Balkinization  

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Another Enemy of the People?

Mark Graber

I am posting the below with the permission of Professor Walter F. Murphy, emeritus of Princeton University. For those who do not know, Professor Murphy is easily the most distinguished scholar of public law in political science. His works on both constitutional theory and judicial behavior are classics in the field. Bluntly, legal scholarship that does not engage many themes in his book, briefly noted below, Constitutional Democracy, may be legal, but cannot be said to be scholarship. As interesting, for present purposes, readers of the book will discover that Murphy is hardly a conventional political or legal liberal. While he holds some opinions, most notably on welfare, similar to opinions held on the political left, he is a sharp critic of ROE V. WADE, and supported the Alito nomination. Apparently these credentials and others noted below are no longer sufficient to prevent one from becoming an enemy of the people.

"On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving."

"When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years."

"I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said. "

"After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: "I must warn you, they=re going to ransack your luggage." On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was "lost." Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this "loss" could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I'm a tad skeptical."

"I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any elected official, Democrat or Republican. That harassment is, in and of itself, a flagrant violation not only of the First Amendment but also of our entire scheme of constitutional government. This effort to punish a critic states my lecture's argument far more eloquently and forcefully than I ever could. Further, that an administration headed by two men who had "had other priorities" than to risk their own lives when their turn to fight for their country came up, should brand as a threat to the United States a person who did not run away but stood up and fought for his country and was wounded in battle, goes beyond the outrageous. Although less lethal, it is of the same evil ilk as punishing Ambassador Joseph Wilson for criticizing Bush's false claims by "outing" his wife, Valerie Plaime, thereby putting at risk her life as well as the lives of many people with whom she had had contact as an agent of the CIA. ..."

"I have a personal stake here, but so do all Americans who take their political system seriously. Thus I hope you and your colleagues will take some positive action to bring the Administration's conduct to the attention of a far larger, and more influential, audience than I could hope to reach. "

Comments:

If true, this is pretty outrageous.

Maybe someone can convince the Dems to investigate something worthwhile like this rather than the President's hiring or firing of his subordinates.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

I agree that if true, its ridiculous and the people should be fired.

That said, I am VERY SKEPTICAL -- at least that it happened like that.

I think we all agree that someone shouldn't be on a terrorist watch list even if they participated in a peace march.

But, I find it very difficult to believe that people are added solely because of that. For example, some individuals associated with the sponsors of the so-called "peace marches" are affilitiated with less than reputable organization that might warrant scrutiny. But more likely, he was added as a mistake -- which seems to happen far too often.

In the grand list of opponents to the administration, I'm sure the professor with his one "televised" and web available speech is FAR, FAR down the list. If they were going to start using such measures, there are hundreds of people that would be far more likely to have this done to them.

Prognosis: BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) or an accident.


p.s. Darn, I knew there was a conspiracy to "lose" luggage, now it all makes sense.
 

Okay, this is wierd. I sign into my "humblelawstudent" account, and it randomly seems to list my name as "Someone" when I post.
 

Although less lethal, it is of the same evil ilk as punishing Ambassador Joseph Wilson for criticizing Bush's false claims by "outing" his wife, Valerie Plaime, thereby putting at risk her life as well as the lives of many people with whom she had had contact as an agent of the CIA.

Repeating this lie and using it as an anology hardly lends the professor credibility in his claim against the TSA.

Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation long ago reported that war critic Richard Armitage working at the State Department inadvertently revealed Plame's involvement with the Wilson trip to Niger over two weeks before the Wilson op-ed piece. Multiple reporters were pursuing this story in the interim between the Armitage leak and the Wilson op-ed.
 

"Bart" DePalma tries the "fallacy of bifurcation" once again:

Maybe someone can convince the Dems to investigate something worthwhile like this rather than the President's hiring or firing of his subordinates.

Who says we need to choose, "Bart"? It's kind of like the intercourse between you and me here, "Bart": You keep shovelling out falsehoods, miscites, and specious logic by the ton, and there's gonna be lots of responses from me. Keep it down to one a day, and I can manage with one response.

Similarly with the maladministration: They want only one investigation? Well, then stop breaking or circumventing so many laws and prudent policy practises....

Cheers,
 

There is a podcast of the Sunday September 19, 2006 Madison lecture Walter Murphy delivered at Princeton entitled Wanted Constitution Dead or Alive. Besides the rhetorical flourish of that talk, perhaps to be expected in a speech to youthful lawstudents to entice their interest, there is reportage on the internet of the revered emeritus prof Murphy's having taken public exception to the policies that expanded government eavesdropping. That speech occurred, as well while the drubbing in the election the president's party endured was still a stinging memory. Additionally, the processes which produced the MCA rewrite of DTA were churning over those few weeks following the speech until the end of that year of 2006. Because of my own business entity's configuration limitations, I was reluctant to reset preferences to install the software for listening to the podcast of the speech, but it is archived, I believe, there. Which is far from aligning my own views with TSA's on the lost luggage question and surrounding imputations echoed in the post by the host author, above. Rather, it is likely, from my perspective, that the government's profiling systems were working as designed when they netted the esteemed emeritus professor; that computer likely had no knowledge that the administration, rather than being suspicious of the libertarian streak in this renowned and conservative professor, should have added an expedited processing attribute to the plus side of his profile, given his historical efforts to train the conservative now Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court, Samuel Alito. It is unfortunate that cyberprocesses are so humiliating and dehumanizing, and that the professor was disturbed in his travel and flagged as suspicious by the software. I suspect it is a case of garbage-in, garbage-out; that the humans who examined prof Murphy's records missed his place of respect in the legal community. Further, if one is capable of stripping the partisanship of the current congressional oversight committee investigations from their immediate effects in DoJ, it seems that the transitory result of serving as a balance for processes that need refinement is opportune and welcome in circles which extend far beyond government and academia. Yet, I have a tendency to see beyond the incidents and issues, the mechanics and quotidian results; instead I favor examination of process. Indeed, much of the message which Murphy conveys has to do with keeping governance within its definitions. Regrettably, much of the defense of the country in facing the nebulous stateless ideologic problems posed by various terrorists, sacrificed chinks of the bill of rights in order to plug gaps quickly, and deal with due process in followup. The difficult transom to pass through is just this followthrough, however; because, having set aside the checks and balances in order to achieve instantaneously effective results, there is a challenge in dislodging entrenched interests of both bureaucratic and volatile political sorts, as power, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and attempts to fill that unclaimed territory. The constitutional refinements which Murphy holds dear are important. Putting the most optimistic facade on the story, I would hope the glitch merely was a bulk processing of biographical information fed into a software filter that knew only the instructions to which it was programmed. So far, we have yet to invent the perfect constitutional law machine.
 

someone:

In the grand list of opponents to the administration, I'm sure the professor with his one "televised" and web available speech is FAR, FAR down the list....

It's a big list. ;-)

Don't look now but....

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DePalma:

Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation long ago reported that war critic Richard Armitage working at the State Department inadvertently revealed Plame's involvement with the Wilson trip to Niger over two weeks before the Wilson op-ed piece. Multiple reporters were pursuing this story in the interim between the Armitage leak and the Wilson op-ed.

Do you deny that Plame was outed? Do you deny that the maladministration did it? Do you deny that Libby and Rove independently leaked this information, before Plame was publicly outed?

I just wanna know why Rove still has a job, much less security clearance. The answer, of course, is that the maladministration doesn't care about law-breaking ... or anything else. All it cares about is protecting its own a$$.

Cheers,
 

Arne Langsetmo said...

"Bart" DePalma: Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation long ago reported that war critic Richard Armitage working at the State Department inadvertently revealed Plame's involvement with the Wilson trip to Niger over two weeks before the Wilson op-ed piece. Multiple reporters were pursuing this story in the interim between the Armitage leak and the Wilson op-ed.

Do you deny that Plame was outed?

In the manner you and the Professor suggest, yes. No one "outed" Plame to gain any sort of political revenge against Wilson. That is simply another in a long line of Mr. Wilson's self serving lies.

Do you deny that the maladministration did it? Do you deny that Libby and Rove independently leaked this information, before Plame was publicly outed?

Yes. Leaks are an affirmative act where the source contacts the reporter to anonymously reveal information to achieve the purpose of the leaker. In this case, Novak discovered Plame's connection with the Niger trip inadvertently by interviewing Armitage and then other reporters learned of this connection and contacted Rove and Libby to confirm the story.
 

Single incidents don't tell me much, esp. secondhand, nor does single comments, but 'someone' does interest me a bit.

"I think we all agree that someone shouldn't be on a terrorist watch list even if they participated in a peace march."

Well, sure, "even if" ... I will try not to be sarcastic here since sadly "we all" is probably being generous.

"affilitiated with less than reputable organization that might warrant scrutiny"

I'm not sure what "affilitiated" and "less than reputable" means. I guess avoiding events/marches sponsored by them might be a good thing for travelers.

The "that would do it" bit mentioned in the main post is a flag that incompetence is a useful thing. Imagine if the 'maladministration' (nice one) was able to do all this damage in a more skillful fashion. Ouchie.
 

