FBI

Our Neighbors' Keeper: Local Cop Chiefs Want to Create a Nation of Snoops

dlindorff — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:54:04 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton and other big city cops
are calling for a new system of “citizen watch” programs, allegedly to
help them spot hidden terrorists. I view this new call for a nation of
private spies with a deep suspicion born of experience with the LAPD
and its historic penchant for spying on law-abiding residents of that
city.

Back in the late 1970s, together with a band of other doughty
journalists, including Tommy Thompson, Ron Ridenour, Ben Pleasants, I
co-founded and ran a spunky little news weekly called the LA Vanguard.
In the course of just one year, we broke stories about secret “security
offices” run by local phone companies (Pacific Telephone and GTE) which
provided unlisted numbers and credit information to police and other
government agencies without requiring a warrant, about the killing of
unarmed citizens by police, about the LAPD’s “shoot to kill” gun use
policy, about judges in landlord-tenant cases who were slumlords
themselves, and many other stories that were being ignored by the LA
Times and the rest of the local establishment media.

For our efforts, we found out years later, we were targeted by the
LAPD’s “red squad,” known at the time as the Public Disorder
Intelligence Division (PDID), for an intensive program of spying that
including planting a young cop, Connie Milazzo, as a member of our
editorial collective. We only learned of Milazzo’s real identity years
later when she admitted disclosed it herself to a judge in a public
hearing (she wanted to avoid being sent to the county lockup along with
a group of activists she had “joined” undercover who had all been
arrested during a protest and who were refusing to provide their
identities to the court).

A subsequent lawsuit filed with the help of the ACLU of Southern
California, eventually settled for a payment of $1.8 million by the
City of Los Angeles, disclosed that the PDID had for years been using
as many as 20 undercover cops to infiltrate and spy on over 200 legal
political and activist organizations in the Los Angeles area, gathering
rooms full of files on everyone from members of the National
Organization for Women to the staffs of certain members of the city
council. We also learned that the LAPD was providing those files to a
shadowy private outfit in San Francisco called Western Goals, which had
links to the ultra-right John Birch Society. Western Goals was
apparently seeking to serve as a private repository of dossiers on
leftists and political activists collected by local police all around
the country in a kind of end run around the restrictions on domestic
spying by the FBI that had been imposed after the post-Watergate
revelations about the abuses of the COINTELPRO era.

This is why Bratton’s idea stinks. Local police, because they are
local, are even more prone to rogue activities that will never be
exposed or monitored than are federal police.

As accommodating of police-state tactics as Congress has been,
especially since 9-11, at least some members of that body have raised
concerns and demanded investigations of some of those abuses by
organizations like the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency. But
city councils have been notoriously uninterested in monitoring the
unconstitutional activities of their local police around the country,
who have extremely powerful political connections and the support of
local media establishments.

Any attempt to organize a citizen’s watch program to look for
suspicious activity is bound to devolve into a police program of spying
on those who are outside of the “norm”: minorities, leftists,
activists, loners, people with alternative life-styles, artists, etc.

Let’s be honest. America faces no existential threat from
terrorism. It does face such threats from rampaging climate change,
political corruption, corporate power, economic collapse, and many
other things, but it is hardly threatened by terrorism, which has
killed far fewer people even in 2001 than have auto defects,
contaminated food, and insurance company denials of care.

Back in 2001, the Bush/Cheney administration stoked an irrational
fear of terrorism in order to win passage of the Patriot Act and
acceptance of other actions, such as creation of a program by the
National Security Agency to use supercomputers to monitor millions of
Americans’ electronic communications. Many of those threats to freedom
remain in place today. Now Chief Bratton and his compatriots in police
departments around the country are trying to stoke that same irrational
fear of terrorism to move the country even further towards a
police-state mentality.

The last thing we need in this era of corporate-media-induced
conformity and citizen passivity is a bunch of self-appointed citizen
snoops calling in to the cops with reports on every neighbor who looks
or acts a little bit different.
______________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is
“The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2009). His work is
available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black

dlindorff — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:41:14 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

President Barack Obama, referring to the violent attacks on
protesters against the controversial election results in Iran’s
just-completed presidential election, this week lectured Iran’s
government, saying, “Peaceful dissent should never be subject to
violence.”

Referring to the tens and hundreds of thousands of frustrated and
angry Iranians who have taken to the streets accusing Iranian
authorities of rigging the election in favor of incumbent President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Obama said that “the Iranian people and their
voices should be heard and respected."

But there is a certain hypocrisy going on here.

Just days ago, the ACLU of Northern California issued a press release
announcing that it had filed a complaint over a Pentagon anti-terrorism
training manual. That training manual, aimed at Pentagon personnel,
describes domestic protests as “low-level terrorist activity.”

As Staff Attorney Ann Brick and ACLU Washington National Security
Policy Council member Michael German write in their complaint letter to
the Department of Defense, “For the DoD to instruct its employees that
lawful protest activities should be treated as ‘low-level terrorism’ is
deeply disturbing in and of itself. It is an even more egregious insult
to constitutional values, however, when viewed in the context of a
long-term pattern of domestic security initiatives that have attempted
to equate lawful dissent with terrorism.”

The ACLU has documented that the government has been and continues a
policy of spying on legitimate peaceful protest
organizations—particularly those that have been opposing America’s wars
and its military policies, and the new president has said nothing and
done nothing about terminating this egregious assault on First
Amendment freedom of speech and assembly. Given that President Obama
has also done nothing since taking office to undo the USA PATRIOT Act,
which codifies much activity that traditionally would have been called
dissent as a crime, or to publicly reverse the policy of the last eight
years during which non-violent protest organizations have been spied on
and infiltrated by agents of the military and by the FBI, and during
which actual protesters have been harassed, penned into fenced-off
“free speech zones,” assaulted by armed police and arrested, his
pontificating to Iran about the sanctity of dissent rings particularly
hollow.

