Rep Conyers, Why do you consider this "outrageous"? Haven't you been reading your own posts here, and most especially those who have replied in at least the last 4 years? Do you not understand this is now commonplace?

Do you have a ghost writer that you yourself are not aware of what has been going on? Do you even visit your own site?

In the name of terror protection, our elected officials have turned a blind eye to our civil liberties in order to support tyranny.

This comes as no surprise to those who post here, and the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands "average" citizens who are well aware of the abuses of the current administration and those who are allowing it to happen in the "spirit of bipartisanship."

The only surprise I find in your post is that you now, for whatever reason, finally think this is outrageous.

If you have finally turned the corner to determine something is "outrageous," then let me share the meaning of the word, according to Webster's New World Dictionary.

1. having the nature of, involving, or doing great injury or wrong. 2. exceeding all bounds of decency or reasonableness, very offensive or shocking. Applies to that which so exceeds all bounds of right, morality, decency, etc, as to be intolerable.

So, my next question--how long must we wait for you to turn the next corner----that of action?

Carole J Gilbert

House Judiciary Committee meeting: Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations
Friday July 25, 2008. Full Committee. 10am est.

Congressman, the only restrictions placed upon the president truly are those expressly contained within the Constitution that Congress enforces upon the president.

To date, the Body of Congress has given permission to ANY Administration, the unbridled permission and power to usurp the Republic's ability to defend itself from unwarranted intrusions into the Republic's daily PRIVATE life in violation of NOT only the Fourth Amendment, but of Article II, sec. 9, paragraph 3. "NO BILLS OF ATTAINDER OR EX POST FACTO LAWS SHALL BE MADE."

And you're worried about spying on protesters? LOL... You're perpetrating a FARCE!
Don't sell us umbrellas when Congress pisses on the Republic!

Like your Committee meeting on Friday will EVER amount to a hill of beans!

Congress can't even muster the courage to support and defend the Constitution, instead providing comfort and aide for those within that beltway to VIOLATE that Document Congress swore to respect. The very FACT that you have to review what Constitutional limits the Administration can and can not operate under is a sure sign that Congress stopped being a Congress FOR, OF and BY the People of this Republic. So go ahead, examine what your failures have been.

Exposing Bush's historic abuse of power

July 23, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- The last several years have brought a parade of dark revelations about the George W. Bush administration, from the manipulation of intelligence to torture to extrajudicial spying inside the United States. But there are growing indications that these known abuses of power may only be the tip of the iceberg. Now, in the twilight of the Bush presidency, a movement is stirring in Washington for a sweeping new inquiry into White House malfeasance that would be modeled after the famous Church Committee congressional investigation of the 1970s.

While reporting on domestic surveillance under Bush, Salon obtained a detailed memo proposing such an inquiry, and spoke with several sources involved in recent discussions around it on Capitol Hill. The memo was written by a former senior member of the original Church Committee; the discussions have included aides to top House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, and until now have not been disclosed publicly.

Salon has also uncovered further indications of far-reaching and possibly illegal surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency inside the United States under President Bush. That includes the alleged use of a top-secret, sophisticated database system for monitoring people considered to be a threat to national security. It also includes signs of the NSA's working closely with other U.S. government agencies to track financial transactions domestically as well as globally.

The proposal for a Church Committee-style investigation emerged from talks between civil liberties advocates and aides to Democratic leaders in Congress, according to sources involved. (Pelosi's and Conyers' offices both declined to comment.) Looking forward to 2009, when both Congress and the White House may well be controlled by Democrats, the idea is to have Congress appoint an investigative body to discover the full extent of what the Bush White House did in the war on terror to undermine the Constitution and U.S. and international laws. The goal would be to implement government reforms aimed at preventing future abuses -- and perhaps to bring accountability for wrongdoing by Bush officials.

"If we know this much about torture, rendition, secret prisons and warrantless wiretapping despite the administration's attempts to stonewall, then imagine what we don't know," says a senior Democratic congressional aide who is familiar with the proposal and has been involved in several high-profile congressional investigations.

"You have to go back to the McCarthy era to find this level of abuse," says Barry Steinhardt, the director of the Program on Technology and Liberty for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Because the Bush administration has been so opaque, we don't know [the extent of] what laws have been violated."

(continued at LINK)

Examine how and why a political party of the American people can act so egregiously toward the People of the U.S.A. that it's Leadership can't bring itself to defend and support the Republic, it seems that same leadership sees the necessity to violate the People's Right to free expression and dissent, even at a political rally.

Nothing says America more that the curbing and caging of dissent and the freedom to express one's self and the spying by the DNC when Liberty is interned.

