While the Beltway wants the torture policy of the Bush Administration swept under the rug and forgotten, Bush Administration officials are working at cross purposes with their Media enablers. Outgoing CIA chief Michael Hayden yesterday said:

"These techniques worked," Hayden said of the agency's interrogation program during a farewell session with reporters who cover the CIA. "One needs to be very careful" about eliminating CIA authorities, he said, because "if you create barriers to doing things . . . there's no wink, no nod, no secret handshake. We won't do it."

(Emphasis supplied.) Since the goal of some of us is that they don't do it, Hayden is telling you what we must do -- investigate and remove any chance of misconstrued winks, nods and secret handshakes. More . . .

As discussed earlier, the FISC appellate court issued a decision today on the constitutionality of the Bush Administration's application of the Protect America Act. The panel was composed of Bruce Selya of the First Circuit, and Senior Judges Ralph Winter of the Second Circuit and Richard Arnold of the Eighth Circuit. The panel does not pass on any actions by the Bush Administration prior to the enactment of the PAA. To wit, the panel states that this is an "as applied" challenge to the Bush Administration's application of the PAA. More after I read the opinion.

Eric Lichtblau reports that a FISA court has ruled the Protect America Act, passed by the Congress after the Bush violations of FISA became public, constitutional:

A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans’ private communications may be involved.

. . . The appeals court is expected to uphold a secret ruling issued last year by the intelligence court that it oversees, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, court. In that initial opinion, the secret court found that Congress had acted within its authority in August of 2007 when it passed a hotly debated law known as the Protect America Act, which gave the executive branch broad power to eavesdrop on international communications, according to someone familiar with the ruling.

Lichtblau's article is not good in my view in that he sees the opinion as passing on the Bush Administration's previous activities. But his own reporting states:

On Joe Scarborough's morning show, Newsweek's Jon Meacham continues that magazine's attempt to mainstream torture and Executive abuse of power "in time of war." Let's accept the dubious premise that federal policy against potential terrorist attacks on the United States is "a war," what is the basis for arguing that the Constitution becomes inoperative in time of war? Meacham argues that Abraham Lincoln made that argument and acted in that fashion. This is not accurate history. More importantly, it is not legally relevant. With the Al Marri case now going before the Court, this question will actually be before the Supreme Court. Let's consider the issues on the flip.

The ACLU has launched a new website, You Are Being Watched, "dedicated to tracking the spread of government video surveillance systems throughout American cities. " (From their press release, which should be available here shortly):

“The new site will provide one-stop shopping for users, including the press, who want to know the big picture and the fine details about the spread of video surveillance systems....

The new site will serve as an information clearinghouse to track the deployment of government-run surveillance systems across the United States. It includes a flash map of the United States showing the location of cities that have installed municipal surveillance cameras, a compendium of press clips and other information about camera deployments, links to studies on the effectiveness of surveillance cameras, and other information about the issue.

Video surveillance will not make us safer. It only makes us less free. [More...]

Do immigrants have the right to effective representation at removal hearings? Eric Holder should be asked that question at his confirmation hearing, in light of this:

On Wednesday, Attorney General Michael Mukasey issued a decision stating that immigrants in removal proceedings do not have a legal right to counsel, or to effective representation.

Mukasey’s interpretation is that immigrants facing deportation cannot petition to have their cases re-opened because of the errors or incompetence of attorneys. Rather, according to the attorney general, they can throw themselves at the mercy of the DOJ’s discretion.

[More....]

Allegations of grade tampering and falsification of attendance records at a Chicago charter school are troubling, but this is shocking:

Three high school girls, taken into a washroom one at a time by an off-duty Chicago police officer, told to drop their pants, squat and cough -- all in the hunt for a cigarette lighter that was never found. ... Chicago Public School officials say ... the off-duty Chicago police officer who was acting as a school security guard [has] been "disciplined'' and left the school as a result. ...

