Serious people of all political stripes should question
whether it is appropriate for the FBI to continue to be the agency that vets our
federal judges.
In the past 10 years, the FBI has brought itself into
disrepute and disgrace, yet its false pride continues unabated.
One need
not go back to the days of yesteryear to question the bureau's competency and
integrity. Back then, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI not only Red-baited, it denied that
the mob existed and refused to investigate federal civil rights violations--all
the while righteously blowing its own horn.
For years, the most glaring
example of bureau misconduct was the famed Rosenberg espionage trial, where, in
an attempt to influence the outcome and ensure the death penalty, Hoover had
illegal conversations with the judge overseeing the case.
The FBI today
continues to be an incredibly effective propaganda machine, having mastered the
techniques it learned from its erstwhile paper tiger enemy--the Soviet
Union.
Some recent examples:
* Ruby Ridge. On Aug. 22,
1992, FBI agents surrounded a broken-down cabin in northern Idaho and killed an
unarmed woman holding a 10-month-old baby by shooting the woman in the
head.
No legal consequences befell the sniper who fired the fatal shot,
nor were his superiors punished for writing clearly unconstitutional rules of
engagement that made the fatal shot possible.
* Waco, Texas. On
April 19, 1993, the FBI stormed the Branch Davidian compound. When it was done,
more than 80 men, women and small children were dead.
Though then-Atty.
Gen. Janet Reno took full responsibility for what the FBI did, it later became
clear that Reno had been duped by the agency into believing the actions it
proposed taking had little risk.
* Wen Ho Lee. In 1998, the FBI
caused the jailing--mostly in shackled solitary confinement--of Taiwan-born
American scientist Wen Ho Lee.
When Lee finally got his freedom after
nine months, the federal judge chastised the FBI, among other government
agencies, for misleading him.
* Robert Philip Hanssen. In 2000, it
was learned that long-time FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Philip Hanssen
was a Russian spy whom the bureau itself had been unable to identify or catch
and whose spying had resulted in a number of assassinations.
Once Hanssen
was caught and charged, the FBI made sure a quick plea bargain was worked out so
that the fiasco would go away quickly and quietly.
* Timothy McVeigh.
The FBI, unconstitutionally and in violation of a federal judge's order,
concealed evidence from Oklahoma City mass murderer Timothy McVeigh that should
have been available to his defense team.
Throughout all this, the FBI has
been the agency responsible--using both retired and active agents--for
investigating and vetting federal judicial nominees.
In that vetting, the
FBI interrogates not only the nominees, but also their families, friends,
neighbors and business associates. It gets their tax returns. It learns the most
intimate details of nominees' lives and puts all this information into its
files.
The peccadilloes or idiosyncrasies of those headed for judicial
office--such as the homosexuality of G. Harrold Carswell, the federal appeals
judge from Florida whom President Nixon nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court--can
be held confidentially, or not.
Once a nominee is confirmed and seated on
the bench, just knowing that the FBI possessed such information could influence
his or her decisions.
There is no legitimate reason to, and many good
reasons not to, let the FBI continue to investigate federal judicial
nominees.
It is too difficult to know how the agency might use the
confidential information it gets. Its powers are too great, its mentality and
institutional history too blemished and its competence and credibility too
low.
Any confidence in its integrity is clearly unwarranted.
There
is good reason to establish an independent, joint executive-legislative branch
office to vet federal judicial nominees.
This would ensure that when FBI
agents make their frequent appearances before federal judges to obtain arrest,
search and eavesdropping warrants and to give testimony in criminal trials,
these judges won't feel an inclination or an obligation to do whatever the FBI
tells them to do.
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
Sunday, September 23, 2001
Saturday, September 22, 2001
Study Finds Increasing Number of Crossers at Mexican Border Are From Other Countries [Free Republic]Study
Finds Increasing Number of Crossers at Mexican Border Are From Other Countries
Published:
Sep 22, 2001
Buchanan said his exclusion from the three televised debates between
Bush and Gore kept viewers from a real discussion of issues like immigration.
“One of the great social crises of this country is unrestricted immigration
and an invasion from the south,” he said. “I will cut back legal immigration
to 250,000 a year and I will defend America’s border, if necessary with
American troops.”Source: Zachary Coile,
San Francisco Examiner Oct 27, 2000
Buchanan said America needs leaders who will “halt illegal
immigration cold at our borders even if we have to have troops. We need to
repair, rebuild and restore the melting pot.”Source:
Kristen Hays, Associated Press Jul 27, 1999
PLATFORM - KEEPING OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS OUT OF WAR
Finds Increasing Number of Crossers at Mexican Border Are From Other Countries
Published:
Sep 22, 2001
"We don't know what it means," spokesman Rene Noriega said Friday.
