuse me. This CANNOT POSSIBLY be America.

Hello. Congress? Anyone home??

Sorry. It's Friday, the end of a long and difficult 3-day week full of jabbering and ending in the alloted mal-administration underling resignation designed to quiet the critics and provide more Sunday political talk show fodder.

Maybe next Tuesday someone under the dome will take notice?

gophatesusa wrote on June 15, 2007 8:51 PM:

Sounds like a good way to plant some 'evidence' in someone's home or office.

Jack wrote on June 15, 2007 10:07 PM:

Have any FBI or other government agents been caught in the act of doing an illegal "black bag job"? Does anyone have video of them doing it?

I find it difficult to believe that a terrorist or organized crime figure would leave their really sensitive information unguarded at any time. Who are they actually prosecuting as a result of the evidence they find?

Don't expect the watchers to watch themselves. The notion that an internal investigation will stop anything that the Attorney General is himself allowing is very naive. The ACLU and similar organizations are the only ones defending civil rights these days. Let this all be a lesson for all Americans on the importance of electing the right person to the office of President.

JEP wrote on June 16, 2007 9:10 AM:

I hope these black-baggers run into a big, black rottweiler next time they sneak into someone's home...

One of my concerns is, just what do they plan to do with all these new wannabe spies that Blackwater has created?

The culture of "intelligence" is getting dumber every day... and with this bunch of rogues waiting to come hoem with their newly honed crowd-control skills, they will all be itching, willing and able, to trespass all over our rights as ditizens in a new age of unchecked surveillance, private and government.

The "spy"mentallity is its own creature, and its ownb subculture, and tends to perpetuate itself just for its own benefit, and not as a branch of a higher authority.

Start doing things in the dark, and you find out too late you're working with some very shady characters. And they always are looking for a way to take over, it is in their DNA, or they wouldn't want to be spies...

World domination?

It is no joke, more than one cult currently receiving our faith-based funding imagines itself as the future world dominator.

Whether delusional or prescient, their ambitions are promoted by this secret-spy underworld culture that seems to fester always beneath the surface.

JEP wrote on June 16, 2007 9:12 AM:

I hope these black-baggers run into a big, black rottweiler next time they sneak into someone's home...

One of my concerns is, just what do they plan to do with all these new wannabe spies that Blackwater has created?

The culture of "intelligence" is getting dumber every day... and with this bunch of rogues waiting to come hoem with their newly honed crowd-control skills, they will all be itching, willing and able, to trespass all over our rights as ditizens in a new age of unchecked surveillance, private and government.

The "spy"mentallity is its own creature, and its ownb subculture, and tends to perpetuate itself just for its own benefit, and not as a branch of a higher authority.

Start doing things in the dark, and you find out too late you're working with some very shady characters. And they always are looking for a way to take over, it is in their DNA, or they wouldn't want to be spies...

World domination?

It is no joke, more than one cult currently receiving our faith-based funding imagines itself as the future world dominator.

Whether delusional or prescient, their ambitions are promoted by this secret-spy underworld culture that seems to fester always beneath the surface.

JEP wrote on June 16, 2007 9:20 AM:

I hope these black-baggers run into a big, black rottweiler next time they sneak into someone's home...

One of my concerns is, just what do they plan to do with all these new wannabe spies that Blackwater has created?

The culture of "intelligence" is getting dumber every day... and with this bunch of rogues waiting to come hoem with their newly honed crowd-control skills, they will all be itching, willing and able, to trespass all over our rights as ditizens in a new age of unchecked surveillance, private and government.

The "spy"mentallity is its own creature, and its ownb subculture, and tends to perpetuate itself just for its own benefit, and not as a branch of a higher authority.

Start doing things in the dark, and you find out too late you're working with some very shady characters. And they always are looking for a way to take over, it is in their DNA, or they wouldn't want to be spies...

World domination?

It is no joke, more than one cult currently receiving our faith-based funding imagines itself as the future world dominator.

Whether delusional or prescient, their ambitions are promoted by this secret-spy underworld culture that seems to fester always beneath the surface.