Everybody knows that Valerie Plame sent her lucky-ducky husband Joseph Wilson on a vacation junket to Niger. That trip was a completely government-funded boondoggle. Likely as not, Joseph Wilson spent his entire trip sipping cool juices on the verandas of colonial villas while being fanned by the lovely women of Niger. What's some "former ambassador" going to know about gather intelligence? Nothing, that's what. Hence the juices and gals.

Oh, and every right-thinking person knows that Richard Armitage unknowingly and without the slightest criminal intent let slip Valerie Plame's name a good, you know, 3-9 days before His Hoary Eminence Robert Novak ever heard about her from that innocent victim of a partisan witchhunt Scooter Libby.
 

Although less lethal, it is of the same evil ilk as punishing Ambassador Joseph Wilson for criticizing Bush's false claims by "outing" his wife, Valerie Plaime

I'd have a bit more respect for the good professor if he was not repeating long disproven nonsense such as this. It makes me wonder about his concern for the facts in other cases, such as his encounter with the TSA.
 

One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said.

That part of the story seems a little over the top to me. I just can't imagine anyone affiliated with the airlines or with security saying "we ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I don't think they would have a job for very long, and for that reason, I don't believe it was said. It makes the whole story somewhat unbelievable, IMHO. Not to say it didn't happen, but it is hard to believe.
 

I'd have a bit more respect for the good professor if he was not repeating long disproven nonsense such as this. It makes me wonder about his concern for the facts in other cases, such as his encounter with the TSA.

I'm curious where and how you believe that "this" -- i.e., the outing of Plame in order to punish Wilson for his criticisms of the Administration -- was "disproven".
 

Mr. depalma
If you are so knowledgeable of the Plame case then perhaps you also know that Valerie Wilson DID NOT send her husband to Niger. She was asked to sound him out about going by other CIA officials.
Wilson had experience in Niger and it was thought he would be able to obtain any information about Iraq trying to buy yellow cake.
You must also know Valerie Wilson was pregnant at the time and would not want her husband gone if she could help it.
You would also be knowledgeable of how it came to be perceived that she sent her husband on the trip..a perception not investigated by either Rove or Cheney they just decided using this to discredit Wilson was more important than being truthful...something they excel at.
It appears you have selective studied the case and the facts.
 

Mark Field said...

I'm curious where and how you believe that "this" -- i.e., the outing of Plame in order to punish Wilson for his criticisms of the Administration -- was "disproven".

Novak and his colleagues discovered the information about Plame weeks before Wilson lied in his NYT op-ed about finding no evidence in Niger that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium.

Novak and his colleges initiated the contacts with the Bush Administration, not the other way around.

Novak's initial source was a state department war critic who had no ax to grind with Wilson.
 

Legerdmain said...

Mr. depalma, If you are so knowledgeable of the Plame case then perhaps you also know that Valerie Wilson DID NOT send her husband to Niger. She was asked to sound him out about going by other CIA officials.

This is in dispute. The initial CIA source who claimed that Plame recommended her husband changed his story later on. Plame did not comment on her role for a long time and has recently testified to Congress under oath that she did not recommend Wilson.

In any case, what got the VP's office so ticked off was that Wilson lied about being sent by the VP's office to Niger. Why would Wilson make up this story if not to protect the person which did send him? If that person was a simple functionary at the CIA WMD office, the lie makes no sense. If it was a case of nepotism by his wife, the lie makes much more sense.

Wilson had experience in Niger and it was thought he would be able to obtain any information about Iraq trying to buy yellow cake.

Wilson was and is a political operative who had no background in WMD. The fact that Wilson was unqualified for the job and a Dem political operative was what caused Novak to wonder why the Bushies would have sent Wilson in the first place.

You must also know Valerie Wilson was pregnant at the time and would not want her husband gone if she could help it.

Right. And that is why she either recommended Wilson or at the very least helped recruit him.

You need to take what Wilson and Plame have with an enormous grain of salt.

Wilson is a political partisan with a long track record of self serving lies.

Plame has been assisting him in this smear campaign so her political motives are also suspect.

Plame and Wilson are parties to a lawsuit against members of the Bush Administration seeking money damages.
 

People should know that there is no purpose served in discussing these things with bart depalma. Clearly he suffers from a personality disorder that prevents him from noticing obvious things. He could probably be standing on a beach and insist that there was no ocean.

I don't quite understand why he thinks "hiring or firing" subordinates shouldn't be of interest to Congress, when the people who tasked to defend these decisions have repeatedly lied to Congress. Lying to Congress is a crime, after all.

It is interesting to see somebody so blithely uninterested in the idea that a US federal prosecutor could be fired because he refuses to engage in politically-motivated prosecutions during election season, or another prosecutor fired because she has been systematically indicting and convicting a Republican congressman and his cronies. But depalma is an intellectual lightweight. He problem thinks that the prosecutors were fired because of performance issues.

It's not an explanation that bears up under scrutiny, but scrutiny is not something that a person like mr. deplama does well.
 

depalma

Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate yellowcake sales not WMDs, ust yellowcake. He is and was familiar with Niger since all his diplomatic postings were in Africa.
I am also curious as to why a career CIA officer whose current job at the time of your nepotism accusation was about WMDs would send her husband on a boondoggle to Africa? I know, even though she had been covert for many years she was secretly plotting the destruction of the Bush administration.
Do you know why Cheney and Rove jumped on the boondoggle angle? Because someone from another agency wrote a memo about the Joe wilson debriefing meeting at the CIA. This guy came in late and asked who had chaired the meeting and was told Wilson's wife introduced him...which it turned out is all she did as she left and went back to her job.
You have nothing credible to substantiate your allegations but like so many others it isn't a dispassionate analysis of facts you are interested in, just dogma and agenda.
 

How much is Bart DePalma being paid to divert our attention from the issue of the misuse of the terrorist watch list?

After all, none of the things he brings up have to do with the topic of the post, which is a clearly sourced story that illustrates how the Constitution is being dismantled by the Bush Administration.

Further, wasting the TSA's time harassing an "enemies list" is not the way to fight the real threat of terrorism. And why does "Brad" want us not to focus on this? Is Brad actually writing from Pakistan?
 

Holy crap Bartman, where'd you find these people.

Stop dredging them up from the musty backrooms of CPUSA.

And I used to think Arne was bad . . .
 

Something that I never see addressed: Why is it that there is a no-fly list? If the security measures in place are properly enforced, why would it hurt (from this particular perspective only) for Osama himself to get on a plane?

In other words, the bad people should be impotent, so why create a list to hassle peaceniks and government critics? It might have made some sense immediately after 9/11 (though I doubt it), but why now?
 

If true, and unfortunately I find it all too unlikely, then it is precisely of a part with the firing of US Attorneys. "Bart Depalma"--Can you not see this such as abuse flows from the politicizing of government? Government should be used to reward loyal Bushies and punish those who dare to disagree with King George?

How low have we sunk as a democracy that "someone" can write such drivel with a smug sense of righteousness: "I think we all agree that someone shouldn't be on a terrorist watch list even if they participated in a peace march." Yes, even if.

"But .... some individuals associated with the sponsors of the so-called "peace marches" are affilitiated with less than reputable organization that might warrant scrutiny."

A selective police state. Marvelous.

Why oh why do you hate us for our freedoms?
 

It is, of course wrong for this to happen.

If you're a republican voter, however, then I have no sympathy for you. One deserves what one votes for.

If course, my lack sympathy is very different from it's being wrong.
 

Meant to write that this account of what happened to Professor Murphy seems only too likely.
 

What is the constitutional basis for the No-Fly List?

It reminds me of a friend, a gregarious and charming man who is congenitally incapable of heeling to authority. As a result, he always had the habit, stopped by such (say, camping in a wilderness area without the appropriate permit), of responding in his impeccable, fake-German accent, "papers? But at the border they told me this was a free country."

He now flies all over the world for his work, so it is my supposition that he has had to tone down his joke. Too bad. His delivery was amazing.

On-topic, I absolutely believe the story as related. The question is not whether our intrepid reporter was on the list: the question is why (no data), whether his interlocutor was right about peace marches (some data, all supporting the conclusion) and whether his anti-Bush speech may have placed him on the list (little data, mostly supporting the possibility but suggesting its improbability).

Off-topic, but the local trolls have gotten really bad. I suggest the judicious use of comment deletions for the next little while. They are getting far too much attention, and succeeding at thei apparent goal of hijacking your discussions.
 

If we can't keep a ex-Marine law professor from flying around dissing GWB then the terrorist will win!
 

Or even two or more of them, all victorious.
 

Legerdmain said...

I am also curious as to why a career CIA officer whose current job at the time of your nepotism accusation was about WMDs would send her husband on a boondoggle to Africa?

It is a good question why anyone from CIA's WMD division would send Wilson to Niger. It doesn't make much sense. What were the agendas involved? Maybe we might learn some more when discovery gets under way in Plame's lawsuit.
 

Bart burbled, "Maybe we might learn some more when discovery gets under way in Plame's lawsuit."

Well, someone may learn in such a situation but Bart, my boy, your posts indicate that it will not be you. Congenital idiocy tends to be an impediment to learning, but then you've already demonstrated that amply in this forum...
 

Ah, the idea that prior service as a Marine would exempt you from accusations of being a terrorist sympathizer once you crossed over into political criticism of the president... simply adorable!
 

Mark said...

How much is Bart DePalma being paid to divert our attention from the issue of the misuse of the terrorist watch list?

