Jeffrey S. White, judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, has entered a new order denying the government's request for a stay pending appeal in the telecommunications companies' documents FOIA case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in its efforts to investigate the government's warrantless wiretapping. And Judge White did it before the government ever really asked for a stay!

Back in mid June, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama Administration's long promised new policy on state secrets use would be revealed "within days". Over three months later, and on the eve of oral argument in the most critical case, and most dangerous to the government unfettered use of state secrets, the Administration has conveniently leaked word that its new policy will be released.

Almost three years ago, way before Barack Obama was even the Democratic nominee, Michael Tomasky wrote a column titled "Obama the anti-Bush," presciently predicting that Obama's bipartisany oppositeness to The Worst President Ever would be a huge asset should he run for president. A year later, Paul Krugman even more presciently referenced that same column while exhorting Democrats to be more like Bush.

I assumed from the first time I heard about this motion that it was going to end up in SCOTUS. No matter who won 2nd Circuit, I don't think it should end there. This is such an important issue of balancing privacy rights vs. government transparency and accountability. This is really important stuff.

The long-awaited report of the CIA’s inspector general on the Bush Administration’s warrantless domestic surveillance program was released last hour. It reveals that what it calls “The President’s Surveillance Program” (as opposed to the public name: “The Terrorist Surveillance Program”) started in late 2001 and went far beyond wiretaps without obtaining a court order. That will hardly be the only big story to come out of today’s release. How do I know? Marcy has a working thread up at emptywheel. . . .

In January Amy Gooman's guest Allan Nairn described to Democracy Now's audience how in 1999 Admiral Dennis Blair, Obama's Intel Czar pick, had repeatedly supported Indonesian generals commanding Indonesian death squads in Timor, rather than obey his Commander-In-Chief's lawful orders to tell our client generals in the Indonesian military to shut down their death squads. Today the NY Times reports that last Thursday, as Obama released the torture memos and his Adminstration told us the torture failed to produce useful results, Admiral Blair told the intel community the exact opposite. Who does Dennis Blair serve - America's elected leaders, or the torture and death squad operatives?

Let not the circle be broken

Based on the torture memos just released, I had trouble seeing how John Ashcroft, a devout fundamentalist Christian, could have allowed himself to approve. But having re-read the gospel story of Jesus' arrest and trial, it suddenly became clear: Ashcroft is the 21st century version of Caiaphas.

Funny how that law that allegedly contained clear restrictions, ended up broadening domestic spying.