important accouncement on the upcoming DC madam account

The final manuscript is now locked at 622 pages, after adjusting for formatting, so that's everything, nothing removed, index included. I couldn't be more proud. There are no rules and there is no road map writing a historical account, there is only you and whatever wits you might possess. For even the most independent-minded of us, this is like walking a tightrope over a lava pit, and it is an excruciating, awful process writing about yourself. What's right? When you first start out, it goes well beyond writer's block. There's a natural hesitancy not to want to, not simply because we all tend to paint ourselves as better than we really are. I'm pretty certain that in the span of human history, there have been no people on this earth who were able to get around that problem wholly. No one's exempt.

That's not to say that people consciously lie--I haven't in my account in any place, on any page--but that we're all pretty much the same, and who wants to look at themselves as a piece of shit? No, the BDSM crowd don't count, sorry. Maybe it's part of the Cartesian-split, the mind-body problem, that we aren't always good at looking at ourselves because we've been taught how to look at the world incorrectly.

Unlike Jeane and a lot of people in America, I don't believe we live after death. What I believe is that mind came from body, and that we die with this body. Why isn't it obvious that our mind and bodies are one? Religion, but it's a problem also embedded in science, politics, culture, you name it, it's pervasive. I'm not a total materialist, or an atheist, but agnostic. Life has enough mysteries to be pretty bizarre. For some reason, this isn't enough for some people, I don't get it. Yes, dying isn't great--it's not supposed to be. Accept it or not, but we're all going to die one day, so live it up. Unfortunately, yes, some of us are going sooner than others. That's what will always bother me about this goddamned case. Jeane died before her time, it was avoidable. They let her die, we, let her die in our indifference, the same apathy that's given us the biggest police state apparatus in human history. The flaw in Western thinking is this weird idea that things are separate when they're not. We poison our water and believing we're removed enough from it that we don't need to worry about it, let the people downstream deal with it, fuck 'em. We've gone crazy enough to believe that we can now control the weather. We believe that people are separate from one another, when this is completely untrue--just watch how an outbreak of something spreads, just one example. It's some hippie crap to say that we're all interconnected, when it's the simple truth. The Occult tradition in the West produced this gem of wisdom: whatever you put out there comes back, multiplied. (Often in threes, justice found in mathematics no less.) Knowledge is power, but so is wisdom, and you learn the latter through terrible suffering, the kind that makes death look inviting.

I believe that I've overcome most of that tendency to recast myself as someone wearing a white hat, hence the pain, and brother, there is no pain like it. Nothing touches how deep it reaches inside of you and tears you apart. You cannot fault yourself for accidents or errors--mistakes--that no one could have had control over. It's not that I was self-deprecating in the writing of this book, it's that I and many other people failed someone, and so there it is again: We're all the same and are imperfect. That's what being a human being is, to be flawed, judged by the very standards we made up along the way, more often through habit. Talking can be addictive. Everything is an addiction. Reading is an addiction. Watching is an addiction. Food is an addiction. Drinking too much water can become intoxicating and ultimately kill you. Sex, as everyone knows, can be an addiction to the point that it becomes unhealthy. We all have a lot of habits to break. Whether I  break the writing habit remains to be seen.

The book will, I hope, stand on its own legs, and that word will get out far and wide about it. That, of course, is up to me, but also you, the reader, to spread the word if you believe I've gotten most of the story right. I think it's going to be a mixed-bag: there are so many things in it that are simply factual, and opinions about facts mean nothing. Most of the book is my participation in the case. I will be writing more as the release date approaches at another location, probably copying to here as well, so either site will be a go.

There is not one thing, one line, one quote, anything, that was put into my account that I knew or believed to be untrue. I haven't included many things--you would end up with a book over 1,000 pages long, easily. The reader should come away from the book feeling that not only was this about someone's experience, therefore a primary historical document, but that it's a reference book. I can say with absolute certainty that there has never been a book like this, and that's not knocking Montgomery Blair Sibley's book, Why Just Her, just the opposite, I think they're complimentary of each other, one augmenting the other. While I didn't use quite as much legal language--legalese--I believe it will stand up over time as part of the case, its residue. A couple of centuries ago, writing on historical events was considered a form of literature. For that and the sake of readability, there is a literary approach to some of the book, but in the end, this is all my voice. I'm feeling a little hoarse now, and, oddly, that was the meaning of the French surname, Palfrey.