JEP wrote on June 16, 2007 9:31 AM:

I hope these black-baggers run into a big, black rottweiler next time they sneak into someone's home...

One of my concerns is, just what do they plan to do with all these new wannabe spies that Blackwater has created?

The culture of "intelligence" is getting dumber every day... and with this bunch of cranked-up rogues waiting to come home with their newly- honed crowd-control and surveillance skills, they will all be itching, willing and able, to trespass all over our rights as citizens in a new age of unchecked private and government surveillance.

The "spy" mentality is its own creature, and its own subculture, and tends to perpetuate itself just for its own benefit, and not as a branch of a higher authority.

Start doing things in the dark, and you find out too late you're working with some very shady characters. And they always are looking for a way to take over, it is in their DNA to try to dominate the world, or they wouldn't want to be spies in the first place...

Does that term "World domination" seem extreme?

Unfortunately for our freedom, it is no joke; more than one pernicious cult currently receiving our tax-money/faith-based funding imagines itself as the future world dominion. Look closely at the list of recipients, and it seems they ALL consider themselves the future rulers of the world.

Whether delusional or prescient, their ambitions promote, and in return are promoted by, this secret-spy underworld culture that seems to fester always beneath the surface, in a self-fulfilling pattern of deception..

The Oracle wrote on June 16, 2007 11:12 PM:

Thirty years ago, some corrupt and conniving College Republicans (Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, etal.) were sitting around, upset at Nixon getting caught, and plotting their revenge, the overthrow someday of our democratically-elected form of government and the establishment of a Communist-like one-party-rule society...with them (and other corrupt conservatives like them) in charge and with the federal government so compromised (especially the DOJ) that another "Nixon" wouldn't happen or be possible.

So these "Nixonian" Republicans plotted and planned.

1) Get Ronald Reagan elected.
2) Get rid of the Fairness Doctrine. (So Republicans could buy up the media and slant the news).
3) Circumvent the Hatch Act. (This violation of federal law definitely began under Reagan).
4) Attack funding of all Democratic Party-initiated "public works," while diverting more and more taxpayer money to their cronies in the military-industrial complex (remember SDI?).
(To name just a few "benchmarks" in this utterly evil plot against our democracy).

Everything went according to plan, except they didn't control Congress during the 1980s, which temporarily delayed their plot.

And then, in the 1990s, they lost the White House to Democrats...but became the majority party in Congress. Another delay in their one-party-rule plot.

So, these corrupt and conniving "Nixonian" Republicans redoubled their efforts, even going so far as to "steal" the election in 2000, so they could control both Congress and the White House, finally making it possible to subvert and sabotage our federal government from top to bottom.

And what happened to the Democratic Party during this period of time?

In the mid-1980s, come conservative Demcorats split from the FDR-wing of the Democratic Party and set up the Democratic Leadership Council, which essentially became just an arm of the Republican Party, with even some of the members of the DLC being Republican "moles."

The DLC for the past two decades has being vetting and running for political office conservative Democrats (essentially Republican "moles") in opposition often to FDR-type Democrats, thus either knowingly or unknowingly aiding and abetting the corrupt College Republican's plot from thirty years ago to overthrow our democracy.

And that's where things stand today. With the most corrupt administration ever in American history sitting in and befouling the White House. With DLC Democrats blocking the honorable and patriotic FDR Democrats' attempts to save our democracy, and "the rule of law," by holding the most corrupt administration in American history accountable. And with a majority of honorable and patriotic U.S. citizens wondering why the process of holding accountable all of these corrupt "Nixonian" Republicans, with their nefarious scheme, is taking so long.

Which makes the November 2008 elections even more important.

For the sake of our nation and our democracy, concerned and patriotic U.S. citizens must throw as many of the corrupt "Nixonian" Republican bums out of office as democratically possible, as well as many of the DLC's DINO Republican "moles," both in Congress and the White House. Then, and only then, can our democratic government address the corrupt "Nixonian" Republicans on the Supreme Court, and blunt their evil, almost Communist-like anti-American rulings.