Actually, regardless of whether Professor Murphy's story is true, Congress really ought to look at how the terrorist watch lists are created, maintained and used.

I suspect that the government is creating an enormous data base with every possible lead and they are afraid of discarding any of them for fear of being blamed for missing the next 9/11.

I wonder whether the government is using this entire data base to create its No Fly List or is attempting to use some methodology to assign some confidence level to the names on the list.

Congress really ought to look into this, but I fear that in this toxic political environment that Congress will be less interested in improving the list and instead use it as a partisan weapon.
 

please forgive me for a little self-indulgence, but, if the NSA, et al are inclined to tag this good prof, then they're probably reading the blog.

so I'd like to clarify that when in the past I have called Bush an incompetent, moral coward, I was just getting carried away.

I apologize. My doing so was mean and hurtful I regret it.
 

Bart...buddy...

Is that you from the old Greenwald blog? The right wing slobbering seems so familiar...

I think I'm choking up...I missed your spewings so much, the same way I miss the "Anna Nicole Smith" show...
 

There is something fundamentally wrong with a "no-fly list" that nobody but secretive government officials can access. There are many ways to prevent airborne terrorism, including bolting cockpit doors, x-raying baggage and x-raying people. The first, in particular, would have prevented 9/11. A no-fly list is pure Kafka and un-American.
 

Yeah, those violent marches.....hate it when people are prevented from driving to the Gap on a Saturday....if they can't, does Osama smile a bit? Jeez...this is disgraceful. Not necessarily surprising, but disgraceful
 

"Bart" DePalma:

[Arne]: Do you deny that Plame was outed?

In the manner you and the Professor suggest, yes. No one "outed" Plame to gain any sort of political revenge against Wilson. That is simply another in a long line of Mr. Wilson's self serving lies.


And you know why they outed Plame how?!?!?

[Arne]: Do you deny that the maladministration did it? Do you deny that Libby and Rove independently leaked this information, before Plame was publicly outed?

Yes. Leaks are an affirmative act where the source contacts the reporter to anonymously reveal information to achieve the purpose of the leaker.


Oh, BS. Leaks are an affirmative act where the leaker deliberately gives out the information, regardless of who called who. Care to explain why Libby, Rove, Armitage, and Fleischer were all peddling this stuff? Accident? Coincidence? I thnk not. Armitage may not have been doing so deliberately, but he may well have been duped into spreading this meme by Cheney et.al.. BTW, pretending that Armitage was some leftist, anti-war guy is nonsense, so don't even try.

Cheers,
 

allen:

That part of the story seems a little over the top to me. I just can't imagine anyone affiliated with the airlines or with security saying "we ban a lot of people from flying because of that."

I dunno. I'd say a fair number of TSA folks are pretty reasonable (they did let him fly). I wear my political T-shirts on plane flights (and I fly a lot), and I get "nice T-shirt" comments a smiles from the TSA folks (as well as one INS/DHS guy coming back one time). But they do have to follow the "rules" their bosses give 'em too. Thes people may well have just been honest working Joes.

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DePalma is confoozed and stoopid:

[Mark Field]: I'm curious where and how you believe that "this" -- i.e., the outing of Plame in order to punish Wilson for his criticisms of the Administration -- was "disproven".

Novak and his colleagues discovered the information about Plame weeks before Wilson lied in his NYT op-ed about finding no evidence in Niger that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium.


Aside fron the scurrilous characterisation of Wilson as having "lied", what does this prove WRT whether there was an attempt to discredit/punish Wilson by outing his wife? They (the maladministration) obviously knew who Wilson was, who his wife was, and what he did and said. That's why "GFY" Cheney was so steamed.

Novak and his colleges initiated the contacts with the Bush Administration, not the other way around.

Covered above. Are you really that stoopid, that you fall for this ridiculous 'argument', "Bart"?

Novak's initial source was a state department war critic who had no ax to grind with Wilson.

So? Also covered above. Nonetheless, while Novak was the only big enough putz to publish the information, Libby and ROve had revealed this information to other journalists as well (and well before this). How's that fit with your stoopid "It's Armitage! Armitage, I tellya" theory?

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DePalma throws out another "red herring":

In any case, what got the VP's office so ticked off was that Wilson lied about being sent by the VP's office to Niger.

Well, Wilson did get sent to Niger by Cheney ... indirectly. Cheney didn't say: "Send Wilson". Cheney said (AFAWK) "Go find out more about this". His inquiries to the CIA caused them to send Wilson to check out the story. Wilson said no more than that; he said his trip was at Cheney's office's request. It was.

Cheers,
 

We can "out" him now: "Bart" is a secret operative from the CIA/NSA/NSC/maladministration sent to spread misinformation here:

Wilson was and is a political operative who had no background in WMD.

And you know this exactly how, "Bart"?!?!?

Cheers,
 

And just in case it was missed... Wilson never claimed that Cheney sent him, he said that the CIA told him that they were acting in response to an inquiry from the Vice President's office.

One more time: Wilson never claimed Cheney wanted him to do anything, only that Cheney's office had asked the CIA to find out about this whole yellowcake thing.

Got it? No?

Read his Op Ed again.
 

someone [a/k/a humbelelawstudent]:

Holy crap Bartman, where'd you find these people.

Stop dredging them up from the musty backrooms of CPUSA.

And I used to think Arne was bad....


CPUSA? Uh, "Commies! Commies under my bed!" really doesn't pseak well for you.

Thes are just more people ticked off with the lies, misdirections, and slanders that "Bart" keeps shovelling.... Deal with it.

Cheers,
 

"Repeating this lie and using it as an anology hardly lends the professor credibility in his claim against the TSA."

That's rich, some nobody troll with a braincase filled with sawdust talking about the credibility of the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton and recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross for his service as a Marine in Korea. Perhaps, unlike you, he's familiar with the testimony at the Libby trial. In addition to Libby's passing on to reporters the information about Plame that he had received from Cheney -- something that he claimed he "forgot" -- there's also his fine patriotic outing -- at the president's order -- of critical contents of a NIE to Judith Miller.
 

emily:

There is something fundamentally wrong with a "no-fly list" that nobody but secretive government officials can access. There are many ways to prevent airborne terrorism, including bolting cockpit doors...

And AFAIK, Gore's panel had recommended this. It got shot down by the airline industry, in part.

Cheers,
 

Interesting flame-war/trolling you've got here...

Anyway, there are lots of stories like this, enough to lead me to believe that the various "no fly" lists have been subject to the same petty, ineffectual politicization as so many other public services under the Bush Administration.

It's always just the whiners and the troublemakers, until it happens to you. And even when "it happening" is just lost luggage or a flight delay, it's a wake-up call.

It shouldn't be like this.
 

"Novak's initial source was a state department war critic"

It helps to remember that Richard Armitage (along with Paul Wolfowitz,
Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, William Kristol, John Bolton, William Bennett, Elliott Abrams, and others of that ilk) was one of the signers of the "Plan for a New American Century" letter to President Clinton in 1998. The claim that he's a "war critic" is yet another of Bart's fabrications.
 

"I just can't imagine anyone affiliated with the airlines or with security saying "we ban a lot of people from flying because of that."

That's a fallacy known as argumentum ad ignorantiam. Just because you're incapable of imagining something doesn't mean it isn't true.

"I don't think they would have a job for very long"

They could simply say "C'mon, I would never say that!" and if their boss has the same incapacity you have, their job would be safe. OTOH, you have no way of knowing that they didn't lose their job. Not that I think they would, having had plenty of experience with cops, DAs, and others who talk freely -- when they aren't being recorded -- about the corruption of the system they are part of.
 

WCW said:

whether his interlocutor was right about peace marches (some data, all supporting the conclusion) and whether his anti-Bush speech may have placed him on the list (little data, mostly supporting the possibility but suggesting its improbability).

and

the local trolls have gotten really bad

You said exactly what I wanted to say.

I will add that as a practical matter, Congress only has so much time to do things, and if the Dems want to stay in power they have to balance investigation with legislation. To expect them to do more than they are doing now is to ask them to surrender power, so I don't think it is unfair to ask them to shift their focus.

The Federal Prosecutor investigations seem unlikely to turn up more than the fact that the Bush administration is populated by incompetent, politically non-adept, two-faced cronies who have few scruples and little respect for the jobs they are doing. I already knew that.

If it is really true that the Bush administration is putting political opponents on the No-Fly list, either out of malice or out of the manichean belief that they really are dangerous, I'd like to know that. I can't say I'd be shocked anymore, but I'd be angry.
 

Bart dePalma ought to learn some history and then he would know that Joseph Wilson was a diplomat to Iraq and Africa for George Herbert Walker Bush's administration. Regardless of whom in the CIA recommended him for the task of invetigating the possible Iraq-Niger yellowcake connection, he was eminently qualified to go.

Portraying Wilson's investigation as nepotism is an fraudulent and unethical way to attempt to discredit him and thus avoid giving credance to his findings: that the Bush Administration was lying about Iraq's nuclear capability in order to justify entering an immoral and illegal war.
 

"Congress really ought to look into this, but I fear that in this toxic political environment that Congress will be less interested in improving the list and instead use it as a partisan weapon."