Imagine, if you will, what this government’s response would be to
having hundreds of thousands of American protesters gather in the
center of Washington, DC without a permit, to protest the policies of
the national government. There would be riot police in the thousands,
some mounted on horseback. There would be federal troops. There would
be police charges against demonstrators. There would be tear gas and
arrests.

How do we know this? It happens every time there are major protests in Washington—even when protests are granted permits.

This writer spent three days in the Federal Detention Center at
Occoquan, VA, back in 1967 for participating in a peaceful anti-war
protest at the Pentagon that year. I was one of hundreds at that event
who found himself, as a peaceful demonstrator, confronting armed
federal troops with fixed bayonets at that event. Not much has changed
since ‘67, as others have met the same fate over the years in
Washington and around the country. Certainly there is every reason to
assume that, if the public finally loses patience over the current
administration’s continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its
failure to really tackle the health care crisis, and its limp response
to the economic crisis, and if people descend on Washington or perhaps
New York City en masse to protest, those people will be met with the
same kind of draconian, police-state style response that protesters
have met in the past--or that protesters are being met with in Iran
today.

If the Pentagon is teaching its people to equate protest with
“low-level terrorism,” how different, really, is Washington from Tehran?
______________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest
book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now
available in signed collector’s edition through his website).
Lindorff’s work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

9-11 Cover-Up, Treason and The Bomb

dlindorff — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:05:51 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

If a new article just published Saturday in the Times of London based upon information provided by US government whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, is correct, we have not only solid evidence of prior knowledge of 9-11 by high up US government officials, but evidence of treasonous activity by many of those same officials involving efforts to provide US nuclear secrets to America’s enemies, even including Al Qaeda.

The story also casts a chilling light on the so-called “accidental” flight of six nuclear-armed cruise missiles aboard an errant B-52 that flew last Aug. 30 from Minot AFB in North Dakota to Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The Sunday Times reports that Edmonds, whose whistleblowing efforts have been studiously ignored by what passes for the news media in American news media, approached the Rupert Murdoch-owned British paper a month ago after reading a report there that an Al-Qaeda leader had been training some of the 9-11 hijackers at a base in Turkey, a US NATO alley, under the noses of the Turkish military.

Edmonds, who was recruited by the FBI after 9-11 because of her Turkish and Farsi language skills, has long been claiming that in her FBI job of covertly monitoring conversations between Turkish, Israeli, Persian and other foreign agents and US contacts, including a backlog of untranslated tapes dating back to 1997, she had heard evidence of “money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.” But the Turkish training for 9-11 rang more alarm bells and made her decide that talking behind closed doors to Congress or the FBI was not enough. She had to go public.

Edmonds claims in the Times that even as she was providing evidence of moles within the US State Department, the Pentagon, and the nuclear weapons establishment, who were providing nuclear secrets for cash, through Turkey, to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, agencies within the Bush administration were actively working to block investigation and to shield those who were committing the acts of treason.

Pakistan’s ISI is known to have had, and to still maintain close contacts with Al-Qaeda. Indeed, the Times notes that Pakistan’s nuclear god-father, General Mahmoud Ahmad, was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

Edmonds claims, in the Times article, that following the 9-11 attacks, FBI investigators took a number of Turkish and Pakistani operatives into custody for questioning about foreknowledge of the attacks, but that a high-ranking US State Department official repeatedly acted to spirit them out of the country.

Edmonds was fired from her FBI translating job in 2002 after she accused a colleague of having illicit contact with Turkish officials. She has claimed that she was fired for being outspoken, and in 2005 her position was reportedly vindicated by the Office of Inspector General of the FBI, which concluded that she had been sacked for making valid complaints.

One of those whom Edmonds claims in the Times report was being investigated in connection with the nuclear information transfers was Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin. Franklin was convicted and jailed in 2006 for passing US defense information to American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat. Franklin, in 2001, was part of the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, a kind of shadow intelligence unit set up by the Bush administration inside the Pentagon whose job it was to gin up “evidence” to justify a war against Iraq. In that capacity, he (along with several other OSP members and arch neocon schemer Michael Ledeen) was also identified by Italian investigative journalists working for the newspaper La Republican, as having been at a crucial meeting in December 2001 in Rome with the Italian defense and intelligence service ministers. La Republicca reports that at that meeting a plan was hatched to fob off forged Niger embassy documents as evidence that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger.

If Edmonds’ story is correct, and Al-Qaeda, with the aid of Turkish government agents and Pakistani intelligence, with the help of US government officials, has been attempting to obtain nuclear materials and nuclear information from the U.S., it casts an even darker shadow over the mysterious and still unexplained incident last August 30, when a B-52 Stratofortress, based at the Minot strategic air base in Minot, ND, against all rules and regulations of 40 years’ standing, loaded and flew off with six unrecorded and unaccounted for nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

That incident only came to public attention because three as yet unidentified Air Force whistleblowers contacted a reporter at the Military Times newspaper, which ran a series of stories about it, some of which were picked up by other US news organizations.

An Air Force investigation into that incident, ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, claimed improbably that the whole thing had been an “accident,” but many veterans of the US Air Force and Navy with experience in handling nuclear weapons say that such an explanation is impossible, and argue that there had to have been a chain or orders from above the level of the base commander for such a flight to have occurred.

Incredibly, almost five months after that bizarre incident (which included several as yet unexplained deaths of B-52 pilots and base personnel occurring in the weeks shortly before and after the flight), in which six 150-kiloton warheads went missing for 36 hours, there has been no Congressional investigation and no FBI investigation into what happened.

