Monday, July 30, 2007

Sending Abu G A Message

This New York Times article describes the latest goings-on with our truth-impaired U.S. Attorney General who can’t seem to make up his mind on much of anything. Watching Gonzales perform his act in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week constitutes a burlesque of anything remotely related to candor and even a passing familiarity with how the checks and balances of out government are supposed to function, even by Bushco’s admittedly low standards.

So Abu G.’s razor-thin, legalese-filled defense seems to be that the program for which he was seeking John Ashcroft’s signoff from the former Attorney General’s hospital bed had to do with data mining (retrieving “meta data” details of communications) as opposed to actual surveillance (with the data mining program having been acknowledged already, even though former NSA director – and now CIA director – Michael Hayden denied it)?

Well, I think Glenn Greenwald pretty much blasted that nonsense to pieces here.

And also, how nice of Arlen Specter to typically sabotage a perjury investigation into Gonzales’ antics. Russ Feingold is right; at the very least, this whole mess requires a special prosecutor.

Well, with all of this in mind, here is the latest from the John Edwards for President campaign…

Dear friend,

Today, we need your help to send a message to insiders like George Bush's Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who have no respect for the rule of law, our rights and freedoms, or the Constitution.

Gonzales, the man who helped enable torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and illegal spying on Americans, is now facing a possible perjury investigation for lying to Congress.

President Bush may be incapable of admitting when he makes a mistake (yes, too many to count)—but you and I and the American people still have the power to tell Gonzales that it is time to go!

Add your name to our message to Gonzales today.

Click here.

We have a simple message to deliver to Gonzales:

Remember the Constitution that you were sworn to uphold?

Remember what this country stands for?

Remember the laws you were supposed to defend?

If you do, then do what is right—just once—and resign.

But then again, maybe it has been so long since Gonzales read the Constitution that he forgot what this great document says.

Well, let's remind him.

Click here.

For every signature we collect (and this is where friends and family become very helpful), we will send Gonzales a copy of the Constitution. You can even add a special message like:

"Do the right thing for once - resign."
"What will it take for you to resign?"
"I believe perjury is against the law."
"R-E-S-I-G-N"

Add whatever reasonable note you think could make him do what is right.

But here's the best part—with your help, we can send Gonzales a really BIG message.

If we gather over 25,000 signatures online, we're not just going to mail them.

We're going to put them at the bottom of the largest copy of the Constitution you have ever seen, and deliver it straight to Gonzales' office at the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Department building in Washington, D.C..

How big a copy of the Constitution? Big. Really big.

And maybe—just maybe, when he sees that Constitution with all of your signatures, Gonzales will remember that his job is not to protect George Bush—it is to protect the rights and freedoms of the American people.

And maybe—just maybe, if enough of us speak out he will once—just once—do what is right, and resign. No matter what he does, history will record that at this critical moment you and I took a stand. And we're going to keep standing up for what is right when our nation needs us—because that's what this campaign is all about.

So if you want to join the fight for real change, then please add your name right now and help send Gonzales a message he will never forget.

Click here.

Thank you,

Joe Trippi
Monday, July 30th, 2007
As always, to learn more, click here.

And by the way, am I the only one wondering why we’ve heard nothing from John Ashcroft during all of this?

Update: YEEEESSSSSS!!!!! (sign onto this, Patrick - h/t HuffPo).

Update 8/1: The fact that our corporate media still takes Cheney seriously is pathetic (here...and by the way, Deadeye Dick, plenty of your fellow Repugs are mad at Abu G. also).

2 comments:

profmarcus said...

here's what i posted yesterday about the data-mining nonsense...

data mining is PRECISELY what produces grist for the entire surveillance program... data mining - what i refer to as sniffing - is an automated program designed to "sniff" through multi-terabytes of real-time electronic transactions and untold mountains of stored data looking for certain pre-programmed patterns - words, phrases, data-strings, and hex code - which, if found, are then spit out for further analysis... if further analysis, probably also automated, confirms the initial analysis, the information is further spit out to a human analyst who makes a determination about what to do with it... the determination may include such options as further investigation, real-time data interception (wiretaps, et al), additional database searches, personal surveillance, etc... this is happening 24/7/365 and has been going on for years... the bush administration is simply banking on the fact that most members of congress, most journalists and most americans are simply too stupid to figure out what's REALLY going on...

p.s. and, in case you would like to see how it's all done, go here...

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/2007/07/technology-behind-nsa-spying.html

doomsy said...

And of course, leave it to Bushco to imply that the data mining and the unwarranted spying are somehow unrelated.

Great stuff to know, and I'll check out the prior post. Thanks.