In other words, your faux concern about the no-fly list is just another opportunistic moment to ding the Dems and insert this bogus meme. Here's the formula, which all good little right wing authoritarians, as well as nearly every member of the mainstream press (and there's considerable overlap) has down pat: If a Republican is being investigated or criticized, the investigation or criticism is partisan. And if a Democrat is investigating or criticizing, the investigation or criticism is partisan. That comprises the entire set of possibilities. Partisan acts by Republicans and non-partisan acts by Democrats (unless completely outside the political sphere, although often not even then) are simply unthinkable, perhaps even ungrammatical.
 

Some leftist site must have linked here. I've never seen so many moonbats outside of a cave before.
 

"The Federal Prosecutor investigations seem unlikely to turn up more than the fact that the Bush administration is populated by incompetent, politically non-adept, two-faced cronies who have few scruples and little respect for the jobs they are doing. I already knew that."

Uh, talking about incompetent and non-adept, your mental capacities are seriously suspect. The Federal Prosecutor issue is a goodly part of Rove's attempt to create a one-party system; the prosecutors who were fired are the ones who a) went after Republicans such as Duke Cunningham and b) refused to indict Democrats for "vote fraud" just before the election -- intended not only to swing those elections to Republicans but to turn the world topsy turvy, simultaneously legitimize the Republicans' corrupt voter intimidation methods and criminalizing those who refused to be intimidated. But hey, maybe you didn't already know that.
 

"Some leftist site must have linked here. I've never seen so many moonbats outside of a cave before."

Ah yes, intelligent thoughts must be quite foreign to "someone" who has never had one.
 

oh darn it, I'm about to feed a moonbat. Probably the last mistake I'll ever made, but here goes.

elissa feit,

Your statement is utterly ignorant. If you can pay attention long enough, I'll explain why.

The CIA, the joint Senate intelligence committee report, and the British Butler report explain that Bush wasn't lying and that Joseph Wilson's actual report he gave to the CIA actually BOLSTERED the case that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Niger.

For the Butler report's findings see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3892809.stm for a summary or http://www.butlerreview.org.uk/

For a summary of the joint (as in BI-PARTISON) Senate intelligence committee report on the affair, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html

See this WP editorial for a nice summary of the whole affair. The Bush administration isn't blameless, but it is hardly the only blameworthy party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101460_pf.html



p.s. The rest of you really should read the linked to material if you ever want a claim to intellectual rigor of any sort -- not that it stops your types generally.
 

Thanks TS for establishing beyond a doubt that you are part of the group!
 

"Thanks TS for establishing beyond a doubt that you are part of the group!"

What is well established here, with comments like that, is that you are a moron. And your next comment will further support that, and the one after that ...
 

Since some one moron is too incompetent to post a live link supporting his claims, I'll provide one:

http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html

One must read it carefully (that would take the sort of intellectual rigor that "someone" apparently lacks) to evaluate someone's claim that "Joseph Wilson's actual report he gave to the CIA actually BOLSTERED the case that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Niger".

So what actually does that page actually say actually happened?

But the Intelligence Committee report also reveals that Wilson brought back something else as well -- evidence that Iraq may well have wanted to buy uranium.

Wilson reported that he had met with Niger's former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries.
Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki "interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." In fact, the Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."

The subject of uranium sales never actually came up in the meeting, according to what Wilson later told the Senate Intelligence Committee staff. He quoted Mayaki as saying that when he met with the Iraqis he was wary of discussing any trade issues at all because Iraq remained under United Nations sanctions. According to Wilson, Mayaki steered the conversation away from any discussion of trade.

For that reason, Wilson himself has publicly dismissed the significance of the 1999 meeting. He said on NBC’s Meet the Press May 2, 2004:

Wilson: …At that meeting, uranium was not discussed. It would be a tragedy to think that we went to war over a conversation in which uranium was not discussed because the Niger official was sufficiently sophisticated to think that perhaps he might have wanted to discuss uranium at some later date.


Despite the fact that Wilson's report did not actually bolster the case, "someone" says that it actually did. Because, after all, "But that's not the way the CIA saw it at the time." That's right, the CIA that was under great pressure to "see" things just the way Cheney et. al. wanted them seen.
 

I thought this post was about the TSA and abuse of the terrorist 'no-fly list' by the Bush administration. Why are you folks rehashing the Plame affair? The jury is in on that one and the verdict is GUILTY on 4 out of 5 counts if I remember. You could google Scooter Libby to get that info if you care to. As far as the TSA incident, let me get this straight, should I believe a war hero who happens to be a nationally recognized Constitutional scholar who is only relating his personal experience without even putting it in a political perspective or the drivel spewed by some anonymous right wing shills on a blog whose only contribution to this discussion has been regurgitating off topic Rush Limbaugh talking points? I'll have to ponder that one....
 

As far as the other lame brain red herring, slightly less off topic due to its contemporaneity;

"The Federal Prosecutor investigations seem unlikely to turn up more than the fact that the Bush administration is populated by incompetent, politically non-adept, two-faced cronies who have few scruples and little respect for the jobs they are doing. I already knew that."

The question has now become lying, for you Republicans that is 'misspeaking, or 'can't recalling,' to Congress. I seem to remember that activity being a violation of all we hold sacred as a nation back in the 90s when it concerned consensual sex between two adults. If I recall it even led to impeachment hearings... I guess everything has changed since 9/11.
 

Perhaps if the investigation took place, than maybe the government would like into funding. However, the Australian law policies are far different. Sometimes to pursuade bodies to investigation media leverage should be used to build on social awareness on legal matters such as this.
 

Unconscionable and un-American (or it should be). An abuse of power. Participating in a peace demonstration is not cause to be put on a terrorist watch list, and daring to criticize the government is definitely not! I don't see why people find this hard to believe, given the news in the past couple years of the Pentagon's surveillance and illegal retention of records on peace groups and the like — not to mention the entire record of the Bush administration.
 

It was good for me to be reminded that right-wingers will make up silly stories, like that Richard Armitage is a war critic. He's a neocon Iran-Contra player that works for big oil and war profiteers!
 

How did everyone let themselves get carried away again... This thread was about putting people on no fly lists for no apparent reasons but policital ones.

Let me just quot a (not so) wise man who just recently said: "If true, this is pretty outrageous"
 

Dear Karl Rove,

stop posing as Bart DePalma.
 

"What is the constitutional basis for the No-Fly List?"

What is the constitutional basis of the war on drugs, campaign finance 'reform', federal gun control laws, and 23 million other things? The federal government does so many things it's got no genuine grant of authority to do, that the question has essentially become moot. The 'constitutional basis' is that the Supreme court stopped enforcing constitutional limits on federal power sometime back in the 1930's, in case you didn't notice.
 

Hey Bart, why should the party of the Seditious & Sleazy be allowed to do anything other than sit in jail for their treasonous rantings?

Now my favorite here is the barking moonbat is this, 'Arne Langsetmo' clown...

I mean who but a raving libtard with at best a tenuous grip on reality rants the following?

"Do you deny that Plame was outed? Do you deny that the maladministration did it? Do you deny that Libby and Rove independently leaked this information, before Plame was publicly outed?

I just wanna know why Rove still has a job, much less security clearance. The answer, of course, is that the maladministration doesn't care about law-breaking ... or anything else. All it cares about is protecting its own a$$.
"

Hey Arne, let me guess but I'm thinking you also swallowed the myth of human induced global warming too, right?
 

Well at least it is clear that the story is picking up steam in the blogosphere wingnuts from both sides are pouring in and leaving their filth on the forum.
 

I am an undergraduate college student and am very seriously considering leaving this country because apparently we are not any longer free to think what we want without suffering unjust and immoral consequences.

This professor had every right to criticize the constitutional overreaches of President Bush.

What kind of society criminalizes belief that is critical of the establishment, when the establishment refuses to play by the rules that we elect them to play by?
 

ts said...

Wilson reported that he had met with Niger's former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries.
Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki "interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." In fact, the Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."

The subject of uranium sales never actually came up in the meeting, according to what Wilson later told the Senate Intelligence Committee staff...


Mr. Wilson's only dossier in Niger was to discuss the subject of uranium with local officials. It is interesting that he now claims that he never brought up uranium with the former PM of Niger. One has to wonder if he discussed uranium with anyone else.
 

in the afterlife, bush/cheney, and this administration, and all those who supported them, will be feasted upon by the half million wardead. their livers will be eaten with fava bean and a fine chianti. the geneva convention is a "quaint" document in hell.

and all those with a soul, who think and feel, will be reincarnated into souls, who think and feel, and are able to love life and the planet we live upon, as well as one's fellow man.

bush better pray there is no god.


sa
 

ts,

This will be my last (only?) response to you. As much as I like wiping out easy targets, you are a complete waste a time.

Let this "moron" explain.

First, I greatly apologize that Blogger dropped of the end of the website addressed. But, two of them worked as listed, in particular the first WP article which explains my position. So, evidently, you didn't bother actually reading more than one -- I guess its more that you can handle at once.

Just add .stm to the end of the BBC link and .html to the other WP link, and they work fine.



The Factcheck.org report you cite itself, says

"Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."
and
"But that's not the way the CIA saw it at the time. In the CIA's view, Wilson's report bolstered suspicions that Iraq was indeed seeking uranium in Africa. The Senate report cited an intelligence officer who reviewed Wilson’s report upon his return from Niger:

Committee Report: He (the intelligence officer) said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerian officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerian Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting."


