The Government Asked to Use Silent Witness Rule in Thomas Drake Case

By: emptywheel Friday June 3, 2011 1:40 am

This document, Judge Richard Bennett’s rulings on the admissibility of a number of documents presented in CIPA hearings, is interesting for several reasons, some of which I may return to. But I wanted to highlight that the government is trying to introduce evidence under a silent witness rule, something I hadn’t seen mentioned before. [Update: [...]

Why Didn’t We Ask China to Find Scooter Libby’s Missing Plame Leak E-Mails?

By: emptywheel Thursday June 2, 2011 6:49 pm

WSJ has an article reporting on the purportedly Chinese-launched GMail hacks that targeted top White House officials. The article is interesting not because it claims the Chinese want to hack top officials. Who do you think they’d be most interested in hacking? Rather, the article is interesting for some of the implications bandied about in [...]

Executive Nominations, Judicial Emergencies and Change in WH Counsel’s Office

By: bmaz Thursday June 2, 2011 1:09 pm

There are hundreds of top posts in the government, including nearly a hundred federal judicial positions, vacant and the Obama Administration’s record on making nominations and getting confirmations is lacking.

Why Is Michael Hayden’s Desperation on Illegal Interrogation More Urgent than on Illegal Wiretapping?

By: emptywheel Thursday June 2, 2011 11:57 am

Even though he admits yet again that torture didn’t get Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Furaj al-Libi to reveal the name of Osama bin Laden’s courier, Michael Hayden has launched yet another round of sophism to defend the case that torture led to Osama bin Laden–and if it didn’t it produced a whole lot of [...]

Can’t We Call this “Counter-Terrorism Preparedness”?

By: emptywheel Thursday June 2, 2011 10:26 am

Jared Bernstein (whose blog I still recommend) has responded to his 2-day PEPCO power outage by posting the crummy infrastructure report card the US got in 2009: Check out the 2009 Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers:Aviation D Bridges C Dams D Drinking Water D- Energy D+ Hazardous Waste D Inland Waterways D- [...]

Chiquita: The Guns and Drugs and Union Killing CNN Didn’t Mention

By: emptywheel Wednesday June 1, 2011 12:21 pm

CNN has a report today on some of the many lawsuits victims of right and left wing violence have taken against Chiquita. Family members of thousands of Colombians who were killed or who disappeared are suing Chiquita Brands International, alleging the produce company is liable because of its payments to paramilitaries.”We’re holding them accountable,” said [...]

As with Voting, in Marketing, Real People Don’t Count Anymore

By: emptywheel Wednesday June 1, 2011 6:26 am

For some time, it has become increasingly clear that our politicians can pursue policies that benefit just their rich donors–austerity, killing Medicare, bailing out banksters at the expense of homeowners–while ignoring their purported constituents. So I guess it comes as no surprise that advertisers are beginning to adopt the same approach. The top 10 percent [...]

The Cyberwar Campaign against Jihadi Literature and WikiLeaks

By: emptywheel Wednesday June 1, 2011 5:10 am

Ellen Nakashima has a piece following up on the WSJ story previewing DOD’s cyberwar (which I posted on here). Before you read it, though, I wanted to suggest another reason we may be seeing this policy early (in addition to the hacking of all the defense contractors, now including L-3; and note, Nakashima references this [...]

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