A free speech graveyard at the Democratic National Convention
By John Whitehead 07/22/2008

If there's one thing the United States stands for, it's unfettered free speech. It is vital to a functioning democracy. Unfortunately, the increasing use by government and law enforcement officials of "free speech zones" and other stifling tactics to purge dissent has largely undermined the First Amendment's safeguards for political free speech.

For example, President Bush's Presidential Advance Manual outlines the specific strategies his administration has used to "minimize the demonstrator's effect." It includes such Orwellian tactics as selling tickets exclusively to presidential supporters and creating "rally squads" of supporters who will surround and drown out protesters with pro-Bush chants. The manual also discusses the strategy of asking local law enforcement to create a designated protest zone, "preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route."

Free speech zones have been employed by both Democrats and Republicans at past political conventions. This year, however, Democrats face the embarrassing possibility that they will be the only party actually caging dissenters. Protesters at the upcoming Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Denver in late August will be corralled into caged "free speech zones" made of chicken wire and chain link fences which are located more than two football fields from the delegates' entrance. Those who attempt to exercise their First Amendment rights outside this makeshift cage, which is partially obscured by trees and sculptures, will be arrested. (Ironically, protesters at this year's Republican National Convention will not face a cage or even policemen in riot gear.)

Even the news media, once considered a vital stronghold for ensuring accountability in government, is also conspiring to keep protesters out of sight and earshot. Members of the media are urging Denver officials to move the designated protest zone away from where media tents will be situated, reportedly due to concerns that loud demonstrations could disrupt broadcasts or that reporters and photographers could be doused with tear gas or pepper spray if there are confrontations between police and protesters.

With the news media having seemingly sold out the First Amendment rights of protesters for the sake of their own financial interests, it has been left to a handful of civil liberties organizations and protesters to challenge these restrictions in court. The courts have previously ruled that protests can be restricted in keeping with a reasonable time, place and manner. But if you're two football fields away and no one can see or hear you, it renders you all but invisible and irrelevant — which, of course, is the point of these so-called free speech zones.

It is only a slight exaggeration to refer to free speech zones as temporary concentration camps. Although the Holocaust has largely transformed our modern understanding of concentration camps, they were historically intended to "concentrate" populations of "dangerous" individuals into a small area so the government could monitor them more easily.

The 2004 DNC in Boston utilized such a camp, with surveillance cameras to record the individuals inside the cage. Conditions were so appalling that U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock referred to the designated protest zone as a "grim, mean, and oppressive space," which had the overall feel of an "internment camp."

As one visitor to the 2004 DNC free speech zone remarked:

Last night, I had my first direct experience with the so-called free speech zone. It left me with one conclusion: whatever you do, do NOT go inside. It's not only a blatant offense to free speech, but also highly dangerous and unsafe. I would suggest protesting anywhere in Boston but inside of it. No amount of hyperbole can accurately describe how disastrous the interior actually is. It's like a scene from some post-apocalyptic movie — a futuristic, industrial detention area from a Mad Max film. You are surrounded on all sides by concrete blocks and steel fencing, with razor wire lining the perimeter. Then, there is a giant black net over the entire space.

Concentrating, monitoring and minimizing the effects of protests are the real reasons for using designated protest zones. Protesters are only perceived as dangerous because their message challenges the status quo. It's the message that is feared. Thus, efforts to confine and control the dissenters are really efforts to confine and control their political messages, whatever those might be. This is true whether they're challenging environmental policies, free trade agreements or, as in Denver with the upcoming DNC, the political campaigns of candidates running for public office. And if Barack Obama is serious about being an active defender of civil liberties, he needs to openly condemn the fencing off of protesters at the upcoming DNC.

By severely restricting protesters' access to the media and to convention delegates, free speech zones destroy the power of dissenting viewpoints to foment debate and bring about change. Just imagine if the hundreds of thousands of participants in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which culminated with Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial, had been forced into free speech zones. There likely would not have been a 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The right of political free speech is the basis of all liberty. It's the citizen's right to confront the government and demand that they alter policies. But first, citizens have to be seen and heard. That's what "we the people" is all about. And only under extraordinary circumstances should free speech ever be restricted.

Caging people who want to exercise free speech goes against the entire concept of our Constitution, the Bill of Rights and what the revolutionary generation stood for. When political protest is caged, it's not just the rights of a few protesters that are at stake. The very definition of freedom is in danger. Freedom cannot be exercised from within a cage.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based civil liberties organization.

Then lets discuss what the Democrats have done to aide and abet the lawlessness on your watch.

GOT ACCOUNTABILITY? ... NOT!
But I see lip service.

