Experts say sophisticated modern methods — involving digital data, computers and mobile phones — are a far cry from the days of the Stasi who used steaming devices to open envelopes as well as magnetic microphones and typewriters.

“But there are similarities. There is the same lack of scruples over looking into peoples’ lives — the possibility of obtaining and using the information on people,” said Staadt.

The Stasi ran a notoriously effective network of domestic and foreign agents to quash dissent and guard the Berlin Wall against would-be escapees.

Remember, Sen. John McCain wants to make sure telecom companies here in America are protected from lawsuits regarding their illegal eavesdropping – and he’s ready to keep spying if he’s elected president.

Reuters story via Laura Rozen.

Seriously, what am I missing? Isn’t there some bizarre sort of cognitive dissonance going on in seeing the reactions to the two cases? How much more intrusive is it to have federal law enforcement and intelligence scouring ordinary people’s phone records, emails, bank records than a State Department contractor sneak peaking into presidential candidates’ passport files, with the sort of information available in any credit check, and which is prompting a rush of Congressional investigations? Why do ordinary people have no recourse, no remedy, no way to demand accountability for the violation of their privacy, no recourse even to demand that they be notified the government has surveilled their communications and bank records, when the presidential candidates, who have volunteered after all for an extraordinary degree of public scrutiny to become the leader of the free world, get recourse, apologies, Congressional investigations and law suits?

It looks like the House is at least standing up for the letter of the law, if not specifically for civil rights, in its opposition to the Senate version of the RESTORE Act.  Preserving the ability of ordinary citizens to file suit against telecommunications companies that likely broke the law is a big step forward for the House.

Now, if we could only preserve the ability for ordinary citizens to sue drug companies when medications go wrong, we might be getting somewhere.

Top-tier New Mexico Congressional candidate Martin Heinrich in this video, though, makes a real argument about why FISA happened, and it’s not your standard ‘both parties need to stop bickering’ but a real observation that both parties keep voting for legislation that abrogates our freedoms in very dangerous ways.

Here’s the video:

Why not reward good behavior, and make a donation to the Heinrich campaign, and work to make a True Blue New Mexico.

Yesterday evening, the Progressive Caucus had a closed-door meeting with the Democratic Leadership and the entire Democratic Caucus in the House — Speaker Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel, among others. My understanding is that the Progressive Caucus met with Rep. Conyers — who heads the House Judiciary Committee at 6:30 pm ET, and then the whole caucus met with the leadership afterward around 7 pm ET.

The weird thing is that an AP article hit the wires (H/T to TPM for grabbing the wire piece) at 6 pm ET with quotes from Steny Hoyer regarding the possible need to cut a deal with the Bush WH on retroactive immunity for the telecom companies in order to get FISA legislation passed.

Talk about bad timing. There was some more movement on FISA today; for more info, try here and here.

The Senate’s adoption of the Lieberman/Kyl amendment designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a “terrorist group” isn’t merely embarrassing, it’s counterproductive. Designating the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group — which in contemporary American terms means they’re a target — makes it all the more important for Iran to keep us tied up and weakened in Iraq. The more we telegraph that we’d like to devote forces to regime change or strikes in Tehran, the stronger Iran’s incentive to keep Iraq an unstable morass trapping ever-greater numbers of American troops who can’t be easily diverted from a chaotic mission and are geographically vulnerable to Iranian counter-attack.

Like I said, Ezra makes a good point, but there’s more to it. Counterproductive describes the GOP agenda for most of the Bush term. For example: North Korea. Bush spent 5 years telling everybody that Clinton was an appeaser for dealing with the North Koreans. Nevermind that they actually halted their nuclear program. Clinton did it = it was bad. So, Bush talked hard, and blustered about, refused to negotiate with one of the Axis of Evil, and North Korea ended up with a handful of nukes.

Then, suddenly this February, diplomacy was pursued, and talks are underway this week to negotiate the transfer of 950,000 tonnes of heavy fuel, after the DPRK halts its nuclear program. In other words, a return to the status quo. Oh, and North Korea now has nuclear weapons. There’s that, I guess.

