Everyone’s written about this “don’t touch my junk” story, but this new development is so sadly in line with my thesis about these things that it’s almost a cliche. When I wrote about it over the week-end, I pointed out that this was the latest in a series of steps to a police state — the building of a police bureaucracy, the intimidation and the incoherence of security theatre designed to confuse citizens and indoctrinate them to the idea that they should unquestioningly submit to absurd directives from authorities. It’s how you control a populace.

via Wil Wheaton

If you’re a California voter, be sure to go out and vote NO on Proposition 8 tomorrow.

The hero of the day is Senator Chris Dodd, as he stopped the Senate from approving retroactive immunity for the telecom companies, at least for now:

Throughout the day Senator Dodd stood on the Senate floor and spoke out against the Bush administration’s abuse of executive powers. He spoke out against granting retroactive immunity for telecom companies who helped the Bush administration spy on Americans without warrant – noting that if we grant immunity now, we may never know the full extent of what happened behind closed doors and what arguments were used to justify warrantless surveillance.

For now, the FISA debate is over. It will come up again down the road, but for now everyone who supported Senator Dodd’s leadership against retroactive immunity and supported his promise to filibuster should be proud of their work to defend the Constitution and the rule of law.

See some of Senator Dodd’s floor speech here.

And yes, it does feel odd to actually be proud of a politician. If only the rest of the Democratic party could follow Dodd’s example.

I’m not holding my breath though.

The Directors approached the making of the film in a way that has never been done before, choosing to show the reality of Stress Positions in as authentic a way as possible. They filmed a person being put into Stress Positions over a 6 hour period. There is no acting on the part of the “prisoner” – his pain and anguish is for real.

Yes, you read that right, the Democrats apparently want to let Bush have expanded wiretapping powers, because if they don’t they’re worried that the White House will claim they’re soft on terror.

They really just don’t get it, do they?

As Digby says:

I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince Democrats that trying to “out-tough” each other or especially trying to “out-tough” the GOP is always playing to the Republican’s strength — the authoritarian lizard brain. If this keeps up, by the time we get to the election, the Democratic candidate will be vying with the Republican over who will be the first to sign a new law legalizing torture for double parking. We don’t win that way, never have, never will.

It’s the same old Democrats, once again willing to throw away civil liberties in an attempt to not be seen as wimps, and letting the Republicans frame yet another issue to their advantage. Then they’ll wonder why so much of their base seems to be less than enthusiastic about getting out and voting for them in 2008.

Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet’s First Amendment — a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you — based on what site pays them the most. Your local library shouldn’t have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to have its Web site open quickly on your computer.

Net Neutrality allows everyone to compete on a level playing field and is the reason that the Internet is a force for economic innovation, civic participation and free speech. If the public doesn’t speak up now, Congress will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign by telephone and cable companies that want to decide what you do, where you go, and what you watch online.

So now, at last, the crisis is upon us. Now the cards are finally on the table, laid out so starkly that even the Big Media sycophants and Beltway bootlickers can no longer ignore them. Now the choice for the American Establishment is clear, and inescapable: do you hold for the Republic, or for autocracy?

It’s dark and rather depressing, but I think it’s a good look at the reality we’re facing in America today. Go and read it.

[via Jeremy Lassen]

At first the evidence was scattered and anecdotal. But now it’s pretty clear that a key aim of the Bush administration’s takeover of the NOLA situation is to cut off press access to report the story.

First, there were the FEMA orders barring members of the press from photographing anything to do with the recovery of the bodies of the dead.

Perhaps there could be guidelines about photographs which in any way clearly identified the deceased. No one wants to get first confirmation of the death of a loved one by seeing their body on the nightly news. But a blanket ban serves only to prevent the public from knowing what really happened last week. And the right of FEMA or any branch of the federal government for that matter to issue such a ban on American soil seems highly dubious to me. It’s one thing with military casualties: the military operates under its own legal code and not under normal civilian rules. But this is happening on American soil. This isn’t a war zone. Nor is it any longer a situation where police or National Guard troops are in the midst of retaking control from mobs or looters. This is a recovery from a natural disaster.

Now comes this post from Brian Williams, which suggests a general effort to bar reporters from access to many of the key points in the city.

Take a moment to note what’s happening here: these are the marks of repressive government, which mixes inefficiency with authoritarianism. The crew that couldn’t get key aid on the scene in time last week is coming in in force now. And one of the key missions appears to be cutting off public information about what’s happening in the city.

This is a domestic, natural disaster. Absent specific cases where members of the press would interfere or get in the way of some particular clean up operation, or perhaps demolition work, there is simply no reason why credentialed members of the press should not be able to cover everything that is happening in that city.

Think about it.

Foreign citizens who change planes at airports in the United States can legally be seized, detained without charges, deprived of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denied basic necessities like food, lawyers for the government said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.