So, the articles do support my assertion. It takes someone like you to say because X says A, that means Not A is true. lol.


Furthermore, if you want to talk about Joe W's credibility here's something interesting from the WP.

The WP, "The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

Okay, so wait, wait for it...

""Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger."

Wow, Joseph Wilson has the ability to know when documents are wrong before even knowing what it is them!!! Awesome!

Here the WP sums up:
"Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously."




Okay, now I promise to stop feeding the moonbat frenzy.

p.s. Don't worry, I'l still respond to you Arne. ;) (u're grandfathered in) heh
 

Occam's Razor...sorry, but I've had my bag lost by the best of them, and that ain't AA...as much as I want to stick my "I believe" bumper sticker that Fox Mulder gave me on this conspiracy theory, I have to go with my first thought, that American Airlines is just as much of a bunch of inept fuckups as Delta, Northwest, and US Airways, all of whom have lost my luggage over the last 10 years.
 

It is unfortunate that cyberprocesses are so humiliating and dehumanizing, and that the professor was disturbed in his travel and flagged as suspicious by the software. I suspect it is a case of garbage-in, garbage-out; that the humans who examined prof Murphy's records missed his place of respect in the legal community.

What are you saying, Mr. Lopresti? That if a person had given a critical speech, but not had Prof. Murphy's "place of respect in the legal community", it would have been fine for the "humans" to flag that person as a terrorist suspect?

How chilling.
 

Right-wing retards are the same the world over.

As soon as ANYONE brings the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's report into the Plame-Wilson discussion, alarms should go off.

AS most everyone who has followed this case knows, THAT report made no mention of Wilson.

There was, however, an APPENDIX inserted that was so disgusting, so political, and so Dick Cheney that only 3 out of the 18 members, including 9 GOP, were forced to or found the balls to sign on to.

That appendix shredded the good name and reputation of a lifelong servant of the Constitution, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the Hero of Baghdad.

It is a SURE wingnut-troll alert when THAT particularly shameful chapter of Roberts' tenure as Chair is brought out, as though it lends legitimacy to the ongoing efforts to denigrate, demean, and destroy anyone who actively opposes this maladministration.
 

ts: apparently you do not believe in understatement as a rhetorical device. You might be more persuasive if you responded to people in good faith. If you think I am defending Alberto Gonzales or am ignorant of impropriety, then you have not read my comments accurately.

But, so long as Congress must prioritize its actions, I may critique those priorities. In my opinion, the enormity of the actions Murphy thinks the administration might have taken, mean that any credible allegations should be a Congressional priority. Yes, my opinion is open to critique, but calling me names isn't critique.
 

les izmore: Point taken on the red herring thing; I paid too much attention to the comments vs. the initial post. As for the perjury thing: I'd be a lot more excited about that scandal if I thought it would end in anyone getting impeached, but my prediction is that it will be dragged out, not do the Democrats much good, not actually do anything to investigate the cases the dismissed prosecutors were pursuing, and maybe not even increase the chances of a Gonzales resignation. I admit I might be wrong, but I just feel like they are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill when if they'd turn around they'd probably see the Himalayas.
 

Wellstone,

You wrote, "AS most everyone who has followed this case knows, THAT report made no mention of Wilson.

There was, however, an APPENDIX inserted that was so disgusting, so political, and so Dick Cheney that only 3 out of the 18 members, including 9 GOP, were forced to or found the balls to sign on to."



Lol, have you actually read the report? I promise you that you haven't. Because, IF YOU DID, you would see that the information ISN'T in the appendix. Its in the ACTUAL report.

The appendixes contain nothing relating to the controversy.

The discussion of Niger and the Joseph Wilson start on pg. 36 of the report.

Seriously, at least make it a challenge.

Here it is http://intelligence.senate.gov/108301.pdf


p.s. Crap, I just can't stop it. It's so easy.
 

I actually had a similar experience in JFK airport. I was flying from London last week to go to Princeton University and (i) I had to wait in a large white room waiting for an interview even though I come from a top French university, I have been invited by a professor of the Woodrow Wilson School in Princeton (ii) my luggage was 'lost'. I think the clue here is that I have a Moroccan name -- and by the way I'm not muslim. Racial profiling is a daily practice in American airports. Let us hope that the next president will be from the other party.
 

i was born in the wagon of a traveling show. my momma used to dance for the money they'd throw. papa would do whatever he could: preach a little gospel, sell a couple bottles of dr. good.

whoops. someone take the wheel.

out.
sa
 

jimm47:

The Federal Prosecutor investigations seem unlikely to turn up more than the fact that the Bush administration is populated by incompetent, politically non-adept, two-faced cronies who have few scruples and little respect for the jobs they are doing. I already knew that.

But lots of people don't. They have no idea how corruption, nepotism, cronyism, and such have resulted in the various maladies we see, from the dysfunctional FDA, to the politicised CPB and the crook Tomlinson, to Katrinagate, to the mess in Iraq detailed in "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" [which while incompetent was also totally unnecessary], to the U.S. Attorneys scandal [like the Minnesota prosecutors demoting themselves rather than having to report to Dubya's political hack], to folks like Safavian, that guy that was ripping off Target, Miers, Abu Ghriab, to the Custer Battles and Halliburton rip-offs, anonanonanonanon....

Lay out the scandals. Make sure the public understand how deeply and indelibly corrupt the maladministration and the Republican party is, and make sure they're never left within ten miles of even the smallest lever of power again.

A weekly read (and a browse thorugh the archives) of Democratic Underground's Top Ten Conservative Idiots and a daily read of Think Progress should be mandatory for anyone who wants to know what's going on.

Cheers,
 

Oh this is ridiculous. I worked in the airline industry as a check in agent and let me tell you that it doesn't work like this. A) we dont' know why you're on the list, and b) we aren't allowed to speculate. You're put on the list if there's a warrant out for your arrest, or if theres probable cause, from what i've seen. It averages out to probably one person on every flight is on the no fly list, but 10/10 times that i experienced it, it's because someone has the same name, or a similar name, or some sort of alias resembling whomever they're looking for. I think that the check in clerk that checked this guy in is a gossipy drama queen, and that this profesor is paranoid and looking for something where nothing is to be found.

This is evident b/c he got a bording pass no problem on the return flight - meaning that this individual person had been cleared from the list, because the documents had been xreferrenced. Besides that, do you really think that 'security officials' went through the luggage sortation system, pulled some guys luggage? occams razor, its sitting underneath a cart in some airport b/c some nimwit forgot to put it on the flight.
 

It's been 2,030 days since WMD said he'd catch Nine Eleven Conspirator UBL uh dead or alive?

Greetings from Albuquerque. I just don't fly. They can put me on all the damn lists they want. I was detained by Homeland Security S.S. Agents on the University of New Mexico Campus a few years ago. After the Jerusalem Post printed an editorial titled KILL ARAFAT, I sent the editor a letter saying I was cool with that, but don't forget that butcher Sharon. Anyway they flushed my weed, finger printed me, took some poloroids, and told me they'd be watching. The American People have been pretty stupid about everything forever, but I bet the S.S. has been busy. We are in for such a shit storm, I'd stock up on canned goods. Good luck everyone. regards.
 

Your papers please....welcome to the United Snakes of Amerika
 

someone (a/k/a humblelawstudent):

The CIA, the joint Senate intelligence committee report, and the British Butler report explain that Bush wasn't lying and that Joseph Wilson's actual report he gave to the CIA actually BOLSTERED the case that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Niger.

Nonsense. His report says they didn't seek yellowcake. He said there was no evidence of such. The best "evidence" you might wring out of that wet towel is that one Nigerian diplomat speculated that the only reason the Iraqis might have had for visiting in the late '90s was to seek such a deal, but this is just speculation and argumentum ad ignorantiam, not to mention that there were other possibilities for the trip, including just a "good will" trip, as the Iraqis were 'making the rounds' of African counties on that trip.

Cheers,
 

These comments are the low grade civil war simmering in the US Homeland, not Iraq. Pat Tillman was assassinated for preparing to speak out against the POTUS and the failure in Iraq. Valerie Plame was a covert CIA black op specializing in the Proliferation of WMD in rogue states, her cover was blow for speaking out against the lies the Pentagon's office of special plans and Israel disemenated about Iraq. Former US Attorney David Iglesias was an American Veteran, Republican, Christian, who was the basis for Tom Cruise's Character in a few good men, and was swift boated for not going along the RNC 2008 national strategy. It's a scandal!
 

To ond: there was more to my remark, which was far from a justification; call it making a polite excuse for the invasive and mistaken behavior of some kludged software program, meanwhile an inspector's chitchat appears outrageous but might indicate that the software algorithms actually would search for individuals with illicit opinions. Later in my one paragraph contribution I highlighted the counterbalancing effect of congress in the afterwash of the initial Patriot measures. I think this new congress appreciates that is one of its strongest mandates during its two years duration. If there is a lot to the WMurphy misadventures that needs evaluation, there are some advocacy organizations which might have the investigative experience and interests to add their counsel in the processes seeking to reveal what happened in this incident. It is best to keep the tenor respectful of the unfortunate prof, and hope as facts emerge according to his interests and requirements, remedies can be reached; maybe even congress will take an interest, as he clearly would be a witness of remarkable integrity.
This is a congress which was too encumbered to rewrite FISA; and some of the sunset provisions in Patriot may yet be up for rewrites; congress cobbled together a conflicted DTA, but reworked it into an MCA that has yet to survive a Supreme Court challenge, unless one counts the remand recently in Boumediene. I ascribe the latter to a temporizing by Scotus as much as to Scotus' instructional mode telling the DC court to attempt to make linear sense of MCA as written. After we read some Murphy reference works our conversation would be more germane.
 

