Bad Deeds for 6-26-2008

Government Seizing Laptops and Cameras at Airports Without Cause – Returning from a brief vacation to Germany in February, Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. Agents searched Hogan’s luggage and then popped an unexpected question: Was he carrying any digital media cards or drives in his pockets? “Then they told me that they were impounding my laptop,” says Hogan, a freelance investigative reporter whose recent stories have ranged from the origins of the Iraq war to the impact of money in presidential politics.

Shaken by the encounter, Hogan says he left the airport and examined his bags, finding that the agents had also removed and inspected the memory card from his digital camera. “It was fortunate that I didn’t use that machine for work or I would have had to call up all my sources and tell them that the government had just seized their information,” he said. When customs offered to return the machine nearly two weeks later, Hogan told them to ship it to his lawyer.

The extent of the program to confiscate electronics at customs points is unclear. A hearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution hopes to learn more about the extent of the program and safeguards to traveler’s privacy.

 

Government Grabs Man’s Savings at Airport – Pedro Zapeta was returning home to Guatemala with $59,000 he had saved working illegally as a dishwasher over 11 years. Zapeta had saved the money to build a house for himself and his family in his home village in the Guatemalan mountains. Federal law requires that anyone leaving or entering the country with $10,000 or more must declare it. Because Zapeta had not done so, he was detained, and his money was seized. Zapeta, who does not speak English, was not trying to conceal the money but did not know the law. He had paid taxes on the earnings, and under legal guidelines should be fined at most $5,000 for failing to report that he was traveling with the cash. A court has now corrected the matter.

 

Justice Department Turned into Goon Squad for the Republican Party According to Constitutional Law Professor – A new Justice Department audit has revealed that under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, highly qualified applicants for jobs or summer internships who had liberal leanings were passed over in favor of conservatives, in violation of the supposedly non-partisan spirit of those programs. For example, in 2006, 82% of summer internship applicants with liberal affiliations were rejected, but only 13% of those with conservative affiliations.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann invited constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley to discuss these findings, which he described as “the Bush administration’s attempt to make the Justice Department into kind of a goon squad for the Republican Party.”

Turley noted with a smile that “it’s ironic. … The Bush administration has lost so many terrorism cases — maybe this is the reason. You don’t get a very good government when you have political commissars selecting people not because they’ve achieved something, but because they toe a party line.”

 

Republican State Senator Kim Brimer Bilks Supporters for Personal Gain … Again – Campaign finance records show that Republican State Senator Kim Brimer (SD10 – Fort Worth) has again used campaign contributor funds for personal gain. A complete review of Kim Brimer’s campaign finance forms from 1987 to the present shows that Brimer skimmed at least $37,953 from his campaign account for his personal use. The Lone Star Project discovery of Brimer’s improper, and possibly illegal, repayments resulted from an earlier investigation into the Republican Senator’s improper use of campaign cash to purchase a luxury condominium in Austin.

 

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Could Permanently Hide Evidence of Impeachable Offenses – The “farce” of a surveillance law deal heralded by House Democratic leaders last week could permanently hide evidence of an “impeachable offense” on the part of President Bush, Sen. Russ Feingold, said Monday. The Senate is expected to approve an administration backed gambit to essentially legalize Bush’s warrantless surveillance program while at the same time letting off the hook phone companies that critics say facilitated the contravention of current law. “I do think this is a total farce with regard to the immunity [for telecommunications companies]. It basically guarantees the immunity,” Feingold said. “It doesn’t simply have the impact of potentially allowing telephone companies to break the law. It may prevent us from ever getting to the core issue … which is the president ran an illegal program that could’ve been an impeachable offense.” Senator Chris Dodd said, “We’re closing the door, never to know why this happened, who ordered it, why did they avoid [the courts], what was behind their thinking. And that is a dangerous step for us.”

 

Illegal, Barbaric, Who Cares? – John Yoo, a former deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, gives us insight into the administration’s belief that anything the president or his designates do – no matter how illegal, barbaric or un-American – is justifiable in the name of national self-defense.

Cassel: “If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?”
Yoo: “No treaty.”
Cassel: “Also no law by Congress – that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…”
Yoo: “I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.”

Regards,

Jim