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FBI wants to polygraph Congress

20:32 / 02.08.02

Link here

So the FBI wants to give lie detector tests to members of congress on the intelligence committee and their staff to determine who leaked to the press information about the inability of US intelligence to promptly translate September tenth clues to the attacks last year.

This is totally absurd for several reasons, including the fact that it may violate Congress's Constitutional freedom of speech beneath the speech and assembly clause. Furthermore, in October of last year, the administration leaked this same information as it suited their needs at the time and now the administration is pitching a fit over the releak earlier this year that they some how think was caused by Congress.

So now the FBI and the administration wants to give Congress a lie detector test, clearly violating the separation of powers and Constitutional protections, to find out who let the press know about our failures in intelligence? What the fuck is wrong with these people? Leaks have always existed in Washington and always will and there is nothing the FBI or the administration can do about it. By making a big deal over this leak, which only demonstrates past intelligence failures rather than current, the FBI only makes themselves look childish and petty.

These are the kind of scandals that give the intelligence community its (well deserved) bad name. Congress has a mandate from the administration to research and critique the intelligence agencies in America and it is ridiculous for the same administration to come back and whine about that same critical review.

Are there any Congressmen who could pass a lie detector test anyway?

Hey Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Ashcroft, get a fucking clue. Sick your dogs on the real terrorists, rather than persecuting the people who are trying to hold you accountable.

XXII:X:II = XXX

05:27 / 03.08.02

Hey Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Ashcroft, get a fucking clue. Sick your dogs on the real terrorists, rather than persecuting the people who are trying to hold you accountable.

My man, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft are the real terrorists, and I somehow doubt it's a cosmic coincidence that they're snarling at the few in reach of their leashes.

Now a former US President, a President who formerly brokered a peace agreement between those two factions until one of those noble, moral folk of Israel blew away their president for considering that idea, thus our President would have had to have some appreciation for the complexity of the issues surrounding that dispute, a President who notoriously evaded service during Vietnam (and the merits and demerits of that are a separate discussion), claiming that he would lay down his life in battle in defense of Israel... now THAT augers of big bad mojo. It accomplishes two goals: reinforcing the slightly waning jingoism this country is locked into, and helping soften the glare of what the Clinton Presidency's legacy will be in time. But it's also an endorsement from the last colossal Democratic politician of the insanely biased policy the current conservative agenda-in-effect acts upon, concreting the inseparability of the two major parties into a single ruling entity. The King is dead; long live the King!

We're The Great Old Ones Now

13:27 / 04.08.02

they're snarling at the few in reach of their leashes

I hate to break this to you, but there's almost no one on Earth who is categorically beyond their reach.

Let them polygraph Congress. Congress is not doing its job. Congress has defaulted on its obligation to check the Executive. So let Congress feel the sting of that decision. Let's see a few legislators dragged up before the Executive in its pride and glory, and maybe Congress will grow a spine.

XXII:X:II = XXX

14:01 / 04.08.02

Congress is not doing its job. Congress has defaulted on its obligation to check the Executive. So let Congress feel the sting of that decision. Let's see a few legislators dragged up before the Executive in its pride and glory, and maybe Congress will grow a spine.

It's a very dangerous game you're playing, Mr. Bond. We've already seen that the Judicial Branch is not willing to do its job in keeping the Executive Branch in check, because the Exceutive is their bread and butter. So already one half of the supposed safeguards against the Executive growing out of control have been knocked over. Who can say at what point the Legislative Branch will have endured enough humiliation and belittlement to slap back? Too early and too strong and they run the risk of being further demonized; too late and too weak and it might be for naught. Plus you've got the Forth Estate firmly in the pocket of the Executive Branch, which means you never know just how this story will be spun to the voting public. I think the role of the FIFTH Estate, the voting public, needs to be made more evident than on one day per year, and too often unrepresentationally (is that a word? ah, fuck it). The relationship between the constituents and their elected representatives has deformed into the masses and their dutifully appointed leaders. That's not democrasy, but then, we don't live in a democrasy; we live in a republic. Just how bad do we allow this to get? When intervention?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:37 / 04.08.02

It's not more dangerous than continuing to ignore the situation. Congress needs a wake-up call. Maybe this is it. If not, it's always nice to see powerful folks getting a taste of what it feels like to be disenfranchised and scared.

23:27 / 05.08.02

It maybe true that Congress does need a wake up call, but rolling over and spreading their legs to the Administration is not going to prompt equatible power sharing between the branches. Congress needs to stand up for itself more, and not playing nice with the FBI should only be the first step in their attempt to get up, brush themselves off and give Dubya and his gang the what for.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

07:06 / 06.08.02

Congress apparently thinks it should be doing as it is told in this 'time of national crisis' - in order to streamline responses to an external threat to US democracy. The possibility that some of these responses will constitute an internal threat has not yet been properly discussed. If Congress feels seriously threatened by this initiative, that possibility will have to be looked at.

If they manage to swat it away easily, that won't happen.

So I say, go, go FBI.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:58 / 06.08.02

The US has been in a technical state of war since the Second World War Nick, allowing official government agencies to do things they would be allowed to if it were peacetime. And when have special powers or dispensations been granted on an open-ended time scale that have then been voluntarily given up later? For a President in the Bush/Nixon mold this allows them to keep tabs over the people that can stop them doing things, do you think if they get given this power by Congress they (or any successor, even of the Clinton type) will think it a good idea to release this power later on? It's paranoia all the way to the top.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:33 / 06.08.02

Wow, did I really post that? It's probably all wrong mind.

14:47 / 06.08.02

Can we get a primary source for that "technical state of war since WWII" thing? I keep hearing it but no one has references to it.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:03 / 07.08.02

Lada, it makes no difference to what I'm saying. See Fear Drives the Making of a Secret Government for a brief intro. Congress has left its post - in wartime. Perhaps only the realisation that the Castle will fall and bad things will happen unless they go back to it will induce them to do their duty again.

Otherwise, at least Congress members will feel the bite of the state they are permitting a little bit. The rest of the US will feel it first, of course.

10:14 / 07.08.02

Of course given the FBI's current security failings its quite likely that they'd lose their polygraphing equipment before they got to use it. This is not funny.