Yet in view of Edmonds’ story to the London Times, alleging that there has been an ongoing, active effort for some years by both Al Qaeda and by agents of two US allies, Turkey and Pakistan, to get US nuclear weapons secrets and even weapons, and that there are treasonous moles at work within the American government and nuclear bureaucracy aiding and abetting those efforts, surely at a minimum, a major public inquiry is called for.

Meanwhile, there is enough in just this one London Times story to keep an army of investigative reporters busy for years. So why, one has to ask, is this story appearing in a highly respected British newspaper, but not anywhere in the corporate US media?
--------------------

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist. His latest book, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Under the Microscope: Why Gonzales Still Has His Job - It's A Mystery

fast2write — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:27:35 -0400

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
- Albert Einstein

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

My favorite answer to just about any political, social or technological question these days is: "It's a mystery."

When it concerns the workings of computers and the Internet, it's "a dang old dot dot dot mystery."

Life is full of mysteries. Love them or hate them, you can't avoid them.

There are things we can know; things we can't.

For a journalist or a scientist, even a social scientist, this can be infuriating.

But you learn to live with it.

One of the things we humans do to deal with all the mysteries of life is to turn for answers to literature, movies or music. Some people turn to tabloids and soap operas. But they are not worth considering in this discussion.

One of my favorite lines from one of the most interesting Hollywood movies of the past decade or so is from Shakespeare In Love.

Yes, I know, it's not based entirely on the historical record. In other words, it's at least part fiction.

But there is a recurring line in the movie that is worth remembering for what it says about how life works.

Before the stuttering master of ceremonies manages to overcome his verbal handicap and issue a grand introduction to the first performance of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare asks the director back stage how things will possibly work in the end.

"I don't know," the director says. "It's a mystery."

Same when the young male actor who is supposed to play Juliet has a dramatic adolescent voice change on opening day.

Of course Gwyneth Paltrow, playing Viola, saves the day, since she is secretly in love with Will and has read every line.

"It's a mystery."

Art, like science and life, sometimes works out in the end. Maybe sometimes it doesn't.

Here's another divergence on this exploration of how life works.

I'm wondering: Do Rockers from the 1960s and 1970s have it best?

By that I mean this: Was that time such an interesting window in history that it was the zenith of personal freedom and individual creativity? Will we ever be able to capture something like that again in our life times? Or is it gone forever? Is it only available now in secret basement rooms where someone saved the vinyl copy of the "record album" and a turntable to play it on?

At least with the Net and Web, it is possible to explore a subject such as this - with a search engine - and find out something you didn't notice when it occurred.

Does anyone remember a Bob Seger album from 1995 called It's a Mystery?

It totally escaped me at the time, probably because I was totally engrossed in doing the research for my Master's thesis at the University of Alabama. Here are a few of the key lyrics to know what ole Bob Seger was thinking about.

It's a mystery
How the heart beats
How the sun shines
How our eyes meet

***
It's a wonder
How we keep from
Sinking under

All the nonsense
Set before us
Supposed to shock us
But it bores us

All the ennui
All the replays
All the rewrites
All the "can't says"

***
And through it all
We dance and starve and
Burn and clear

It's a mystery
How they con us
How they sneak til
They're upon us

All the anchors
With their helmets
Getting ratings
With their zealots

All the pundits
All the salesmen
Selling snake oil
To the nation

It's a mystery

Indeed. Even Seger was fed up with lying politicians, sensationalist broadcasters and polluting industries. Some of his biggest fans, even musicians, probably call themselves "conservatives" today and vote for Republicans like Bush for president. Obviously they don't get it.

Here are a few mysteries I sometimes think about – whether I want to or not. Perhaps you wonder too. If you find any answers, please e-mail or post a comment and let all our readers know.

Why is it that some news stories "get legs" and tons of airplay, and others don't?

I've been in and around the news business for almost 30 years and sometimes still don't get it.

Is the paternity of Anna Nicole Smith's baby or Britany Spears' shaved head and rehab experience really that much more interesting than Natalie Maines' musical fight with Bush and miraculous comeback?

I mean the Dixie Chicks' lead singer was blackballed by the Nashville establishment and Clear Channel one day for an honest, overseas comment about Bush and the Iraq war, a comment which has stood the test of time. Three years later she makes a major grammy comeback with the album "Taking The Long Way," featuring the lines I like most: "I'm not ready to make nice. I'm not ready to back down."

It's sends chills up my spine every time I hear it - the louder the better.

Here's another one. How can someone who obviously loves nature and works to protect little parts of the earth for the birds possibly vote for corporate Republicans like Bush?

There is no such thing you say? Wrong. You can still get in a fight on a birding listserv – or in a bar in places like Alabama and Arkansas – by criticizing Bush. Most of the rest of the country and the world now realize how bad a president Bush is, but not around here...

Let's think about this.

Just a few short months back, a lot of people, especially in Alabama and Arkansas, never knew there was a such thing as a gay Republican. Little did they know there was an entire caucus of them in Washington called "The Log Cabin Republicans," or that the Bush White House had several closeted gay preachers giving the White House advice on a regular basis.

Remember Pastor Ted Haggard, who ran one of the largest churches in the country, the New Life Church in Colorado Springs?

So much for the Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage.

It's a mystery.

One last mystery, most likely the most important in the news today.

Almost two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Bush administration's massive program of spying on Americans unconstitutional. It continued anyway.

Then, a few months ago, Congress supposedly forced the administration to start submitting information to the FISA court about secret investigations going on domestically. Yet the secret spying continued.

Just the other day, in internal report from the Justice Department said the FBI engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority in illegally gathering telephone, e-mail and financial records of Americans and foreigners while hunting terrorists, according to testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

Watchdog Calls FBI Abuses Inexcusable

And in a story that was largely ignored by the national news media the other day, Homeland Security chief MIchael Chertoff was in Alabama and caught saying that a computer program analyzing computer data collected on Americans was not 'data mining'. Right. Whatever they say it isn't, it is, most likely.