"Bart" DePalma:

["ts", quoting an article]: Wilson reported that he had met with Niger's former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries.
Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki "interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." In fact, the Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."

["ts", more quote]: The subject of uranium sales never actually came up in the meeting, according to what Wilson later told the Senate Intelligence Committee staff...

Mr. Wilson's only dossier in Niger was to discuss the subject of uranium with local officials. It is interesting that he now claims that he never brought up uranium with the former PM of Niger. One has to wonder if he discussed uranium with anyone else.


"Bart": You need to earn to read for comprehension (or research). The "meeting" referred to is the Iraqi meeting with the former PM. If you were following the discussions on this tpic, you'd know this.

Cheers,
 

If the distinguished Col. Murphy is on the no-fly list, it would be my honor to be added to the no-fly list, too.

We should all volunteer to join the no-fly list.
 

One commentor said "I find it very difficult to believe that people are added solely because of that", referring to participating in a peace march. Well,I used to find it difficult too. The worst thing is, once you're on a terrorist list watch, you (any American) have no right to be told why, to challenge the facts in any legal way, to clear your name. Anyone who would install those conditions is not beyond putting you on a list because you participated in a peace march. It's time for those of us who are naive to the tactics of unbridled, power-grabbing despots to see the light. I did, and not so long ago.
jo
 

I'm with Anne here. The quantity of comments here is extraordinary, but the quality is the lowest I have ever seen on this blog.
 

Bard DePlame... err, I mean DePalma said:

Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation long ago reported that war critic Richard Armitage working at the State Department inadvertently revealed Plame's involvement with the Wilson trip to Niger over two weeks before the Wilson op-ed piece. Multiple reporters were pursuing this story in the interim between the Armitage leak and the Wilson op-ed.

I followed the link provided and found the following relevant passage regard Armitage:

First known outing to reporters: Armitage tells Woodward. Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward interviews Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage for his book. Armitage tells Woodward that Wilson's wife works for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst

Two things about that. First, it doesn't appear that Armitage said she was undercover and, more importantly, it doesn't sound like he gave up her name. That, though bad enough, in and of itself doesn't sound like THE outing to me.

Take a look at the transcript and you'll find that there is no direct reference in that conversation to the person of Valerie Plame. There certainly is no grand announcement of her name and undercover status in a major daily newspaper there as there was in the Novak column, THE outing.
 

somebody (a/k/a humblelawstudent):

Here the WP sums up:
"Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously."


Oh, the WaPo Op/Ed. Yeah, that was a piece of work.... Fred Hiatt fears for the loss of his coctail weenies, and has signed on full time with the maladministration.

Cheers,
 

jimm47:

I admit I might be wrong, but I just feel like they are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill when if they'd turn around they'd probably see the Himalayas.

As they say, it's a "target-rich environment". DO you recomment we withhold fire?

Cheers,
 

What do you expect from a frat rat administrarion. Underware for hats required for the professor to board?? If he deserves such treatment for any reason, let be his support for Ailito, and the unitary executive theories. The "we must support the leader no matter what" gang should be excluded from the high court. Can't we impeach Roberts for his conspitacy with the administration to circumvent Title 18 USC SS441- Warcrimes?? What we really need is an unitary nonexemption to executive illegality! Thanks
 

If anyone harbored doubts that we now live in a police state, this experience should put them to rest.

I have no doubt that plans to further tighten the noose are going forward now. In the near future we will likely have paid block-level informants reporting to the security apparat and the construction of large-scale additions to the American gulag, just as were used in the former Soviet Union and their puppets.

The window through which we can still retake control of the government is fast narrowing, probably too quickly to stem the totalitarian tide.
 

In the comments here, once again I see the words "junket" and "boondoggle" used to describe Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger. Since Valerie Plame's CIA role was exposed by Robert Novak, he and other Bush sycophants in the mainstream media have continued to portray Wilson going to Niger on a pleasure trip arranged by Plame, his wife.

Evidently, these journalists and TV talking heads have never been to Niger, or even read about the country. It is a land-locked hell-hole in north central Africa. No beaches. No fancy resorts. Not much of anythng, except dysentary, malaria and mosquitos that have become resistent to insecticides. Visitors are advised not to eat vegetables that have not been rinsed in chlorine bleach.

So, if you were sent to Niger, would you consider such a trip a "junket" or a "boondoggle"?
 

george bush swift boated my anus.

sa
 

ep:

Two things about that. First, it doesn't appear that Armitage said she was undercover and, more importantly, it doesn't sound like he gave up her name. That, though bad enough, in and of itself doesn't sound like THE outing to me.

Novak took the Armitage info and looked up Wilson's wife on Who's Who.

There is no reason for Armitage to say Plame was undercover because she was not. Plame lived quite openly and publicly under her given name.

Novak confirmed that Plame was CIA simply by calling the CIA.

There never was any intentional "outing."
 

In case y'all hadn't noticed, this blogpost is about a VETERAN, a CORPORAL at that, being placed on the Terrorist Watch List for simply saying something bad about Bush.

Noise machine indeed. Let's just ignore the fat purple elephant in the room while we argue about semantics about who is ultimately responsible for TREASON (outing a CIA operative is TREASON, end of discussion. Do not pass go, go straight to the hangman's noose, eh?)
 

"If true..." must have been what someone said when the concentration camps were reportedly set up for the mentally retarded,Russian POWs, homeless, political enemies, gays, swing band enthusiasts, and Jews etc.
Get your head out of yer butts folks it is real and is happening every day. Only difference is the ragheads are not doing it - we are to us. We are the enemy of the Far Right and now that Bush is in charge and until he is removed from office it will keep happening.
Personnaly, the sooner he is out of office the better no matter how it is done.
 

I think they meant to send a message by placing the professor on the Terrorist watch list.
That message being essentially this:

This is no longer the land you fought to protect. It is not the land of the free, or the brave. This country is not your America.
It is theirs...

and they will do with it, and you, whatever they want. Because no-one will stop them anymore.
 

"Someone" said,

"The CIA, the joint Senate intelligence committee report, and the British Butler report explain that Bush wasn't lying and that Joseph Wilson's actual report he gave to the CIA actually BOLSTERED the case that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Niger."

I looked at the Butler Report links Someone left us and found: (1) the first link (a summary) doesn't mention Wilson or Niger, (2) the full report mentions Wilson only in a short footnote, and (3) paragraphs 501-503 (pp. 138-139) of the report details Wilson's conclusions, that the documents were forged, without mentioning Wilson.

I suspect Someone's other claims are equally unsubstantial.
 

jt davis said:

"welcome to the hardcore wingnut "base". it's about 20 to 25, may even 30% of the population at this point. you cannot reason with it. any suggestions?"

yes, jt, i have a suggestion. while i to am impressed with the quantity of responses to the original post, the quality is deplorable, as usually happens when the original subject of the post is changed, and when the comments veer off into babyish name calling, as has, unfortunately occurred herein. i have found in the past, that a comment is completely off point, is needlessly vicious (as any vicious post is), or comes from somebody who is absolutely wrong on facts, law and anything else you can think of, but is just looking for an argument, if i simply ignore it, forego further comment and go on to the next post, i feel better, there are fewer ignoramous entries (including mine), and i can wait for another more meaningful post from one of the professors. it's amazing how it usually works.
 

What I am about to say is flagrant imputation...and probably mean-spirited.

-The Good Professor is reaping the whirlwind.
You can't be in two places at once.
-As involved in the Alito elevation as he apparently is; he must have known something of
the crowd with which he was about to run.
Or if he didn't, here's just generic blowback and sad at that.
These people will stop at nothing to consolidate power...often, lucky for us, stupidly.
With that good Irish name, his support of forced birth legislation and the 'Alito-Connection', a certain fundie Catholicism probably in play....and thus drawn some to the right in politics.
All that said...I have not the slightest doubt that what happened was as he reported happened and I am ashamed that he was thus...mistreated.
But then, I've been pretty ashamed of What-America-Has-Wrought for some years now
*also ex-Marine here*
 

Bart DePalma said: No one "outed" Plame to gain any sort of political revenge against Wilson. That is simply another in a long line of Mr. Wilson's self serving lies.
.
.
.
Just ban this rightwing blowhard troll, "Bart DePalma". There is absolutely nothing to gain from allowing his comments to be posted.
 

Here's what makes me skeptical: I've never heard of someone being told why they're on the no-fly list.

They still haven't told Cat Stevens why he can't come into our country. Why did they tell Walter F. Murphy?
 

Ah, the idea that prior service as a Marine would exempt you from accusations of being a terrorist sympathizer once you crossed over into political criticism of the president... simply adorable!
------------------------------

Wait ? are you SERIOUSLY implying that enacting my FIRST AMENDMENT rights as ACTUALLY INTENDED qualifies me as a terrorist sympathizer? You do realize the whole POINT of free speech is not so you can say anything you want. The 1st and 2nd amendments were DESIGNED as being important in a fight against an UNLAWFUL government.