And yet, our democracy will hang in the balance for decades to come, because the "Nixonian" Republican evil has to firmly implanted itself in all of our democratic institutions.

Vigilance Now. Vigilance Forever.

Our nation's children and grand-children deserve nothing less.

steambomb wrote on June 17, 2007 1:30 AM:

Of course the problem with all this is that when the people or public see that the law enforcement is no longer following the law. Even petty criminals start to take on more serious crimes. It is like a rationalization factor where they see the government cheating and figure what is good for the goose is good for the gander. We have seeN a steady rise in crime in the past 6 years. Economy aside anyone else wonder if the leadership might be part of the problem?

Scott L wrote on June 17, 2007 2:41 AM:

We are our own worst enemy.

dee illuminati wrote on June 18, 2007 6:53 AM:

The real problem is that this was in genesis all politically motivated, as we might recall from the shifting rationalities, we need this extra-constitutional power post 911 because 'nobody knew' that the hijackers were planning an attack and that there was an inability to connect dots, not soooooo... as George Tenet provides in his book. Even John Ashcroft is no reported to have rebelled at the extent of the politcal abuse as a consequence of his attending that briefing before 911 and a sense that these acts, along with the politically motivated abuses at the Pentagon were bona-fide illegal!!

The real issue here was that these laws and abuses were never designed to combat terrorism, they are completely ineffective as a tool to do so and are counter productive. As the Plame case shows, and by the letters written in support of Libby illustrate, this was all designed for internal public consumption and as a campaign of fear 'specifically targeting intel community members.'

This was the political eclipsing the rational in the agencies of national security, hence the tools of this patriot act show up in the political appointing of AG's.

What you will find in these NSL's is clear abuse where if the charges were known to the target of the inquiry, you would see that vetting and credentialling already contained the background information. This was not counter intelligence where the information could have been obtained, this was a political tool to harrass as the Judge whom sentenced Libby complained of.. in a manner where the person executing the harrasment could be 'removed from the political motivation' that instigated that harrasment.

Lets take the example where post office employees, power companies, and other non-law-enforcement personnel were empowered to contact the terrorist tip-line! Or the signs above the nations highways that had that number...

That was not effective to stop terrorism, it was a political tool for the public. Color coded fear...

What you will find is that people were identified and targeted solely for financial gains, the attacking of a company or sole proprietar by an insider for commercial gain, you will find attacks based on custody battles and divorce, you will find 'irrational and repeated' NSL's designed to do nothing more than create an ongoing climate of intimidation and isolation, you will find a DISPROPORTINATE amount of intelligence community members, you will find journalists, judges, and opposition party members....

The NSL's are more full of abuse then the sodomy pics that rumsfeld, cambone, and wolfowitz initiated to terrorize the DIA into complicity with their political beliefs...

It didn't matter if you were a Senator, Judge, intel community member, opposition political belief,... this was the political masquerading as reality and these tools have NEVER been effective in fighting ideas such as 'radical religous zealotry' in fact the opposite is true, these are precisely the tools that the fanatics, the crazies if you will seek...

The people that participated and condoned these acts are criminals, John Ashcroft knew that....

These people are criminals.

IntelVet wrote on June 18, 2007 10:09 AM:

"I find it difficult to believe that a terrorist or organized crime figure would leave their really sensitive information unguarded at any time. Who are they actually prosecuting as a result of the evidence they find?"

It has nothing to do with "finding evidence" and everything to do with "planting evidence". This is no drill.

I, too, will exercise my 2nd Amendment rights, also.

IntelVet wrote on June 18, 2007 10:09 AM:

"I find it difficult to believe that a terrorist or organized crime figure would leave their really sensitive information unguarded at any time. Who are they actually prosecuting as a result of the evidence they find?"

It has nothing to do with "finding evidence" and everything to do with "planting evidence". This is no drill.

I, too, will exercise my 2nd Amendment rights.

Hedley Lamarr wrote on June 18, 2007 2:48 PM:

Never has the death of 3,000 innocents resulted in the loss of so many liberties.