All of these programs were authorized by President George W. Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

There are two mysteries here.

Why is all the national press corps' attention focused on the scandal involving the political firing of eight attorneys general?

Showdown Looms Between Congress, White House

And how is it possible that Gonzales - or Bush - are still in their jobs?

Gonzales should have already been run off, going all the way back to his memo authorizing torture in not so secret and secret CIA prisons.

But should have already been impeached and removed from office for insisting on a war based on false intelligence and assumptions, for lying to Congress and the American people, over and over and over again.

Someone at the Washington Post finally noticed this week, but perhaps on the wrong scandal: Dan Froomkin: Indications of Obfuscation.

How many scandals will it take?

It's a mystery.

Wake up people.

Originally published in the Locust Fork Journal blog: http://www.locustfork.net/blog/...

Two More Republicans Under Investigation

CactusPat — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 17:10:44 -0400

Update: 10/16/06 - FBI Agents Raid Home of Rep. Curt Weldon's Daughter The Repubs continue to self destruct (yeeee-hawwww!) with two new revelations. One of corruption and one of possible perversion. Retiring Rep. Kolbe (Openly Gay Republican-AZ) is under investigation of a camping trip he took with two minor-aged Pages. And Rep. Weldon(R-PA) is under investigation for influence peddling in connection to lobbying and consulting contracts secured by his daughter.

Feds Probe Trip That Kolbe Made With Pages Federal prosecutors in Arizona have opened a preliminary investigation of a camping trip Congressman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., took 10 years ago that included two teenage congressional pages, a DoJ spokesman told NBC News... A spokesman for the Justice Department in DC said that the US attorney in Arizona has started a "preliminary assessment" of the trip, after an unidentified source made allegations about the congressman's behavior on the expedition.

FoleyGate Update #3

CactusPat — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 02:00:37 -0400

As FoleyGate continues to swirl out of control perhaps a timeline is in order to help keep things straight. You can look at one here, here, here, or here.
Longtime Republican was source of e-mails The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide. That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim...

Reynolds' Gay Chief of Staff Kirk Fordham resigns, newswires characterizes it as "Aide Says He Reported Foley 3 Years Ago" (AP)...the congressional aide who last week counseled Foley to quit said in an AP interview he first warned Hastert's aides more than three years ago about Foley's worrisome conduct toward pages. That was long before GOP leaders acknowledged hearing of it...

ABC's Brian Ross gets it right - "Top GOP Staffer Forced Out for Role in Page Scandal" The chief of staff for Rep. Tom Reynolds, Kirk Fordham, resigned after questions were raised about his role in the handling of the congressional page scandal... sources said Fordham, a former chief of staff for Mark Foley, had urged Repub leaders last spring not to raise questionable Foley e-mails with the full Congressional Page Board, (massive update below the fold)... , made up of two Repubs and a Dem. "He begged them not to tell the page board," said one of the Republican sources. People familiar with Fordham's side of the story, however, said Fordham was being used as a scapegoat by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. They said Fordham had repeatedly warned Hastert's staff about Foley's "problem" with pages, but little was done. Fordham's Statement.

Foley's Former Chief of Staff Says Foley's Behavior Was No Secret to Speaker Hastert As the FBI investigation picked up steam, with agents contacting former pages across the country, there were new allegations that Foley's suspect behavior towards pages was no secret to the Speaker of the House and his top staff for at least three years. Kirk Fordham, former chief of staff for Foley, told ABC News today that sometime in late 2003, he told the Speaker's chief of staff that Foley was getting too close to young male pages....

New Foley Instant Messages; Had Internet Sex While Awaiting House Vote
Former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) interrupted a vote on the floor of the House in 2003 to engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page, according to new Internet instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages. ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18...

"The List" (of Gay GOP Aides on the Hill)
...Let's be clear about one thing: the Mark Foley scandal is not about homosexuality. Some family value conservatives are suggesting it is. But anytime a gay Republican is outed by events, a dicey issue is raised: what about those GOPers who are gay and who serve a party that is anti-gay? Are they hypocrites, opportunists, or just confused individuals? Is it possible to support a party because you adhere to most of its tenets--even if that party refuses to recognize you as a full citizen? The men on The List might want to think hard about these questions--as they probably already have--for if I have a copy of The List, there's a good chance it will be appearing soon on a website near everyone.

Debate shifts after Foley says he's gay
By finally acknowledging after years of evasion that he is gay, Mark Foley has altered the debate among conservatives and gays over his overtures to male pages in Congress. Some conservatives say House Republican leaders knew previously of Foley's sexual orientation and were too lax in investigating his actions for fear of seeming bigoted. Some gays blame Foley's personal problems on being so long in the closet while representing a party hostile to many gay-rights causes. "This is the problem with the closet: it's a terrible place to be, and it's got to be worse if you're a Republican," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass...

Laying off Foley was part of GOP self-preservation
How many people knew Mark Foley is gay? About 96.8 percent of the relevant political universe. How many people knew he was a chicken hawk? Well, now that's an interesting question, isn't it? Along with when they knew and what, if anything, they did about it. It is simply not credible that a succession of House leaders — Speaker Dennis Hastert, National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Thomas B. Reynolds and page board chairman John Shimkus, among others — knew for months about "overly friendly" e-mails from Foley to a former page and the penny didn't drop. Even if these men want to plead guilty to obtuseness, almost all of them have gay aides or associates who could have taken one look at the "overly friendly" e-mails, even with Foley's name blacked out, and advised them what seemed to be afoot.