[A] federal lawsuit is expected to be filed Thursday against the off-duty female police officer and [the school] on behalf of two of [the] three girls .... The attorneys contend the off-duty officer searched under the girls' shirts for a lighter allegedly used by a boy to set a fire in the boy's washroom.

Conducting a strip search for a lighter is an outrageous invasion of privacy. Did the officer intend to humiliate the girls? The third girl avoided the strip search by having the guts to refuse.

Glenn Greenwald writes in more detail on the statements by Vice President Dick Cheney that directly implicate the top Congressional leaders on intelligence matters. Glenn identifies the Dem players:

Cheney's claims encompasses the following key Democrats:

* Nancy Pelosi (Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee, House Minority Leader)
* Jane Harman (Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee)
* Jay Rockefeller (Ranking Member, Senate Intelligence Committee)
* Harry Reid (Senate Minority Leader [or Tom Daschle, depending on the date of the meeting]).

To coin a phrase - what did they know and when did they know it? And what did they say in response? It has been reported that Sen. Jay Rockefeller wrote a letter (PDF). The statements made by Rockefeller in the letter have been challenged by Cheney. At this point, Cheney's gone on the record. So must these Democratic leaders.

Speaking for me only

On Fox News this morning, Vice President Cheney implicated the Congressional leadership, including the current Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader, in the Bush Administration abuses regarding civil liberties. In an interview with Chris Wallace, Cheney said:

WALLACE: Let's drill down into some of the specific measures that you pushed — first of all, the warrantless surveillance on a massive scale, without telling the appropriate court, without seeking legislation from Congress. Why not, in the aftermath of 9/11 and the spirit of national unity, get approval, support, bring in the other branches of government?

CHENEY: Well, let me tell you a story about the terror surveillance program. We did brief the Congress. . . . We brought in the chairman and the ranking member, House and Senate, and briefed them a number of times up until — this was — be from late '01 up until '04 when there was additional controversy concerning the program.

MORE . . .

California Attorney General Jerry Brown reversed course today and asked the California Supreme Court to find Prop 8 unconstitutional.

Brown, who is required to defend state laws unless he cannot find reasonable legal grounds to do so, said after Prop. 8 passed Nov. 4 that he would support the initiative before the state's high court.

"Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification," Brown said. The authors of the state Constitution, he said, did not intend "to put a group's right to enjoy liberty to a popular vote."

The pro-Prop 8 group filed its brief today as well. Their chief counsel? Kenneth Starr.

A few weeks ago I called Ross Douthat's claim of conservative moderation on the issue of choice disingenuous. Digby, in writing about her justified dismay (the dismay has been expressed across the Left blogosphere) that Rick Warren will be legitimized by President-Elect Obama's choice of Warren to give the inaugural invocation, provides me with the clinching argument on Douthat's disingenuousness:

“Of course I want to reduce the number of abortions,” Warren told Beliefnet Editor-in-Chief Steven Waldman[,] . . . “[b]ut to me it is kind of a charade in that people say ‘We believe abortions should be safe and rare,’” he added. “Don’t tell me it should be rare. That’s like saying on the Holocaust, ‘Well, maybe we could save 20 percent of the Jewish people in Poland and Germany and get them out and we should be satisfied with that,’” Warren said. “I’m not satisfied with that. I want the Holocaust ended.”

Warren proves that Douthat's column was deeply disingenuous, if not outright dishonest.

Speaking for me only

In an editorial today, The New York Times writes:

We can understand that Americans may be eager to put these dark chapters behind them, but it would be irresponsible for the nation and a new administration to ignore what has happened — and may still be happening in secret C.I.A. prisons that are not covered by the military’s current ban on activities like waterboarding. A prosecutor should be appointed to consider criminal charges against top officials at the Pentagon and others involved in planning the abuse.

I agree. But I find the Times' reticence to include top officials in the White House surprising and wrong. As Vice President Cheney has made clear, these decisions went all the way to the top - to the President of the United States. A Special Prosecutor should be empowered to investigate the criminal actions of the President and Vice President as well.

Speaking for me only