Total illegal entrant apprehensions within the Border Patrol's Tucson sector
At the same time, the number of other-than-Mexican detentions has grown by 42
Most of the non-Mexican migrants are from El Salvador and other parts of
Ten Egyptians were arrested recently near Douglas. Each had paid $7,000 to be
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - The illegal entrants being caught by the Border Patrol
along the Arizona sector of the boundary increasingly are from nations other
than Mexico, officials say.
- all of the Arizona-Mexico border except the southwestern corner near Yuma -
are down about 26 percent, from 601,879 last year to 443,910 this year.
percent, from 2,032 last year to 2,886 this year.
Central America, but agents have picked up people from all over the world,
including the former Soviet Union, Asia, and the Middle East.
brought from Guatemala into Mexico and then across the border, Border Patrol
spokesman Rob Daniels said.
Pat Buchanan on Immigration
Stop the invasion from the south; limit immigration
Buchanan said his exclusion from the three televised debates between
Bush and Gore kept viewers from a real discussion of issues like immigration.
“One of the great social crises of this country is unrestricted immigration
and an invasion from the south,” he said. “I will cut back legal immigration
to 250,000 a year and I will defend America’s border, if necessary with
American troops.”
San Francisco Examiner Oct 27, 2000
Use troops to stop illegal immigration
Buchanan said America needs leaders who will “halt illegal
immigration cold at our borders even if we have to have troops. We need to
repair, rebuild and restore the melting pot.”
Kristen Hays, Associated Press Jul 27, 1999
AMERICA'S SOVEREIGNTY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR TRADE
AMERICA IS ABOUT MORE THAN MONEY!
" Our vital national interests are the security and sovereignty of the
U.S.A. Now that the extraordinary era of the Cold War is over, we need a more
traditional American foreign policy for more traditional times to keep us out of
the kind of wars that have destroyed every other great power in history.
In the words of John Quincy Adams, our greatest Secretary of State,
"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be
unfurled, there will [America's] heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy."
When U.S. interests are threatened, or our citizens attacked, or our honor
impugned, America will fight-but we will not commit our forces carelessly or
sacrifice American soldiers to save the faces of foolhardy interventionists.
We will withdraw from all United Nations and global organizations that do
not serve U.S. interests. Not one dime from the International Monetary Fund will
go to prop up corrupt foreign regimes or countries hostile to the United States.
And not one United States soldier will be forced to swear allegiance to an
international organization."
Friday, September 21, 2001
Thursday, September 20, 2001
Wednesday, September 19, 2001
No national pride inspired in US Muslims [Free Republic]
Mohamed Aissaoui, a son of New York City, wants to be a politician when he grows up; whatever else he lacks, the rhetoric is there already.
"The only take you can have on it is as a Muslim," says the 14-year-old outside Al Qaraween Islamic bookstore on Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, several blocks of which is a heavily Islamic neighbourhood.
"You're Muslim first and American second. We can only do as our religion says: we should fight back."
Saudis Cast Doubt Over FBI List of Hijackers [Free Republic]
DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi officials and media have cast doubt on the credibility of a list of 19 suspects named by U.S. investigators as suicide hijackers, saying some of them are alive and innocent.
The FBI last week identified 19 men as hijackers, including seven trained pilots, who it said commandeered the four passenger jets used in the attacks that left nearly 6,000 were dead and missing. Although the FBI list did not provide the nationalities of the suspects, Gulf officials and analysts said the family names appeared to indicate that many of them were Saudi nationals. "The haste in publishing the names of suspects in the attacks has made the media fall into the error of involving innocent people, especially Saudis, who later proved that they were innocent," said Prince Mit'eb bin Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, deputy commander of the Saudi National Guards. The apparent errors over the names have strengthened a belief in the Gulf that the real attackers used false or stolen passports and documents.
A Saudi Foreign Ministry official said authorities in the kingdom had doubts about the list, just before Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal flew to Washington to help U.S. efforts to hunt the perpetrators of the attacks. "We have our own doubts because many of those implicated have turned out to be alive here or elsewhere," he said. Saudi newspapers have published interviews and pictures of at least five of those who appeared on the FBI list since it was released Friday.
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
Monday, September 17, 2001
Thursday, September 13, 2001
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Monday, September 10, 2001
Saturday, September 08, 2001
Friday, September 07, 2001
Thursday, September 06, 2001
Wednesday, September 05, 2001
Tuesday, September 04, 2001
Monday, September 03, 2001
Sunday, September 02, 2001
Saturday, September 01, 2001
Friday, August 31, 2001
Thursday, August 30, 2001
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Monday, August 27, 2001
COMMENTARY
The FBI Can't Be Trusted to Vet Judges
When
a spy agency knows personal secrets, it has the potential to influence judicial
decisions.
By STEPHEN YAGMAN, Stephen Yagman, a Venice Beach federal civil
rights lawyer, was special prosecutor for the state of Idaho in the Ruby Ridge
prosecution of an FBI sniper