This was almost as bad as being the poor, dumb asshole journalist in Citizen Kane, looking everywhere to find out what all this Rosebud business was about. What were some of Palfrey's deepest secrets? With the CIA thrown into the mix, anything's possible. I cannot claim to know, her family might, and they should be left in peace. It should be taken into consideration that there will almost certainly be things that I'm wrong about in the text, misreadings of events and information, not just by me, but by the subject and many other players, it's inevitable, and none of it would necessarily be conscious. There's smoke down in Hell, which sometimes causes a natural occlusion. And, again, I could simply be wrong about something.

The DC Madam case is a mostly incomplete mosaic, and I make it clear in the text when I'm speculating. This is due mostly to the fact that whole swaths of the record aren't available to the public. There are also selfish motives by any number of people who communicated with Palfrey to sit on what they know, information they might have, but then there are confidentiality agreements. Most of this is understandable in an era where certain information has a very real world value, we all get this by now, even Ret. General Petraeus.

A late November release looks good, but no later than December, a blackened X-Mas present for the GOP to themselves, by way of me, a woman whose death they own.

Bank of America should still worry about Wikileaks...

I've been reading more than a few of the Stratfor emails that were published by Wikileaks beginning February 27th, and in going through them I noticed something of minor interest. In fact, it's something everyone expected. One of the earliest batches of the 5 million emails from the private intelligence firm contains a couple of client lists. I was pretty excited--it's not a big deal in itself--and immediately wondered "Is BoA in there somewhere?" and in fact they were, right up at the top of a client list, prioritized.

This isn't news of course--we know about this association between Stratfor and BoA from the December hacks by the Anonymous group and other sources. While the private intelligence firm hasn't confirmed it in the past it seems that BoA did contract Stratfor to investigate and disrupt Wikileaks. Five million emails is a lot of correspondence, so we shall see how deep the association goes, maybe eve evidence of criminal activities.

Assange has said that there are approximately 4,000 internal emails about or related to Wikileaks out of the entire batch.  Karl Domscheit-Berg destroyed the 5GB BoA file on an unknown date (this is assuming he did since his stories vary), but we might learn far more about the biggest American bank just yet. The Stratfor files seem to amount to 65GB, mentioned in an earlier post on here, without a key. This could get interesting.

Postscript: When you look in the internal emails at how Stratfor was also sponging one set of clients for inside information, then selling it to another set of clients ("Robbing Peter to pay Paul"), what you have is an intelligence/information brokering version of a Ponzi scheme. Boy, are they in trouble.

14 down, 36 to go in the push towards legalization of marijuana

But what does this all mean? What does it mean when we're rapidly heading towards a surveillance state, let alone a police state? Will we be able to smoke pot in a police state? Consider that. What does this mean? I have no idea, it just boggles the mind, but you have to realize that many states of existence and social trends can live alongside one another simultaneously. Some things can be true and false all at once.

Is this all Huxley' warning, the phantom of "soma," and a populace that could find itself under some serious illusions of personal freedom while simultaneously narcotizing themselves, and not merely by television and the Internet (the unimaginative misuse of the latter)? I don't know, but it sure looks like it. There are many illusions and conceits in the counterculture and the outlying one these days, too many myths, too little reality.

California nearly passed Proposition 19 this election cycle, which would have all but decriminalized marijuana with a mere fine for up to the personal possession of one ounce of marijuana, similar to Ontario's experiment with decriminalization beginning about (or "aboot") a decade ago thanks to the ruling of an Ontario Superior Court of Justice (like our own higher Federal District circuits). But the fun didn't last long in Ontario and later rulings have pushed back the right to personal possession of marijuana. Tell 'em that in Toronto's Kensington Market, or even parts of Los Angeles and Oakland and the neighborhoods around the University of Toronto.

Local custom often trumps the law, which in the case of marijuana, is fine since it's not someone being lynched. That's what the drug laws are for.

As a criminology professor in college told me, "We never learn in America, because we don't want to." The truth has been plain for ages: Prohibition just empowers cartels and gangs, it doesn't make society a better place to live, and in fact is one of the sources of social disintegration. But it serves narrow interests, some who are in-collusion with drug lords. Without prohibition, there would be almost no potential for bribery and similar forms of corruption, especially with a decentralized model granting private citizens the right to grow set amounts for personal use, never mind medical marijuana dispensaries.