What about Jose Padilla? Arrested in 2002, he was then held for years while the Bush Administration argued he had no rights to a lawyer or to fight his imprisonment before a trial of his peers. Again, let’s forget the Constitution and Bill of Rights thingies, they don’t apply. It’s not like Padilla was a citizen or anything. According to Bush, he was a threat to national security, and couldn’t be allowed to communicate with an attorney.

Then, suddenly, when the Supreme Court was just about to rule on whether or not Bush could hold Padilla indefinitely, the Administration caved and charged Padilla.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

A federal judge in Oregon ruled yesterday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional, marking the second time in as many weeks that the anti-terrorism law has come under attack in the courts.

In a case brought by a Portland man who was wrongly detained as a terrorism suspect in 2004, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Patriot Act violates the Constitution because it “permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”

“For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success,” Aiken wrote in a strongly worded 44-page opinion. “A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised.”

Of course, this sets up an eventual Supreme Court ruling, and, with the bunch we have now, that’s not exactly reassuring. Still…

As a “late bloomer” in the world of progressive politics and feminism (I was totally uninvolved before 2003), my first encounter with her work was “The Porn Myth.” It was an intriguing premise, and definitely worth your 10 minutes if you’ve never read it.

Anyhoo, back to End of America, Wolf’s examination of the methods employed by the federal government in an effort to take aim at our freedoms. AlterNet has an excerpt online right now:

When you are physically detained by armed agents because of something that you said or wrote, it has an impact. On the one hand, during these heightened searches of my luggage, I knew I was a very small fish in a very big pond. On the other hand, you get it right away that the state is tracking your journeys, can redirect you physically, and can have armed men and women, who may or may not answer your questions, search and release you.

There’s one hitch, at least for me. Wolf begins her reading at 5 p.m. However, I’m starting my new gig tomorrow (more on that later) and our office hours are 10-6. So, I may not make it.

If you’re in the area, though, you should try to attend. You can download the introduction to End of America from the book’s publisher, Chelsea Green Publishing.

In a 56-43 vote, the Senate today “narrowly rejected” legislation that would have restored habeas corpus rights to military detainees and given them “the right to protest their detention in federal court.” The roll call fell four votes short of the 60 needed to cut off debate.

UPDATE: Full roll call vote HERE.

There’s background over at FireDogLake. It seems absolutely ludicrous to me that we have to be fighting for these rights (laid out 200 years ago!) just two days after we celebrated Constitution Day, but, there you go. Sen. Pete Domenici, New Mexico’s senior senator, was among those who chose to roll back the liberties and rights that our nation’s sons and daughters have fought for in the past and are dying for today.

Speaking of Domenici, NewMexiKen tipped us off that Pete made CREW’s list of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress. Here’s why. I think we can be reasonably certain that CREW doesn’t have a bone to pick with New Mexico, so it’s telling that every Republican member of Congress from the Land of Enchantment was also singled out.

“The real motive behind secret sting operations like the one that resulted in Senator Craig’s arrest is not to stop people from inappropriate activity. It is to make as many arrests as possible – arrests that sometimes unconstitutionally trap innocent people,” said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “If the police really want to stop people from having sex in public bathrooms, they should put up a sign banning sex in the restroom and send in a uniformed officer to patrol periodically. That works.”

Those crazy leftists! Via Carpetbagger Report.

The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that telecommunications companies assisted the government’s warrantless surveillance program and were being sued as a result, an admission some legal experts say could complicate the government’s bid to halt numerous lawsuits challenging the program’s legality.

“[U]nder the president’s program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us,” Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said in an interview with the El Paso Times published Wednesday.

His statement could help plaintiffs in dozens of lawsuits against the telecom companies, which allege that the companies participated in a wiretapping program that violated Americans’ privacy rights, former Justice Department officials said.

Gotta love it.