LHP, the question I have is can Bush pardon anyone and everyone who has been in his administration on his way out the door, or can he pardon only people who have been charged and/or found to be guilty of a crime?

Hey… want to see something really scary?

Time/Date Stamp: 11:59 AM, January 20, 2009
I hearby pardon any and all members of my administration whom I, as President of the United States, appointed. This pardon is effective for any and all acts that may or may not have been committed throughout the entirity of my term as President of the United States, commencing January 20, 2001 until today January 20, 2009.

Signed,

George W Bush
President of the United States

The important “confession” here is that DHS still has not taken the required Privacy Revies an Minimization steps

What does that matter? The data-mining is still ongoing. No one in DHS will be brought to task. Congress will not impose consequences on anyone in this administration.

This is what happens when impeachment is off the table.

The important “confession” here is that DHS still has not taken the required Privacy Revies an Minimization steps

i thought congress deep sixed the TIA Darpa/Poindexter baby ..

Congress did deep six TIA. But TIA was a DoD program. All the data-mining and spying on American citizens that LHP is reporting on were carried out by DHS. That’s a completely different department.

Get that?

Congress passed a law forbidding DoD from data-mining, but surprisingly that doesn’t forbid another executive department from doing the same thing. Isn’t it amazing how the Bush/Cheney folks can parse a law forbidding data-mining all they can get their hands on about the American public by DoD doesn’t forbid DHS from doing the same?

Isn’t it a dirty shame that Congress can’t figure out how to stop this shit.

But the orginal definition onto which the quotede alnguage is merely an enhancement is there.

Frnakly, I didn’t really see an obvious reason why the orginal definition didn’t emcompass the programs they are fessing up to now.

i mean .. lawbending ..scofflaw-ism .. and even outright lawlessness has been and remains a hallmark of this [mis]administration but what the fuck .. will congress ever stand up and stop this shit ??

odds ??

The only thing that surprises me is that they reported this honestly once the new definitions were arrived at. Didn’t they get the memo that no one in the Executive Branch has to provide anything to Congress if they don’t want to?