Democrat Mahoney Has the Edge in Race for Seat Foley Vacated
What until last Friday appeared a safely Republican seat in Florida’s 16th District is now anything but, in the wake of the resignation of six-term Republican Rep. Mark Foley — and the ballooning scandal surrounding inappropriate e-mails and instant messages he sent to teenage male congressional pages, and the Republican leadership’s handling of the situation. CQPolitics.com, which on Friday changed its rating on the Florida 16 race to No Clear Favorite from Safe Republican, now rates the race as Leans Democratic...

Florida constituents 'disgusted' by Foley accusations
Mark Foley's former constituents shifted their anger Sunday from the disgraced Republican to House GOP leaders, who knew for months about inappropriate e-mails between Foley and at least one teenage page...

Bush Says He Is ‘Shocked’ by Scandal
Bush said today that he was “dismayed and shocked” by the e-mails and instant messages that former Representative Mark Foley sent to teenage Congressional pages, directly addressing for the first time a matter that threatens to cost the Republican Party seats in the November election. Mr. Bush also said he fully supported House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert...

Alexander backs off claim Hastert knew Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., the congressman who sponsored the page at the heart of the recent Capitol Hill sex scandal furor and initially said Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., "knew about the e-mails that we knew about," including one in which Foley asked the page to send his picture, has now backed off that comment, saying he discussed the e-mails with Hastert's aides, not the speaker himself. "I guess that's a poor choice of words that I made there,"... (somebody delivered a smackdown)

Boehner Points Finger at the Speaker In a radio interview with 700 WLW radio in Cincinnati, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) placed responsibility for the Foley matter not being handled properly on House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). "I believe I talked to the Speaker and he told me it had been taken care of," said Boehner. "And, and, and my position is it's in his corner, it's his responsibility. The Clerk of the House who runs the page program, the Page Board—all report to the Speaker. And I believe it had been dealt with...."

Closeted Gay Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) Leads Hastert Defense
I just watched Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC and was astonished to see none other than closeted gay Republican Patrick McHenry (R-NC) vigorously defending Denny Hastert! Have House Republicans gone completely insane??? McHenry has quite a reputation on Capitol Hill, according to The Hill, a pro-Republican publication:

Fox News Identifies Foley as Democrat
Let's get one thing out of the way right up front: I believe that most thinking Americans understood long ago that Fox News is to journalism, what the Republican party is to ethics -- in other words, the two just ain't related. As if we needed yet more proof that Fox might as well be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican party, there they were last night, in three separate video cutaways, identifying disgraced Republican Congressman Mark Foley as…. a Democrat.

Republicans Blame Dems For Foley E-Mail Leak
Amid the controversy over whether Speaker Hastert and other Republican leaders did enough to address former GOP Rep. Mark Foley's e-mails to a former House page, Republicans have been conducting a behind-the-scenes campaign to redirect attention away from themselves. Within 24 hours....

The Eggman Says Kids Were "Egging the Congressman On"
The Republican coverup for La Cage Aux Foley has put all the tentacles of the Mighty Wurlitzer into overdrive... On MSNBC we learn from Mike Viqueria that it's all just the Democrats trying to use this as an election stunt and kids were routinely warned about LOTS of Congressmen, Tony Snow says on behalf of the President it's nothing more than a few off-color emails, Dennis Hastert thinks the important thing to investigate is who leaked the IMs in the first place (probably a danger to national security), and now Matt Drudge says - yes, wait for it - it's the kid's fault for (I kid you not) "Egging the Congressman On" (says the Eggman)...

Clerk asked to look into report of Foley incident at page's dorm
A senior House Republican has asked the House clerk to look into allegations that then-Rep. Mark Foley was turned away from the congressional page dorm on Capitol Hill after arriving there intoxicated one night. Lawmakers have been talking about the alleged incident since Friday, when Foley resigned...

Gingrich: Dems' sex scandals are worse
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that Democratic sex scandals have been far worse than the suggestive Internet messages sent to teenage congressional pages by former Rep. Mark Foley. Gingrich said Democrats have wanted to punish their offenders less than the GOP. "What we don't have to do is allow our friends on the left to lecture us on morality..."

WHAT THE PAGES KNEW - "There was a moniker by which we described Foley. It was F.F.F. ... that stands for Foley the f-- from Florida. And it was kind of a running joke"...

October Surprise in This Campaign Puts Republicans On the Spot
The October surprise came early this election year and has Republicans on the defensive, searching for a way to change the subject from congressional scandals and an unpopular war. This was supposed to be the month when Republicans pulled out all the stops, painting Democrats as weak on fighting terrorism and highlighting congressional accomplishments on national security...

House Speaker Hastert In a Hot Spot Criticism Over Foley Affair Intensifies -- and It's Not All Coming From Democrats - ...'If We Lose': Hastert's Warning - While some rallied around the speaker, ABC News asked several conservative Republican congressmen about their position on whether Hastert should stay on, and was told they wanted to wait a couple days and see how the story played out before making a decision...

Resign, Mr. Speaker "Moonie" Washington Times Op-Ed

Foley acquaintances question alcoholism
When disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley announced he was entering rehab for treatment of alcoholism and "other behavioral problems," some of those who have known him for years were shocked and suspicious. Some friends and acquaintances said they rarely saw him drink. A former colleague, Rep. Peter King (news, bio, voting record), R-N.Y., said on Fox News Channel: "I don't buy this at all. I think this is a phony defense. The fact is, I think he's responsible for what he did here and I think it's a gimmick."

Mark Foley claims being molested as teen
Former Rep. Mark Foley, under investigation for sending lurid Internet messages to young male Capitol Hill pages, issued a series of revelations from rehab, including a claim that he had been sexually abused as a teen. Attorney David Roth, speaking on Foley's behalf at a Florida news conference Tuesday, said Foley was molested between ages 13 and 15 by a clergyman...