Meanwhile, the executive branch is enjoying the ability to conduct unrestrained surveillance of everyone under the rubic of the war on terror and the war on drugs. The states are moving one way, while the federal government is moving another. There could be no greater example of counter-trends of the democratic versus anti-democratic other than the newfound freedom and ease of communication created by the Internet, but the legalization movement is surely another one when juxtaposed with the ever-widening surveillance state. This isn't simply a states' rights battle, though there is certainly a fear of opening that door. It underscores that there are natural tendencies towards the democratic and anti-democratic in all nation states.

What if we do witness the virtual legalization of marijuana for personal use in the United States? Will it be a blow against anti-democratic trends? That would be a major affirmative. American drug laws were first formulated as race laws and the statistics of who gets sentenced to the most time are implicitly clear: Minorities suffer the most for the same amounts as their Caucasian counterparts, and class is also an issue, the ability to pay adequately for one's own defense at trial. So, yes indeed, this will be a step forward for civil rights across the board for Americans if we can end prohibition of marijuana since it will lead to and end in the case of the other substances to interdiction and the punishment model.

"But who's going to sell it?" is the usual question. In the case of marijuana, it should be nobody. Again, it's a hardy and easily grown plant. Yes, there will still be a market for the "best," there always will be, but any good law decriminalizing the plant will have to include the right of private citizens to grow their own. The other substances? The government should be dispensing them for tracking and statistical purposes, just like Canada does with "The Beer Store," albeit I have no answers as to manufacture, though my preference would be by the government. The money made from these sales could just as easily go to addiction treatment programs.

Would we want corporations to manufacture heroin as a commodity? I don't think so, and believe that that would be the true road to Huxley's Brave New World. Corporations are only capable of being held-accountable through the power of government because nothing else is powerful enough to. Before we knew it, we could all truly be addicts were they to have complete control over the process. But a part of me wonders: Where is this all headed? Will legalizing marijuana make a big difference? I believe that it can, and likely will, offer a "third-path" model, but Americans are going to have a big fight on their hands with--no surprise here--corporations, and the people who service, defend, and have an abiding interest in them.

Will we be smoking pot in a police state? Stay tuned...

Obama Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel releases more Bush II administration war on terror documents

Washington D.C.--You wanted change? You're getting it, today. This is a switch--even for the incoming administration: the release of more key Justice Department legal documents from the immediate aftermath of the events of September 11th, 2001, and they're eye-openers.

The Obama Justice Department has made available a series of key legal memos crafted byt eh Bush II administration that cover the power of the office of president to declare war, "Congressional Authority over Captured Enemy Combatants," the legality of torture, "Interpreting FISA and its Applicability to Presidential Authority," "Presidential Authority to Suspend Treaties" (curiously, ABM ones in one case), " 'National Self-Defense' as a Justification for Warrantless Searches," and so on.

The Obama Justice Department has made their stance on these questionable legal opinions of the Bush II Justice Department crystal clear:

For all the foregoing reasons, the propositions highlighted in the nine opinions identified above do not reflect the current views of the Office of Legal Counsel and should not be treated as authoritative for any purpose. A number of the opinions that contained these propositions have been withdrawn or superseded and do not constitute precedents of this Office; caution should be exercised before relying in other respects on the remaining opinions.

We have advised the Attorney General, the Counsel to the President, the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council, the Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense, and appropriate offices in the Department of Justice of these conclusions. ("Office of Legal Counsel Memoranda," DOJ.gov, 0303.2009)

Here's what this writer finds most interesting: the opinions by the OLC were made just five days before the Obama administration came into office on January 20, 2009! In short, these decisions were likely being withheld from release by the outgoing Bush II administration and this week's release indicates the decisions were all but predetermined by the incoming administration for potential release. In other words, the Bush II administration was doing some back-peddling in their legal assertions at the tail-end.

That it took a little over a month for the Obama administration's Attorney General to releases them is a very tangible change considering these memos were suppressed by the Bush II administration for years. Say what you want--that it's "not enough," that it's "belated" (for whom?), and that we "won't be seeing much more of this," but it doesn't matter. It's real, and it happened, and more is coming. So far, it doesn't appear that the Obama administration have ruled on the findings of the OLC, but it's likely that they will concur with them in their own decisions.

Maybe it's just a start, but it's one of the best starts we've seen in at least three decades (if not more), and it's happening almost overnight. Patience has its own rewards, but keep demanding more of this, don't ask, and do tell.

"Office of Legal Counsel Memoranda," DOJ.gov, 0303.2009:

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/olc-memos.htm

Obama: "Obviously we're going to be looking at past practices and I don't believe that anybody is above the law."

