I decided to start a new post on this. You can read my early posting here.

One of the big questions surrounding today’s revelation that the Justice Department had issued a subpoena against the website indymedia, including a gag order, is what for? It’s apparent that the Justice Department was working on some auspice of the Patriot Act and despite all the conspiracies on the right it also is evident that this all occurred under the Bush Administration.

Located in the limited documents we have are a couple of interesting facts. First off is that this case was taking place in Indiana and secondly a certain date– 6/25/08:

While doing a bunch of Googling I did come across a post on indymedia from that date. The author is going on a rampage about the proposed super highway that would run from Mexico to Canada. In it an admission is made:

To DNR:
If you put our freinds’ lives in jeopardy, you will face the
consequences, which is why we paid you a pleasant visit the other
day. About ten of us showed up masked and caused a rukus, reaking
havock within your tidy office. We smashed potted plants, knocked
over papers and office supplies, and made a loud comotion while
your employees claimed that DNR had nothing to do with I69. YOUR
LIES MEAN NOTHING TO US. This is only the begininning of what you
will be forced to face if you continue to aid the state of Indiana
in hurting our friends, the earth, animals and countless farmers by
developing Interstate 69.

DNR is the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. This would really explain the use of the Patriot Act in this case, though it doesn’t excuse the unprecedented “gag order” issued by the DOJ with it.

This really puts all the arguments around this news into a new perspective. As I pointed our earlier, some people are arguing that Obama should have stopped this case. If this really is a domestic terrorism case then would that be what we want?

Secondly, and most importantly, the right is trying to pin all of this on the Obama administration. Here we have a possible domestic terrorism act that happened under Bush’s watch. Sure it isn’t some grand scale act, but it is an act none the less – which is again evident by the use of the Patriot Act in pursuing the case. Now given how the right is trying to say all this happened under Obama, then why did an apparent act of domestic terrorism go for seven months under Bush without them pursuing it?

If this post on the indymedia site is truly what all this is about, then this revelation just discredited both arguments I mentioned above. I’m just waiting for CBS to correct their article stating that it was Eric Holder who would have had to authorize this subpoena.

UPDATE

Even more evidence has emerged to remove any guilt from the Obama administration in this. Here is the pdf of a simple one sentence letter dated 2/25/09 from the attorney handling the case. It simply says that the “above mentioned subpoena has been withdrawn”. So within a month of Holder becoming AG this highly questionable subpoena was reversed. It looks like all blame now lies on the Bush administration.

I am wondering if the attorney in this case wasn’t getting pressure from above to go after this kind of subpoena and that pressure was suddenly gone. Let’s look at the dates now. We have the date the subpoena was entered into the clerk of courts, 1/23/09, meaning the request most likely occurred before that. And now we have the date of 2/25/09, when the subpoena was withdrawn. What changes happened then? Oh yeah – a new administration.