First Peace THEN War

1st The RIGHT to criticize your government. its a intrinsic right that the government is BARRED from infringing upon. Putting you on a terror list for criticizing your president IS a DIRECT violation of your first amendment rights. Thats is the WHOLE REASON that part of the 1st amendment is there!!!

It is your patriotic DUTY to criticize your government when it does something it should not be doing.

That is about as PRO American as you can get!

Now putting him on a terror list because of his exercising that right. THAT is about as close to sympathizing with terrorism as you can get without actually physically doing it.

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is more important than freedom. EVEN LIFE itself is second to freedom for what is the point of life if your not free.
 

...maybe I'm stupid but I'm pretty sure that American airlines doesn't add people to watch lists. They're called "American Airlines", but they're not part of the government. I think the clerk was just messing with this guy because he was a jerk. "That'll do it." A ticket clerk at the airport has about as much insight into how the TSA works (or fails to) as a baggage handler does about the design of jet engines. While I don't deny that this was a mistake and may well have been caused by horribly oppressive and intrusive government policies, the statements by the clerk at the airline have almost no relevance to the issues at hand.
 

I am not quite sure of the sincerity of the author. Although it has become more common to hear one say a U.S. President's name without his title, it is disrespectful of the position if not disrespect of the American people (remember, they elect the President). Even the media will typically say "President Bush" in an article before following up with "Bush [this]" or "Bush [that]." It is strange to me (also a Ph.D. and former Marine), to hear a fellow academic and former Marine make that disrespectful remark. I wonder if there is more of a story beneath this dramatic and perhaps sensationalized blog entry.
 

Fred:

I am not quite sure of the sincerity of the author. Although it has become more common to hear one say a U.S. President's name without his title, it is disrespectful of the position if not disrespect of the American people (remember, they elect the President). Even the media will typically say "President Bush" in an article before following up with "Bush [this]" or "Bush [that]." It is strange to me (also a Ph.D. and former Marine), to hear a fellow academic and former Marine make that disrespectful remark. I wonder if there is more of a story beneath this dramatic and perhaps sensationalized blog entry.

OIC. The real crime here is that Stephen Griffin was not obsequious enough to refer to Dubya as "Preznit Bush".... All hail Der Führer! Sieg Heil!

Cheers,
 

Correction to my last post: It was not Steven Griffin (wrong post even, my bad), but Prof. Murphy, who used the words "George Bush" and "Bush" when referring to The Deciderator-In-Chief.

Nonetheless, my point remains.

Cheers,
 

Bart wrote: Novak confirmed that Plame was CIA simply by calling the CIA.

There never was any intentional "outing."


So all it takes to discover the identity of an undercover CIA operative is a phone call to the CIA?

Wow. With a CIA like that, who needs terrorists?
 

How could America vote for the same idiot twice?

Seriously, anyone who voted for Bush in the last election should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves. Assuming of course that the voter in question is not a rabid redneck with a room-temperature IQ, in which case they shouldn't be allowed to vote at all.

Professor, it makes me sad that your so-called "freedom of speech" has been marginalised in this way. Voicing criticisms of your government should not be punished. It should be applauded.

Please, America, don't put another person like Bush back into power. Ever again. He's does more harm to the world (and to America) in the last 8 years than the "terr'ists" could ever do.
 

I am not quite sure of the sincerity of the author. Although it has become more common to hear one say a U.S. President's name without his title, it is disrespectful of the position if not disrespect of the American people (remember, they elect the President). Even the media will typically say "President Bush" in an article before following up with "Bush [this]" or "Bush [that]."

Maybe people have stopped using his title because A) he hasn't earned it and B) he has lost what little respect many people had for him. When/if he starts acting like a President, maybe people will start referring to him as such.
 

The use of the term "maladministration" is rather quaint when we are years past "criminal regime" in reality.
 

Someone said: I agree that if true, its (sic) ridiculous and the people should be fired.

That said, I am VERY SKEPTICAL -- at least that it happened like that
.


Allen said: That part of the story seems a little over the top to me.

Believe it, already. You don't even have to be in a peace march. I never was.

However, one day last fall my Republican Congressman was campaigning outside my supermarket. When he stuck his hand out at me, I told him I just couldn't shake the hand of anyone who would vote to gut habeus corpus. His excuse? "Well, I'm not a lawyer."

I told him that wasn't necessary; all you needed to know why this was an incredibly bad idea was a passing grade in a junior high civics class. Except for refusing his hand, I was otherwise civil, in no way abusive or threatening.

One week later, I had the same experience as Colonel Murphy. Nothing of the kind ever happened even once in my previous 27 years of flying.

X doubts Professor Murphy because he: got a bording (sic) pass no problem on the return flight.

So did I. And the next time I tried to fly, the boarding pass was denied all over again. This and other "coincidences" have continued to occur each of the 3 other times I've flown since then. No "lost" luggage so far -- just bags returned to me 3 times without the TSA-removable locks they had when I checked them. I've taken the hint and started keeping my jewelry and small electronics in my carryon bag.

BTW, how did the Congressman know who I was, you ask? Simple. My car was in the front row of parking. One of the aides with him had plenty of time while I loaded my groceries to write down my license number. Which is yet another abuse of government power right there.
 

My father is a regional director of the Sierra Club. Since the Patriot Act, he has been put on airline watch lists that make it very difficult for him to fly.
 

This is almost unbelievable.

Thanks for posting this.
 

NEEDS ANOTHER DRUM TO BEAT

If he was on the "list", he would be the very last person to know. That information he said he got from airport security is not easily released.

http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/counterrorism/faqs.htm

Can I find out if I am in the TSDB?

The TSC cannot reveal whether a particular person is in the TSDB. The TSDB remains an effective tool in the government’s counterterrorism efforts because its contents are not disclosed. If TSC revealed who was in the TSDB, terrorist organizations would be able to circumvent the purpose of the terrorist watchlist by determining in advance which of their members are likely to be questioned or detained.
 

No one "outed" Plame to gain any sort of political revenge against Wilson. That is simply another in a long line of Mr. Wilson's self serving lies.

Yes, they did. It's all very clear and neither side disputes the authenticity of evidence. It's there in their own handwriting. See for yourself-like I did. Don't spread false chatter and utter nonsense.

She was outed for political gain which is unconscionable. Here's all the evidence you need: Office of Special Counsel

Perhaps then you will stop questioning just how vindictive this administration really is toward those who disagree.

Name one action they have supported which didn't turn into more chaos than cure...just one.

Professor, I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. It's typical policy of the "loyal Bushie" to have no problem relieving you of your civil rights.

I'm not sure its true; but I've heard they told themselves they were sinning for God.
 

In "Someone's" 11:16 posting, he refutes another poster's claim that the Wilson lambasting wasn't in the bipartisan report - it was in an Appendix signed by only three panel members. He says no, that was in the MAIN report, starting on page 36.

So. I went to that report and read twenty or thirty pages, starting at page 36. There's a lot of back and forth, nothing terribly clear, but the gist is that (a) Wilson's wife may have suggested him, (b) CIA agents have a different recollection of Wilson's debriefing than he does (or somebody lied), (c) Wilson appeared and/or claimed to know things he couldn't have known and possibly DIDN'T, (d) he was probably right on Saddam's actual chances of getting yellowcake from Niger (the INR agreed with Wilson all along), and (e) Wilson was absolutely right about those forged documents.

In view of (d) and (e), I don't give a crap whether points (a), (b), and (c) are entirely true or entirely false. I don't care if Wilson, in every other aspect of his personal and private life, has lied in every single statement to the press. I don't care if he lies to his mother and sleeps with animals.

I. Don't. Care.

The question for the country is whether Bush took us to war (a) for good reasons and (b) honestly -- two separate but related issues.

The personal virtue (or lack thereof) of Wilson/Plame is a red herring.

"Someone" also said: "The appendixes contain nothing relating to the controversy."

That is a HUGE lie. Several of them do, including the "alternative opinion" of Chairman Pat Roberts.

Here it is http://intelligence.senate.gov/108301.pdf

Bobby
 

Can some one verify this story to be true? Any other sources for this story available? What does the professor say?
 

"You're telling me that you're going to fake some terrorist thing just to get some money out of congress?"
"Well, unfortunately, Mr. Henessey, I have no idea how to fake killing four thousand people. So we're just going to have to do it for real. Oh, and blame it on the Muslims ..... naturally."

From the 1996 film 'The Long Kiss Goodnight' and from the Wikipedia entry for same, paraphrased below:

These exact lines are about 90 minutes into the film, a CIA man first hints that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was aided by the CIA to get the government to raise their funds to fight terrorism. So now, in their Operation Honeymoon, they decide to do just that.

One year later, this exchange from 'Wag the Dog':

Conrad 'Connie' Brean:
"Would you go to war to do that?"

CIA Agent Mr. Young:
"I have."