Candidates divest themselves of Foley contributions
Republicans in tight re-election contests were unloading contributions they received over the years from Mark Foley, the former congressman ensnared in an e-mail sex scandal. But the National Republican Congressional Committee, which has received $550,000 from Foley since 1996, will keep its money, committee spokesman Carl Forti said. "We will be using the money like every other contribution -- to help elect Republicans across the country," Forti said...

So Who's Keeping Foley's Money -- And Who's Unloading It?
...So who's keeping Foley's cash and who's getting rid of it? The Associated Press reports that Allen is giving his $2,000 in Foley-bucks to charity, along with GOP Rep Heather Wilson, who's getting rid of the $8,000 she's received from Foley between 1998 and 2002. The NRCC, meanwhile, is keeping the $550,000 it's received from Foley since 1996....

What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?
House Republican leaders are being caught in the back-blast of the uproar over a Florida Republican congressman who sent inappropriate emails to a House page. The office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who earlier said he’d learned about the e-mails only last week, acknowledged that aides referred the matter to authorities last fall...

Keep up to date with FoleyGate. Check out the compilations at FoleyGate Update and FoleyGate Update #2

FoleyGate Update

CactusPat — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 08:13:39 -0400

As guest blogger DK said over at TPM, "for those of you who have been away this weekend (and in a cave)".... here's a compilation of reports on FoleyGate. Hat tips to TPM, AmericaBlog, and the crew over at Kos, whose coverage has bordered on obsession.

FBI to Examine Foley's E-Mails
The FBI announced last night that it is looking into whether former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) broke federal law by sending inappropriate e-mails and instant messages to teenage House pages. The announcement came hours after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert asked for a Justice Department investigation into not only Foley's actions but also Congress's handling of the matter once it learned of the contacts...

GOP Staff Warned Pages About Foley in 2001
Republican staff member warned Congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page. Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor. Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff."... See video of Sun. eve ABC report(hat tip to AmericaBlog). Much more below the fold...

GOP Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) let Foley spend "a lot of time" with pages, including private dinner with one, after GOP knew Foley was a problem Back in 2001!!! "Shimkus is toast. There's even video of Shimkus letting Foley talk to the pages AFTER the GOP knew Foley had page-issues. You'll recall that he is the Republican member of Congress who runs the Page Board, the group in charge of the pages. You'll also recall that tonight we learned on ABC News that GOP House staff warned the page class of 2001-2002 to stay away from ex-Rep. Mark Foley... The GOP staff knew Foley was a problem the year before, they warned the pages in 2001. Yet Shimkus, the next year is acknowledging that Foley was still permitted to spend "a lot of time" with the pages. In the name of God, why?..."

Dems Slap GOP for Keeping E-Mails Secret
(AP) - Democrats demanded on Sunday that House Republicans keep them in the loop and thoroughly investigate former Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a 16-year-old boy. The White House went further, suggesting the need for a criminal probe. "This should be investigated objectively. I think the Democratic leadership should have been told 10 months ago," said Rep. Jane Harman of California, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "I gather that basically nothing was done except that Foley was warned...."

Pelosi's letter to the House Ethics Committee
On Friday, I offered and the House unanimously passed a resolution directing the Ethics Committee to begin an immediate investigation and provide the House with a preliminary report in 10 days concerning allegations about Congressman Mark Foley's highly inappropriate and explicit communications with a former underage Page. The resolution called for an investigation of "when the Republican leadership was notified, and what corrective action was taken once officials learned of any improper activity." Since that resolution unanimously passed, Republican Leaders have admitted to knowing about Mr. Foley's outrageous behavior for six months to a year, and they chose to cover it up rather than to protect these children....

Reid's demand for an AG investigation
"The American people have a right to feel confident that their Congressional leaders are committed not just to the best interest of the nation as a whole, but also to the safety of the young people who every year travel to Washington to work on Capitol Hill. The allegations against Congressman Foley are repugnant, but equally as bad is the possibility that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives knew there was a problem and ignored it to preserve a Congressional seat this election year...

Buried at the end of the NYT "Review of Messages Sent by Congressman Begins" the GOP says it will gladly take receipt of Foley's campaign warchest - "Mr. Foley, who served on the House Ways and Means Committee, was a prolific fund-raiser. His campaign account had a balance of $2.7 million at the end of August, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Carl Forti, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Sunday that the committee would gladly accept Mr. Foley’s money or a portion of it to devote to House races. Mr. Foley already gave $100,000 to the committee in July..." hat tip to AmericaBlog

Foley not the only one who could face charges. Again, NYT buries the juice at the end of the article "Laws Involving Contact With Minors Allow Prosecutors a Broad Range of Discretion" hat tip to TPM. "And Mr. Foley is not the only person who could possibly face prosecution, Professor Berman said. “If there were people who knew about him or protected him,” he said, “some sort of complicity or conspiracy charge is certainly viable.”

Speaker Hastert's letter to the Attorney General via TPM
“Former Representative Mark Foley resigned from the House of Representatives on Friday, September 29, 2006, after improper and illicit communications between Mr. Foley and former House pages were made public. While the House of Representatives on that day voted to refer this matter to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct for investigation, they do not have jurisdiction over federal law or over him upon his resignation from office. “As Speaker of the House, I hereby request that the Department of Justice conduct an investigation of Mr. Foley's conduct with current and former House pages to determine to what extent any of his actions violated federal law....

GOP Leader Rebuts Hastert on Foley
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to a 16-year-old page, a top GOP House member said yesterday -- contradicting the speaker's assertions that he learned of concerns about Foley only last week. Hastert did not dispute the claims of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and his office confirmed that some of Hastert's top aides knew last year...

G.O.P. Leaders Knew in Late ’05 of E-Mail
Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday. The exchanges began with what Republicans now describe as an “overfriendly” e-mail message from Mr. Foley to the unidentified teenager. But news reports about the exchanges have led to the disclosure of e-mail correspondence with other former pages in which the discussions became more and more sexually explicit...

