legal experts

Protect The Rich!

That has been the mantra of the Bush administration and Republicans for year, and it was even included in the TARP:

Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.

But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.

Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives.

WTF? White House Pushing Legislation To Lock U.S. Citizens Up Without Access To Courts

This is how the Bush administration thinks of America. They believe no American has the right to freedom anymore.

U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.

A 32-page draft measure is intended to authorize the Pentagon's tribunal system, established shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks to detain and prosecute detainees captured in the war on terror. The tribunal system was thrown out last month by the Supreme Court.

Administration officials, who declined to comment on the draft, said the proposal was still under discussion and no final decisions had been made.

Senior officials are expected to discuss a final proposal before the Senate Armed Services Committee next Wednesday.

According to the draft, the military would be allowed to detain all "enemy combatants" until hostilities cease. The bill defines enemy combatants as anyone "engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners who has committed an act that violates the law of war and this statute."

Legal experts said Friday that such language is dangerously broad and could authorize the military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens who had only tenuous ties to terror networks like al Qaeda.

"That's the big question ... the definition of who can be detained," said Martin Lederman, a law professor at Georgetown University who posted a copy of the bill to a Web blog.

Tapping Without Warrants - A GOP Plan

The plan by Senate Republicans to step up oversight of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program would also give legislative sanction for the first time to long-term eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant, legal experts said on Wednesday.

Civil liberties advocates called the proposed oversight inadequate and the licensing of eavesdropping without warrants unnecessary and unwise. But the Republican senators who drafted the proposal said it represented a hard-wrung compromise with the White House, which strongly opposed any Congressional interference in the eavesdropping program.

Read the rest of this at the New York Times.

This is really scary. Since when can Congress write legislation that goes against the Constitution without doing it in the form of an amendment? I suspect the first tests of this in the courts will not come out favorably for Congress. Of course now that Bush has stacked the Supreme Court anything is possible there.

Like I have said before. Communism isn't dead. It is just in the process of being reborn here.

GestapOhio

This is some very troubling news coming from my own state of Ohio:

Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason
In Public Place Citizens Would Also Have To Show ID

CLEVELAND -- A bill on Gov. Bob Taft's desk right now is drawing a lot of
criticism, NewsChannel5 reported.

One state representative said it resembles Gestapo-style tactics of
government, and there could be changes coming on the streets of Ohio's small
towns and big cities.

The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke
of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the
country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in
public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even
if they are not doing anything wrong.

WEWS reported it would also pave the way for everyone entering critical
transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to
show ID.

"It brings us frighteningly close to a show me your papers society," said
Carrie Davis of the ACLU, which opposes the Ohio Patriot Act.

There are many others who oppose the bill as well.

"The variety of people who opposed to this is not just a group of the
usual suspects. We have people far right to the left opposing the bill who
think it is a bad idea," said Al McGinty, NewsChannel5ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s terrorism expert.

McGinty said he isn't sure the law would do what it's intended to do.

"I think anything we do to enhance security and give power to protect the
public to police officers is a good idea," he said. "It is a good law in the
wrong direction."

Gov. Bob Taft will make the ultimate decision on whether to sign the
bill.

Pages