State police spying is dangerous repression
By Maria Allwine
July 22, 2008

As one of the members of the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance who has been spied on by the Maryland State Police, I feel it important that people understand we in the Pledge of Resistance are the most peaceful, nonterrorist-type folks you could ever hope to meet. We are committed to raising awareness about the destructive forces of violence in our society and our country, which is one of the reasons we have protested the invasion of Iraq since before it occurred. It is because we love and value this country so much that we work to make it better, and we start by insisting that those in power obey its laws. It is because we are profoundly anguished by our government's illegal actions and what it has done to us and to our brothers and sisters around the world that we continue our peaceful work.

This spying and infiltration of the Pledge of Resistance and the Baltimore Coalition to Stop the Death Penalty cuts to the core of what we are as a country. Does the First Amendment of our Constitution really mean what it says when it guarantees freedom of speech, assembly and to petition our government, or is it something we learn about in school but never really understand and then forget? Do we as a people tolerate the tactics that countless dictators, past and present, use to terrorize their citizens to perpetuate their power? Or do we recognize spying on peaceful people who are trying to make this government and this country a truly free and harmonious place for what it is - repression in its rankest and most dangerous form that must not be tolerated in the United States of America?

A no-less-important issue is that in these dreadful economic times, the resources of our state were diverted to fund this illegal activity. I find it ironic, and would be laughing if I weren't so upset, that my tax dollars funded my surveillance. And your and my tax dollars have been diverted from dealing with real crime (of which there is no shortage), and real criminals who do mean us harm, to investigating two groups that by the repeated admissions of the infiltrators were engaging in nothing criminal and were completely nonviolent.

I am not only outraged but also sickened to my soul that because I do not agree with some of the policies of my government and work peacefully to change them, someone with power and authority decided that I have no First Amendment rights and labeled me a security threat and worse.

This is not what this country stands for. This is not who we are. Whatever side of the political or ideological spectrum people find themselves on, this issue cuts across all those boundaries. No one who is working peacefully and nonviolently should ever be surveilled - it is a simple and fundamental truth.

We in the Pledge of Resistance need to know who ordered this surveillance and why it was ordered. We also need a full accounting of the surveillance because we are almost certain we were infiltrated earlier than the documents suggest, and we want to know what steps are being taken to ensure that the surveillance is halted and never started again. The state police and Gov. Martin O'Malley owe this to every citizen of this state and certainly to us in the groups surveilled.

The First Amendment is the United States of America. I believe it and live it. Do you?

Honestly Congressman, I don't know what you support and defend IF NOT the Constitution, what then?

You've handed out umbrellas when Congress pissed on the Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Habeas Corpus, Eighth Amendment, and TORTURE... An umbrella is NOT a remedy, IT IS A COVER!

==============
I M P E A C H
or R E S I G N!!!

That they? are spying on peaceful protestors?

Do you really believe that they granted immunity to the tele-coN corporations ,after the fact?

Do you really believe that we, who write on your blog are "TERRORISTS"?

Are you incapable of SEEING the difference between reality and bullshit?

Do you really believe that we are here to be against you ,and not with you?

Only a couple more months John ,and you will have stalled long enough to have not done what needed to be done, to restore constitutional dignity to our country.
How hard could it be to bring a few simpletons to justice?

I suggest dropping off all traitors against that Ol Godamned piece of paper, in faluja, in the middle of the night,and letting them walk back home!
So how does it stand John? Are you with us , Or against us?

Via this diary, this Politico post reports that: (emphasis mine)

"...Syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak was cited by police after he hit a pedestrian with his black Corve...The pedestrian, a 66-year-old man who was not further identified by authorities, was treated at George Washington University Hospital for minor injuriestte in downtown Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning.."

"Novak said he was a block away from 18th and K streets Northwest, where the accident occurred, when a bicyclist stopped him and said he had hit someone. He said he was cited for failing to yield the right of way...

"...The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident...Bono said that the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk" signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and that Novak then made a right into the service lane of K Street. “This car is speeding away. What’s going through my mind is, you just can’t hit a pedestrian and drive away,” Bono said...

"...He said he chased Novak half a block down K Street, finally caught up with him and then put his bike in front of the car to block it and called 911..."

"Bono said that throughout, Novak "keeps trying to get away. He keeps trying to go.”

"...Novak, 77, has earned a reputation around the capital as an aggressive driver, easily identified in his convertible sports car.

"...In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th streets Northwest for allegedly jaywalking..."

Question: If we, the "little" people (i.e. "non-bushie media celebrities) "had a reputation for being an "aggressive driver". Had hit a pedestrian, in broad daylight, and ended up with the pedestrian "splayed across the windshield", yet proceeded to continue driving away from the scene of the accident when the pedestrian rolled off our vehicle, would we be able to jump back into our car and drive away from the scene of a hit an run, where the injured party was transported to the hospital? I seriously doubt it.