House Leadership Rips Foley on E-Mails
Rep. Thomas Reynolds, head of the House Republican election effort, said Saturday he told Speaker Dennis Hastert months ago about concerns that a fellow GOP lawmaker had sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy. Hastert's office said aides referred the matter to the proper authorities last fall but they were only told the messages were "over-friendly." Reynolds, R-N.Y., was told about e-mails sent by Rep. Mark Foley and is now defending himself from Democratic accusations that he did too little...

One of the few mentions in corporate mediawhoredom of the 410-0 House vote Friday night to begin an ethics investigation - CNN "House to probe resigning congressman's notes to teen" The House voted unanimously to launch an investigation into messages allegedly sent by former Rep. Mark Foley to a male teenage page...

Sex-crime crusader quits U.S. House
In a swift and stunning fall from political power, Rep. Mark Foley resigned his Florida congressional seat Friday, a day after he came under scrutiny for sending questionable e-mails to a male teenage House page. He left office, effective immediately, hours after he was confronted with sexually explicit Internet instant messages he exchanged with teens....

The Foley Instant Messages Transcript
If you wondered why he cut and run from Congress so fast, read on... If you are easily offended by homosexual pediphilia chat perhaps another webpage would be more appropriate...

Repug leadership knew about Foley's predelictions for almost a year - AP update of Friday's inital story "Foley resigns from Congress over e-mails"

Speaking of the House "Leadership", back in May ThinkProgress.org reported Speaker Hastert Under Investigation... about the ABC claim Hastert was under FBI scrutiny in the Abramoff LobbyGate scandal. See - ABC News Update on Hastert Story

Here's the ABC report that forced Foley to cut and run - Exclusive: The Sexually Explicit Internet Messages That Led to Fla. Rep. Foley's Resignation September 29, 2006 5:59 PM Brian Ross, Rhonda Schwartz & Maddy Sauer Report: Florida Rep. Mark Foley's resignation came just hours after ABC News questioned the congressman about a series of sexually explicit instant messages involving congressional pages, high school students who are under 18 years of age. In Congress, Rep. Foley (R-FL) was part of the Republican leadership and the chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children. He crusaded for tough laws against those who used the Internet for sexual exploitation of children. "They're sick people; they need mental health counseling," Foley said...

Also be sure to check out FoleyGate Update #2

FBI Creates Stasi State to Spy on "Potential" Criminals

Bob Fertik — Wed, 24 May 2006 22:36:10 -0400

Here's another FBI shocker, courtesy of Portland (OR) Mayor Tom Potter:

On Thursday, May 11, 2006, a Special Agent of the Portland Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stopped a City employee and showed her a badge and ID. He asked if she knew any City Council members. He asked if she would be willing to pass information to him relating to people who work for the City of Portland. He said that while he had duties in other areas, the agency was always interested in information relating to white collar crime and other things.

One important and legitimate role of the FBI is to investigate public corruption within government entities. For example, recently the FBI arrested a member of Congress for public corruption. But federal officials have told me they know of no public corruption in our city. Federal officials say they are conducting no investigation of the City of Portland.

The only conclusion I can draw is that the agent in question was trying to place an informant inside the offices of Portland ’s elected officials and employees, in order to inform on City Council and others.

The actions of the FBI – even if they are the actions of one agent acting on his own - come at an uneasy time for many Americans. In the past few weeks, we have learned that our phone records are not private, and conversations are monitored without warrants. Journalists exposing these actions have been threatened with prosecution.

Even if this incident is nothing more than the work of one overzealous agent, it represents an unacceptable mindset within the agency. When there is no information to indicate ANY public corruption on the part of City Council members or employees, the FBI has no legitimate role in surreptitiously monitoring elected officials and city employees.
As a city, we will continue to cooperate with the FBI on investigating criminal activities and terrorism, to ensure our community is as safe as possible.

But in the absence of any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, I believe the FBI’s recent actions smack of "Big Brother." Spying on local government without justification or cause is not acceptable to me. I hope it is not acceptable to you, either.

Thank you,

Tom Potter
Mayor

Sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it? If someone reports criminal activity to the FBI, they should investigate. But why should they have spies inside the offices of elected officials? Incredibly, the FBI doesn't see any problem with spies:

"The FBI has and will continue to have an open dialogue with Mayor Potter and other city officials concerning a variety of public safety issues that are important to the people of this city. Because of this open relationship, the mayor and the FBI have discussed, on several occasions, the issues raised in his letter. Although we strongly disagree on the significance of the incident described, we do welcome the opportunity to keep lines of communication open."

"The FBI is a part of the communities in which it works. To be effective, it relies on the assistance of those who also live and work in those communities. It is entirely proper for an FBI agent to ask willing citizens to provide information when those citizens feel it is appropriate to do so regarding potential criminal conduct – whether that information involves a bank robbery, kidnapping, public corruption or other crime."

The important word here is potential criminal conduct. Every single person (and lots of pets) are capable of potential criminal conduct. By this logic, the FBI believes it has the right to create an East German-style Stasi state, where the government spies on everyone at all times. Could there be a more un-American idea than that???

"The vast majority of public officials – both elected and appointed – are honest in their work and committed to serving their fellow citizens. Saying that, we’ve seen cases around the country of those who abuse the public trust. The citizens served by the FBI expect – and should expect – the FBI to take reasonable, lawful steps to counter criminal behavior where and when it happens."

No, "the citizens served by the FBI" expect the FBI to investigate crimes when they are reported to the FBI, not to create a Stasi state!

