the enemy is us

"They hate our freedoms" [from Bush's 2002 State of the Union address]

But just yesterday:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday granting retroactive immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that took part in President George W. Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program.

[The bill would replace a 15-day extension of a surveillance law which expires this week, a law whose provisions for the protection of privacy and personal freedoms the Bush administration and the companies have repeatedly, and avowedly, violated.]

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires that the government receive the approval of a secret FISA court to conduct surveillance in the United States of suspected foreign enemy targets.

But after September 11, Bush authorized warrantless surveillance of communications between people in the United States and others overseas if one had suspected terrorist ties [although in fact we do not know the full extent of the warrantless wiretapping program, or the extent to which FISA has been violated].

[image from ABC news]

a view of the camp we've known about for six years, not the secret one

Really?!!!

We learn tonight that the regime in Washington has been maintaining a separate concentrated concentration camp totally hidden inside the Guantanamo camp we already knew about, a concentration camp which had already been created and maintained, with the explicit or tacit support and approval of members of both parties, outside of any legal system existing anywhere on the planet.

Even now, a year and a half after the last Congressional election, the Democratic majority hasn't been able to bring itself to talk about even the original camp. Please tell me once gain about the genius of the vaunted two-party system which is supposed to promote liberty and justice for all.

[image by Carlotta Gall and Andy Worthington from the NYTimes]