Fox News Universe--Just moments ago, Fox News reported the opposite of the above statement with the byline, "Obama: 'We're not going to prosecute Bush administration officials.' "

Whenever I want my sci-fiction and fantasy needs met, I don't go to the Sci-Fi Network™--no, no. I go to Fox News for the fantastical, the bizarre, and the outright fictional. It's true, literature has a hard time competing with the scions of the right-wing.

That they're strange is a given. That they lie is a given. But to believe one's own lies means mental illness, which has become the only thing that makes sense about them. Yet, like in all propaganda, there's that tiny kernel of truth in there. President-elect Obama's voting behavior on constitutional issues really is unimpressive. This is troubling for someone who lectured on constitutional law at the University of Chicago for twelve years, off-and-on, someone considered a professor of it.

Obama knows full-well that if the laws broken by the Bush II aren't investigated and prosecuted, that they stand as precedents. For those who value their personal liberties, that's alarming, to put it mildly. But, as I wrote to Rawstory's Larisa Alexandrovna, we're seeing a system in crisis rather than a mere "coup" that she and Naomi Wolf, Michael Moore, and others suggested was taking-place with the Wall Street bailout. It was a belated observation. But this is all really beside the point: Congress should be doing most of the heavy-lifting here, and cries of partisanship from the Republicans isn't going to matter in-the-face of an independent truth commission and the economic crisis they midwifed.

As they did with the Church Commission in the 1970s, the Democrats are standing down and doing very little to hold anyone accountable.

Excuses, excuses. The GOP in Congress has no other option but to cooperate in reconstructing the economy along with Democrats and Independents because their very survival depends on it. Democrats can--and will continue to--enable them and make as many excuses for inaction as they want predicated on the straw man arguments for "bipartisanship," but the reality is that Republican incumbents are already greatly disempowered and back in their minority-status where they belong for good. They are extremely vulnerable.

It's true that the Obama administration and Congress are going to have their hands full for some time, but they won't have to do the work of an independent commission--that's why you form one in the first place. With a new majority in the judicial and executive branches, excuses are going to be all congressional Democrats have when they don't act substantially to hold the Bush II administration accountable for crimes we all know were committed, there's no mystery to it. Only the scope is unknown.

The Fox story is wishful thinking in a way, because they understand that while they cannot be pushed into recognizing the public will very often, the Democrats can. They also know that the charges will stick if things go far enough, making for a one-two punch to an already embattled and criminal GOP. This is exactly what should and can happen, but the missing-ingredient--once again--is the American public, their outrage, and their thoughtful action. The factors of anger and action are growing exponentially every day as once cherished values of the marketplace are shown to be the hollow theories they always were. This is because, "It doesn't affect me, so I don't care," is no longer a reality.

Both parties embraced these notions of the marketplace and force-fed them to the public for almost an entire generation. At least two generations have been ruined by this, their minds poisoned with the drivel of the Chamber of Commerce and all the rest of the right's literary output. Systems have a way of playing-out, it's an immutable fact of human history, yet they're still going to try to save their rotten barrel, repeating the actions of all tyrants in all eras. This is the reason behind the president-elect's seeming apathy in prosecuting George W. Bush and his fellow travelers.

This peculiar apathy towards holding the Bush II administration is only going to engender a well-earned cynicism in his direction, and he's going to feel tempted to abuse these new powers of the executive when the going gets tough. If he does utilize them, he's going to be letting not just Black Americans down, but the rest of the world and himself. There will be no transcendent or transformative moment except in the negative, and history will record he was just another ass holding power in another era.

We've already had enough of that, but the choice is his and Congress's to make, a choice between honor and ignominy, of being thought of warmly by future generations, or having one's name spat-out by them as George W. Bush is going to be (we haven't had to wait on that one). What Obama and Congress don't want to admit to the rest of us is that it's implicit to uncover as many of the crimes of the Bush II administration as humanly possible to fix the mess we're in right now, but they're busy trying to save the rotten barrel that produced that mess, all the ingredients for a failure that could grow into a catastrophe.

It was never about George W. Bush. Protecting him and his co-conspirators is protecting a bad system whose time has come. Again, that missing-ingredient is the public. Get angrier, get louder, and start demanding a truth commission, but be good. Let those in power break the law, as it's their wont to do; it makes them more vulnerable than you think.

The real exchange between George Stephanopoulas and Barack Obama: http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/01/obama-leaves-do.html

The Bush II administration's time is finally ending, but...