"In the last two years, FBI investigations have led to a 40% increase in the number of indictments of government employees involved in corruption. Many of our investigations start with a tip from someone who encounters corruption in the course of their work. The FBI cannot investigate corruption (or any crime) until it determines that that crime exists, and simply providing citizens with an avenue to provide that information is good police work."

In other words, spying on elected officials is essential to the work of the FBI. Is that the official position of the FBI? It sure sounds like it! Was this Stasi state policy approved by Congress, or have they not been told?

"The FBI’s Portland Division has and will continue to abide by the Constitution as well as all federal laws, rules and regulations concerning the conduct of its investigations."

So the FBI thinks the Stasi State is legal???

A year ago, the ACLU caught FBI counterterrorism agents spying on activist groups like PETA and Greenpeace, claiming they had ties to terrorism!

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

This new revelation, along with last year's revelation, sound a lot like "Operation TIPS," the plan announced by John Ashcroft's Justice Department in 2002 to recruit utility workers and letter carriers to spy on American homes. When the American people reacted in outrage, Congress prohibited such spying when it created the Homeland Security Department.

Of course, we know the Bush Administration simply ignores any laws it dislikes, so it's entirely possible that much of Operation TIPS is secretly in effect.

All of which is one more reason why we must Impeach Bush Now!

DictatorshipIsEasier.us: FBI asks Congress for power to seize documents

Ted Kahl — Wed, 25 May 2005 00:08:06 -0400

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI on Tuesday asked the U.S. Congress for sweeping new powers to seize business or private records, ranging from medical information to book purchases, to investigate terrorism without first securing approval from a judge.

Valerie Caproni, FBI general counsel, told the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee her agency needed the power to issue what are known as administrative subpoenas to get information quickly about terrorist plots and the activities of foreign agents.

Civil liberties groups have complained the subpoenas, which would cover medical, tax, gun-purchase, book purchase, travel and other records and could be kept secret, would give the FBI too much power and could infringe on privacy and free speech.

"This type of subpoena authority would allow investigators to obtain relevant information quickly in terrorism investigations, where time is often of the essence," Caproni testified.

The issue of administrative subpoenas dominated the hearing, which was called to discuss reauthorization of clauses of the USA Patriot Act due to expire at the end of this year.

[...]

CLOSED HEARING

Roberts intends to hold a closed meeting on Thursday, above the objections of some Democrats, to move the legislation forward out of his committee. But the provision still faces a long road before it becomes law, since the Senate Judiciary Committee also has jurisdiction over the bill, while the House of Representatives is drawing up its own legislation.

Democrats on the committee expressed concerns and pressed Caproni to give examples of cases where the lack of such powers had hampered an investigation.

[...]

Under the proposed legislation, those served with subpoenas would have the right to challenge them in court. But civil liberties groups said few were likely to do so, and the person being investigated would be unlikely even to know that the FBI was seeking his personal records.

For example, if the FBI demanded a person's medical records from his doctor, the doctor could challenge the order if he wished, but the individual could not.

"Ordinary citizens are storing information not in their homes or even on portable devices but on networks, under the control of service providers who can be served with compulsory process and never have to tell the subscribers that their privacy has been invaded," said James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy, one of several groups opposing the provision.

Bushland Insecurity: FBI Network Hacked

Ted Kahl — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 13:37:35 -0500

And we're supposed to trust these bumblers with our national security AND our private information? Bush gave them the USA Patriot Act and a host of intrusive measures to collect info on any of us...and they can't even keep that secure from outsiders?

(Newsweek) The FBI's computer woes got even worse last week when bureau officials were forced to shut down a commercial e-mail network used by supervisors, agents and others to communicate with the public. The reason, sources tell NEWSWEEK, was an apparent "cyberintrusion" by an outside hacker who officials fear had been tapping into supposedly secure e-mail messages since late last year.

[...]

But privately, officials were highly concerned—and recently notified the White House. One top FBI official says he regularly used his shut-down fbi.gov e-mail account to send messages to state and local police chiefs. Another source tells news-week that more than 3,000 old and current e-mail accounts were shut down. Others say the same apparently compromised server also provided accounts to other government agencies. Justice Department officials, who launched their own cybercrime investigation into the apparent intrusion, noted that there was no telling the potential damage at this point, given the common tendency for everybody to say too much—including making references to law-enforcement "sensitive" cases—even in theoretically routine e-mails. "This is an eye-opener for all of us," says one FBI official.

[...]

According to sources familiar with the investigation, one suspicion is that hackers either used sophisticated "password cracking" software that tries out millions of password combinations or somehow eavesdropped on Internet transmissions. Over the weekend, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Department of Homeland Security posted a computer-security alert to agencies throughout the federal government urging e-mail users to be more careful about choosing their passwords by avoiding obvious clues—like nicknames, initials, children's names, birth dates, pet names or brands of car. "Such information can be easily obtained and used to crack your password," the bulletin states.

The e-mail compromise couldn't have come at a worse time for the bureau. Just last week, the Justice Department inspector-general released a report sharply criticizing the FBI's management of its new Virtual Case File computer system—a $170 million software upgrade that bureau officials now concede they may have to —scrap. The VCF system was supposed to make it much easier for agents to electronically access vital information relating to ongoing cases in different FBI offices. But the I.G. found that poor planning and ineffective management have resulted in a system that is nearly unworkable. FBI chief Robert Mueller, who sources say has personally briefed President George W. Bush on the matter, took responsibility "at least in part" for the fiasco before a Senate subcommittee. "No one is more frustrated and disappointed than I," he said.

Of course Robert Mueller will take the fall for the Bushes. He is a known Bush Family cover-up artist, having been the "prosecutor" on Iraqgate, BCCI, Contra-crack...and other crimes tied to the Bush Crime Family and their ring of thugs within the intelligence community. He dutifully whitewashed the investigations, and has been rewarded by the Bushes as a result.