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Archive for Justice Department

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Wednesday 18th August 2010

The Crime of Lying to the FBI???

Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is a four-star sleazeball. But the feds had their chance to put him away and they failed to convince a jury on all charges except lying to the FBI.
This is one of the “crimes” that best illustrates the mirage of the Rule of Law in the U.S. FBI agents and [...]

Wednesday 4th August 2010

My 2 Cents on WikiLeaks, the FBI, and Assorted Hokum - Antiwar.com Transcript

The good folks at Antiwar.com Radio added a transcript to the MP3 of last week’s interview. My comments on the Obama administration’s ploy to increase FBI surveillance power are excerpted here at the top. (The full text is below. My Kelly Girl past is now no longer secret).
Bovard:
National Security letters have [...]

Tuesday 3rd August 2010

New U.S. Government Motto: Controlling Us to Secure Us

“If you don’t have control of the population, you can’t secure the population,” according to Brig. Gen. Frederick Hodges, director of operations for the NATO regional command in southern Afghanistan.
The front-page Washington Post piece with the above quote deals with Kandahar.
But it is also the motto for the U.S. government’s approach to [...]

Friday 9th July 2010

“Freedom & the War on Terrorism” - my Pennslyvania speech…

Now online here: the video of my “Freedom and the War on Terrorism” speech last month in Bernville, Pennsylvania. I want to thank Bob Bowers, who organized this libertarian supper club, for inviting Jacob Hornberger and I to talk there. The audience was excellent - lots of hardliners full of fire-and-brimstone. [...]

Monday 28th June 2010

Ron Paul Celebrates Justice Department’s 140th Anniversary

It’s almost always a shock when truth surfaces in the Congressional Record.
Madam Speaker, the House of Representatives recently considered H. Res. 1422, honoring the 140th anniversary of the Department of Justice. I voted against this resolution because of the Justice Departmentâ€™s history of violating individual rights.
It is the Justice Department that leads the ongoing [...]

Friday 14th May 2010

Counterpunch: Operation Tarmac

From Counterpunch -
OPERATION TARMAC
by James Bovard
…..
Unfortunately, few people recognize the political racketeering involved in the postâ€“9/11 roundups of airport workers. That practically ensures that, if there is another major terrorist attack or some similar debacle, mass arrests will once again be used to burnish the governmentâ€™s image.

Tuesday 20th April 2010

The Slippery Definition of Extremism

The Future of Freedom Foundation is shotgunning out this op-ed today….

The Slippery Definition of Extremism
by James Bovard
Americans are once again hearing of the perils of extremism. But the definition of this offense is slippier than a politicianâ€™s campaign promise. The definition of extremism has continually been amended to permit government policies that few sober people [...]

Wednesday 31st March 2010

Federal Judge: Bush Administration Was Criminal Conspiracy

Federal judge Vaughn Walker ruled today that the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program was illegal.
This has been obvious ever since the New York Times blew the lid off of the National Security Administration’s massive surveillance operation in late 2005. It is amazing that the issue is still open to dispute.
Unfortunately, there is not a [...]

Thursday 4th February 2010

My Early Optimism on the War on Terror & Civil Liberties

I had forgotten about the following riff until stumbling across it a few days ago.
In late September 2001, Reason magazine asked a handful of folks “to discuss which civil lliberties they thought were most at risk in what has been called America’s first 21st century war.” They published the responses in an article entitled, [...]

Saturday 30th January 2010

Justice Department Bans Justice for Torturers

The Obama Justice Department has apparently decided that, since torture is not a crime (at least not anything deserving of prosecution), then concocting legal doctrines that unleashed torturers around the world is also no offense.
A Justice Department internal investigation has concluded that John Yoo and Jay Bybee were gulity only of “poor judgment” in [...]

Friday 15th January 2010

Bogus Anti-Terrorist Crackdown on Financial Freedom

posted today by the Future of Freedom Foundation - from the October 2009 issue of Freedom Daily…
The Bogus Anti-Terrorist Crackdown on Financial Freedom
by James Bovard
In the postâ€“9/11 era, federal officials are treating cash as they would a suspected weapon of mass destruction. They have created legions of new restrictions and reporting requirements for citizensâ€™ money. [...]