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."--Abraham Lincoln

It's incumbent on all of us to demand a Truth Commission on every single crime committed by them from the 2000 elections until their final day in office. The involvement of the RNC and her operatives should also be thoroughly investigated. This Truth Commission should be hydra-headed because of the multifarious nature of the crimes due to their breadth and scope and the fact that they were ongoing.

Every single pertinent classified record of the Bush II years must be declassified and reviewed by a special non-partisan prosecution and investigation team and all records must be preserved. If key records are found to have been negligently destroyed or eliminated with a dark purpose, all federal laws applying punitive legal sanctions should be employed swiftly and aggressively.

Any loopholes found in procedural laws regarding the executive branch should be noted, legislative proposals made to seal them by the special prosecution, and Congress should act swiftly with enforceable legislation to heal the breach. The whole point of this is not to allow the policies that expanded executive power to stand, this being a system of precedents. Each expansion of power should be challenged at every turn.

It would behoove President-elect Barack Obama to renounce these policies in no uncertain terms and it should be part of his first 100 days in office, making the top of the list of Bush II executive orders that must be rolled back with his pen. This is where the wildcard factor comes into play with the new president: for a past constitutional law scholar he's shown peculiar voting behaviors, made especially obvious in his "yea" vote for retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies in the Bush II administration's warrantless surveillance program. This is just one of many troubling signs, but it begs-the-question of whether they were votes predicated on every occasion with a hint of a political calculus. He wanted to be president, after all.

But if ever there was a clear violation of the precepts of the Constitution of the United States, it was this NSA program whose entire scope we still don't know, but assuredly violated the Fourth amendment rights of tens of thousands of American citizens. What did the Bush II administration tell Obama and others in classified briefings about the program and the necessity for it? Did they lie to him and other members of Congress to intimidate them into an agreement to extend it and grant unprecedented legislative immunity? What is President-elect Obama's current knowledge of the program now that he's been given intelligence briefings?

With just 19 days left for the sordid Bush II administration, it's time to breathe a little easier. After taking those long, deep breaths, it's going to be time to roll-up our sleeves again and to begin demanding a Truth Commission. Democracy in North America depends on it. Our rights are non-negotiable and it's time to start acting like it for a chage.

President-elect Obama has said that Abraham Lincoln is his favorite American president, and as flawed as Lincoln was, I concur with him. He's always been my second favorite after FDR. But both men did things that caused significant damage to the rights of Americans at the same time they were adding to them. FDR and Lincoln began systematic extralegal surveillance through technological means of their perceived political enemies through the us of wiretaps.

So many presidents have engaged in this kind of behavior that it's a bipartisan tradition, and one that needed to die with the twentieth century, but has its convenient place when power feels threatened. It's the gun that all would-be presidents want to keep in the vest-pocket of the executive branch, as Noam Chomsky has pointed-out.

Time for some real gun control. The late President Lincoln's name is being bandied about a lot these days without much substance to it. We should change this, we should be sincere--we should say what we mean, and mean what we say. Without that, the future looks anything but bright.

GONZALES TO TURN OVER ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE DOCUMENTS TODAY: ARE THEY RELEVANT AND COMPLETE? ARE THEY GENUINE?

"It's never been the case where we said we would never provide the access." --Attorney General Alberto Gonzalers lying to the press again today. (AP, 1.31.2007)

Washington D.C.--No longer displaying his usual arrogance before Congress, ostensible Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is turning-over what are purported to be key-documents of the program. Are they everything we need to know? Doubtful. The papers are being forwarded to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the two highest-ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The documents won't be made public (much to the chagrin of the ACLU), but we can rest-assured that Senator Leahy will have a lot to say about their contents, as will Arlen Specter. But will they give an accurate overview of the program? This isn't likely based on past-actions by the Bush administration--even recent ones.

But will it be dueling banjo time on the hill? Specter's ears are more jug-like, so I guess we know which character he is from Deliverance... The question will be interpretation, with a radically-divergent viewpoint based on the threats caused to the GOP by the Bush administration. Gonzales has claimed that Bush administration has never attempted to withhold the information, a patent lie:

"The records will be given to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and the panel's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) who two weeks ago lambasted Gonzales for refusing to turn over documents that even the FISA Court's presiding judge had no objection to releasing." (AP, 01.31.2007)

And so, there it is. Even the foot-dragging Arlen Specter is calling Gonzales and the Bush administration liars. This would be accurate, and taking them at their word isn't going to work. Expect some stunning revelations that could shake the very foundations of our political culture, just as they did with Watergate--only worse. The good thing is, we know about this program, and sunlight is the best disinfectant.

AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070131/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/domestic_spying

BUSH CAPITULATES ON ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING PROGRAM: HANDS-OVER TO FISA COURT

“I intend to move forward with the committee’s review of all aspects of this program’s legality and effectiveness.” --Democratic Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, yesterday. (NYT, 01.17.2007)


"The president must fully inform Congress and the American people about the contours...authorizing the surveillance program but also the program itself."
--Sen. Patrick Leahy at today's Judiciary Committe hearings.

Washington D.C.--It's official: The New York Times, and virtually every wire service, are reporting that "it's over." I didn't write on this yesterday, because it didn't seem legitimate, but today's news seems to confirm this has happened. With oncoming oversight, hearings, and investigations, it's unlikely the Bush administration would have survived the total exposure of the program:

"The Bush administration, in a surprise reversal, said on Wednesday that it had agreed to give a secret court jurisdiction over the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program and would end its practice of eavesdropping without warrants on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists." (NYT, 01.17.2007)

One question: Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has commented that an infrastructure of databases holding the information already gathered on American citizens exists. What's going to happen to this infrastructure and the information therein?

Americans should breathe more easily that Senator Leahy heads this committee and the hearings--he voted against virtually every questionable-action in the "War on Terror" the Bush administration has forwarded, including the approval for the war in Iraq and questionable sections of the Patriot Acts. But, the New York Times knew about the program for at least a year when they finally revealed its existence autumn of 2005. They aren't heroes in this at all, and their role in the continuation of the programs should be investigated thoroughly.

The information should all be destroyed, nothing less will do. It seems that Alberto "Speedy" Gonzales (Eppa, eppa!) was scheduled to speak before the House Judiciary Committee today--headed by one Patrick Leahy, the man Vice President Cheney told, "Go fuck yourself." The illegal program always violated the 1978 FISA law that requires oversight from the "secret court" (not anymore) for approval of warrants to do said surveillance--it upholds the Fourth amendment, while the Bush administration does not.

Gonzales is getting grilled as I write this, it's entertaining. Here's to more hearings, it's been too long since a GOP President was dragged before Congress. But there had better be substantial-results, and the public would be wise to remember who fights any reforms, sanctions, and convictions where there is sufficient evidence.

The illegal program began in October of 2001--when they knew they could do it. After all, the American public and the GOP-majority gave the President a blank-check, remember? I'm sure those of you who did...don't. We told-you-so. Knowing the administration's MO, this is just a shift, and the court is likely compromised in a way that still allows them to proceed with the program as it has been formerly-constituted, but this is being seen as a "preempt" to deflect damage from the hearings, and to sink an ACLU lawsuit:

A Justice Department official said the department would file a motion with the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, arguing that the court’s review of the issue in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union “is now moot” in light of this week’s developments. (ibid)

Only hearings, investigations, broad-declassification, and oversight by Congress will end the warrantless wiretapping programs. It appears that one of the FISA judges has been induced to side-with the administration, but more investigation will be needed to see how the court actually functions now...if it does at all.

This is all a big-problem for the President and his administration, since we can assume they're lying that all of the programs have stopped. Never cry wolf unless there really is one present. So much for the "unitary executive", this toxic ideology is about to end in an ugly way. The Bush administration still contends the program was legal. You, I and every congressperson know that the Bush administration's tendency towards classification was merely a means to provide a cover for illegal-activities and a rollback of our civil liberties.

They tried to seize total power in a democracy. This is treasonous. One has to ask: how-many of the administration's enemies were surveilled?

President Roosevelt is known from past declassifications to have initiated-this behavior in 1940, it has a long-history with the Executive. I predict the Bush administration added a new-innovation to the Executive-drive for "total information awareness" (TIA)--they used it for insider-trading for themselves and some of their backers.

The New York Times:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/washington/18intel.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1169096400&en=982a35375a1b5cf6&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

Bloomberg on Today's Hearings (Arlen grows-a-pair, belatedly):
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=afGl13Q_wlVo&refer=us

How Attorney General Gonzales Got "Speedy":
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6857224/site/newsweek

2004 Leahy Reaction to Gonzales's Nomination to AG Post:
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200411/111004.html

NYT's Directory to Articles on Senator Leahy (He would have my vote for President): http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/patrick_j_leahy/index.html

February 6th, 2006 FISA Hearings: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/07/1457259