Civil Liberties Shrinking Faster than the Greenland Icecap PFAW Update

[Wisconsin Larry]

Here's the lastest update ...

---PFAW Email follows without Comment or abridgement -------

Since calling for a Special Prosecutor to investigate President Bush's authorization of an illegal domestic spying program last week, we've sent lawmakers more than 70,000 petition messages. Tonight, thousands of Americans will gather at Constitution Vigils organized by MoveOn.org in cooperation with PFAW and the ACLU. The grassroots campaign to restore the Constitution is gathering steam!

With every passing day, the portrait of a secretive and power-hungry White House unchecked by Congress grows increasingly alarming. Here's an update:

* Thwarting New Civil Liberties Protections: On February 20, the LA Times revealed that the White House used stalling tactics to delay the convening of a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board created at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission -- and has nominated a long-time Bush friend (who served as treasurer of his gubernatorial campaign) to head it.

* Failed Oversight: The House and Senate have already buckled under pressure from Vice President Cheney, shirking their duty to investigate White House law breaking. House Intelligence Committee Chair Peter Hoekstra is attempting to divert attention from illegal Bush administration practices by limiting House inquiry into whether surveillance laws should be changed, while Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Pat Roberts has scuttled hearings altogether.

* Restriction of Information: Yesterday, the New York Times exposed an Orwellian program in which intelligence agencies have been reclassifying documents that have long been public. Over the past seven years, more than 55,000 pages of previously public documents have been closed to the public, some dating as far back as World War II.

* Silencing Dissent: A pair of op-eds in the Washington Post by Richard Cohen and Ruth Marcus report on the White House not only suppressing information that portrayed it in a bad light -- but actively quashing the gathering of information that threatened to contradict its ideologically motivated conclusions.

* Torture and Detention: The U.N. has called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, accusing the U.S. of practices that "amount to torture," while new stories continue to surface about U.S. kidnapping and "extraordinary rendition" of terrorist suspects to countries that permit torture.

It is clear that only a Special Prosecutor, isolated from political pressure, can hold Bush administration officials accountable for illegal activities. Join the thousands of PFAW members who have already called for a Special Prosecutor, and forward this email to your friends to enlist their help in this effort.

http://action.pfaw.org/SpecialProsecutor

[CrazyOrangeCat]

1. The Nazis would be so proud.

Thanks for the post . . . and welcome!

:kick:

[Wisconsin Larry]

2. Yes indeed. It took the Nazis about 5 years ( I think) to fully

take over. So the Bushivites are right on track.

And thanks.

[Wilms]

3. K&R n/t