Wednesday 29th August 2007

The “Terrorist” Batting Average

The Future of Freedom Foundation today posted online my article from the June 2007 Freedom Daily on the Bush administration’sÂ endlessly inaccurate terrorist accusations. Â The title of the piece is about as close to baseball as I have gotten in the last decade or so.
The â€œTerroristâ€ Batting Average
by James Bovard
For almost six years, the Bush administration [...]

Tuesday 28th August 2007

Hooray! The Federal Government is Clean Again!

Or at least that’s the message I’m picking up from reading some commentators on Alberto Gonzales’s exit.
Shizam, some of these people seem to think that the Justice Department will henceforth be in the justice business.
And some seem to think that Gonzo’s resignation proves thatÂ ”the system works.”
What a crock.
It has been over 15 years since the [...]

Thursday 19th April 2007

Waco, R.I.P.

12:55 pm | Bovard | Congress | Justice Department | Comments: 19

Today is the 14th anniversary of the FBI’s finale at Waco.
This was the day that 80 civilians died as a result of a tank-and-toxic gas assault.Â Â I thought Waco might be the most important public education lesson of the 1990s, but itÂ seems to haveÂ had scant impact.
Most Americans forgot or never undertstood Waco,Â paving the way [...]

Tuesday 3rd October 2006

The 1995 Playboy article on Ruby Ridge

Here’s the piece on Ruby Ridge mentioned in the prior post.
The article had magnificent artwork.Â Unfortunately, I’m not adept at scanning and inserting the images into a blog.
The article closes with the following questions:Â “If Congress is not willing to look into such misconduct, who will protect the Constitution? Will Congress let the Justice Department [...]

Sunday 12th March 2006

A Liberal Reviews Bush Betrayal

The Aging HipsterÂ recently read Bush Betrayal. I’m happyÂ he made it through the book and took the time to put his thoughts on his blog.Â Â Â He gave me permission to repost it - so here it is.Â Â The Aging Hipster is a self-described “Georgia Mountain Man” and Pittsburgh Steelers fan.Â Â Both those factors mean that, unlike some white-gloved [...]

Friday 10th March 2006

The Regime Crimes Office

9:09 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Justice Department | lese majeste | Comments: 7

As part of my penance for Lent, I was reading a recent budget briefing for the State Department, tottering onÂ the edge of my chair with each gust of hot air. I came across an intriguing comment by Ambassador James Jeffrey, “the Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Coordinator for Iraq.” He chirped about the Bush [...]

Wednesday 8th February 2006

L.A. Times: Are You a Suspected Terrorist?

The Los Angeles Times ran my op-ed today on the array of wacko definitions of suspected terrorists that the Bush administration has devised since 9/11.Â Â Here are some outtakes of the piece:
PRESIDENT BUSH and Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales insist that the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping of American citizens is a necessary “terrorist surveillance program.” [...]

Sunday 5th February 2006

Bush Now Entitled to Kill at Home?

The February 13 issue of Newsweek reveals that President Bush is entitled to order killings here in the United States, the same as he has been doing around the globe for the last few years. Newsweek notes that, “Steven Bradbury, acting head of the Justice department’s Office of Legal Counsel [the office which in 2002 [...]

Monday 16th January 2006

Fear & Servitude

The Washington Post has an excellent front page story on the boarhawging of Mohammed Yousry, the court-appointed translator for lawyer Lynne Stewart. Federal prosecutors spent three years wiretapping his phone and reading all the files on his computer, thanks to a FISA warrant. Even a federal prosecutor conceded: “Yousry is not a practicing Muslim. He [...]

Wednesday 4th January 2006

Orange Suits Soon All the Rage on Capitol Hill

The Wall Street Journal reported today that superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, who copped a guilty plea yesterday, “says he has information that could implicate 60 lawmakers.”
This is the best news that the moribund prison building industry has had in years. If 60 lawmakers go down in the Abramoff scandal, this could mean that the U.S. [...]

Thursday 29th December 2005

Elective Dictatorship & Lese Majeste

The Bush administration is throwing a snit fit because a formerly submissive federal appeals court is not allowing it to change the rules of the game one more time on the Jose Padilla case. Bushâ€™s Justice Department angrily protested to a federal appeals court this week that “there is no basis for questioning the good [...]

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