Conrad 'Connie' Brean:
"Well, I have, too. Would you do it again...? Isn't that why you're here? I guess so. And if you go to war again, who is it going to be against? Your "ability to fight a Two-ocean War" against who? Sweden and Togo? Who you sitting here to Go To War Against? That time has passed. It's passed. It's over. The war of the future is nuclear terrorism. It is and it will be against a small group of dissidents who, unbeknownst, perhaps, to their own governments, have blah blah blah. And to go to that war, you've got to be prepared. You have to be alert, and the public has to be alert. Cause that is the war of the future, and if you're not gearing up, to fight that war, eventually the axe will fall. And you're gonna be out in the street. And you can call this a "drill," or you can call it "job security," or you can call it anything you like. But I got one for you: you said, "Go to war to protect your Way of Life," well, Chuck, this is your way of life. Isn't it? And if there ain't no war, then you, my friend, can go home and prematurely take up golf. Because there ain't no war but ours."

Two movies that are quite interesting when watched back-to-back.

Unsettling how fiction can mimic fact, 4 to 5 years before the fact.

Cheers!
LJC
 

Kevin said: If he was on the "list", he would be the very last person to know. That information he said he got from airport security is not easily released.

Wrong. What they won't tell you is WHY you're on the list. As I said above, I had the same experience as Professor Murphy. This included waiting in the "problem" line long enough to to ensure that I would miss my flight. When I finally got to the desk, the nice lady asked for my ID, compared it to her screen, and chirped, "Yup, you're on the watch list!" I'd suspected as much by that time so what surprised me was her lack of surprise. I mentioned that, and she replied that hardly a day went by when she didn't break the bad news to someone. I've since talked to other people (including a friend for over 25 years) who report essentially the same experience.

It's true that TSC themselves won't tell you. They don't need to. Why should they waste their time looking it up? If you're calling them, you already have reason to suspect you're on the list.

Kevin also said:
If TSC revealed who was in the TSDB, terrorist organizations would be able to circumvent the purpose of the terrorist watchlist by determining in advance which of their members are likely to be questioned or detained.

Baloney. Any halfway competent terrorists would assume that any of them are "are likely to be questioned or detained" AT ANY TIME while traveling. Yet another reason the no-fly and watch lists are of highly dubious value at best. Face it: they are no longer about the terrorists at all. If they in fact ever were.
 

John Lopresti: Thanks for the clarification. I feel better. Somehow I worry that it is far from over. One of the candidates for president in 2008 is a man that was twice a coauthor of legislation degrading habeas corpus.
 

if this story is accurate this is outrageous. as a liberal i am inclined to think ill of the present administration.

however on one point i must differ. i am working on an airport explosives detection system that involves so called smart conveyors. i've had the dubious pleasure of spending a lot of time in baggage handling areas. we are all ready to pull our hair out with this smart system. Between the old system and the new pending system, i find it flabbergasting that anyone might think that current technology allows such pinpoint accuracy of luggage handling. Based on what i've seen, most of us are lucky not to receive our luggage coated in oil thrown from the conveyor belts and most of us are lucky that our belongings didn't fall off tugs driven at breakneck speed (and get run over by the tug right behind).

in short, i find the story plausible up until the claim of baggage being deliberately taken.

i work at a very well managed airport. i loathe bush. i want to believe this story, but....
 

I reread the entire thread and discovered that there are at least a handful of people who correctly observe that even Osama himself could do little damage on a regular flight if suitably searched for guns and boxcutters prior to boarding. Notwithstanding.. I'm too lazy to edit my own post and my general point still stands.

My Blog!
 

Being named Murphy myself I have to laugh at this episode. Prof Murphy was added to the list just as I was, my father was, my brother and my son. That a clerk at the AA counter told him they put people on the list for being in marches is funny! How does she know? She's a counter clerk for AA!

Prof Murphy should simply do what I have to do - walk past the curbside check in, don't use online check in, plan on having your bags searched and have an nice flight.
 

With a last name like MURPHY, it may be worth while to look into whether some one with the same name is part of the IRA. A friend of mine with the last name McKinley get periodically questioned becasue he has the same name as an IRA terrorist.
Specualting that this is a political witchhunt is jumping to conclusions.
If it is true.. i take that back.
 

"The subject of uranium sales never actually came up in the meeting, according to what Wilson later told the Senate Intelligence Committee staff..."

Mr. Wilson's only dossier in Niger was to discuss the subject of uranium with local officials. It is interesting that he now claims that he never brought up uranium with the former PM of Niger.


Bart, you truly are a stupid and uncomprehending person. It is not Wilson who did not bring up uranium sales; the meeting he referred to was between Malaki and the Iraqis; it is Malaki who said the subject of uranium never came up.

You might be more persuasive if you responded to people in good faith. If you think I am defending Alberto Gonzales or am ignorant of impropriety, then you have not read my comments accurately.

My, is that ever the pot calling the kettle black. It is not "good faith", jimm47, to respond to your erroneous imaginings about what I think, rather than what I actually wrote.

As much as I like wiping out easy targets

No doubt, "someone", as that's all your capable of, but you've wiped out nothing with your transparently dishonest selective quotation and analytical incompetence.
 

It is strange to me (also a Ph.D. and former Marine), to hear a fellow academic and former Marine make that disrespectful remark.

Perhaps it's time for you to remove that Marine rifle from up your butt, Fred -- it seems to be impinging on your brain. Surely it would be insincere for people who, rightly or wrongly, do not respect George Bush to treat him with deference.
 

I'm not sure which is more pathetic, that the good McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) has such an overblown sense of self-importance that he is able to spin a minor airport inconvenience into such a grand tale of political repression, or that so many commentors are so paranoid and gulliable that they swallow this story hook, line and sinker.
 

Bill Johnson said...

I am the editor and publisher of www.desertjournalonline.com that has been very critical of the Bush Administration even before the Iraq war started. Most of this criticism may be found on my editorial page:
http://www.desertjournalonline.com/EditorialPage.htm

I am a veteran of the U.S. Navy, served one year with VISTA and for eight years I owned and operated a weekly newspaper in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, until May 2003, two months after the Iraq War started. There are many reasons for the downfall of the award winning Desert Journal, but I believe the number one reason was my harsh criticism of Bush, including his failed war policies and his infringement on Americans' rights. I have called for his and Cheney's impeachment for high crimes against the American people, yes - call it treason, that's what they did. But now I think a political solution isn't the only answer - these tyrants must answer to criminal charges too.
My main concern with Professor Murphy's story is that I and thousands, if not millions of Americans, are being branded on the terrorist watch list for exercising our first amendment, free speech rights, not only in the press, but over our telephone lines and electronic mail transmissions. This is just another example of the crimes being committed against the American people. We must act to end their ploy - they work for corporate mobsters (and these include the industrial military complex) who have robbed the treasury blind.
 

As frightening as this story is initially, it sounds like this was probably more an issue of an uninformed clerk making it up rather than a conspiracy to limit our first amendment rights.
 

This is one of the most absurd stories I've ever heard. I've flown only once since 9/11, and my wife and I were both selected for the same kind of treatment as the professor describes both going and returning home. Also, they lost my wife's luggage on the return trip, which was later found and returned to us several days later. Now, I'm a lifelong Republican and we both voted for Bush both times. How did we get on the list? This is just a paranoid old professor who is so gullible he'll believe anything if it fits with his imagined world view.
 

me thinks the profs do protest too much - their political bias and paranoia is showing. Thousands of air travelers every day get the same treatment as Prof. Murphy, right down to the lost baggage. I've been singled out by TSA, taken aside, wanded, searched, bags searched, ID taken away then returned. Not nice, but that's the world we live in. Someone as distinguished as Prof Murphy should know better than to believe rumors repeated by airline clerks, skycaps and low level government employees.
 

That explains why my luggage was ramsacked two years ago on my way back to Beirut Lebanon.

Amazing story, thanks for writing it.
 

omg...sadly, i'm not surprised. i don't know what i feel more, sadness or shame, for the state of affairs that our nation is in, both domestically and internationally. i'm so sorry to hear this happened to you...

http://thevoid0.stumbleupon.com/
 

Bill Johnson writes:

It seems doubting toms discredit the prof's story by speaking of underling TSA employees; however, they have had four years since 9/11 to know what the general facts are. I believe Murphy's story and it's NOT all that absurd. In fact, I spoke with the gentleman yesterday and we expressed concerns that this treatment may extend beyond the dissidents who have published criticism against the White House; it also may extend to those who dare criticize Bush over the phone and in e-mails. The goons might as well single out all of the people who voted for Democratic congressman during the 2006 election!
 

Bush&Co. and all of his little Bush-Bot yes men need jail time or worse! The so called GOP followers, (God of the people) also need jail time! Their human rights record in the USA is a joke and makes all of America look like the the old USSR! I hope that I live long enough to see all of them hanged or in jail!!!!
 

Just read about your story on an article, and read the blog post. This is so upsetting, and yet not alarming at all. I have heard other examples of this and it brings me to the one saying that I have about the world..."It won't be long now," ...cheers to those who know what I mean.
 

Even paranoid people have enemies but unfortunatly they are usually invisible with names like Harvey. Try again, I think you are mad.
 

That is an interesting article; however, you need to learn to write using correct punctuation and grammar. That article was among the hardest to read that I have ever come across.
 

This sounds like another example of how this country is getting out of control. These are actions taken against the American people are a violation of civil rights and show how the government is taken the power from the people who put them in power! This is not the first story I have read like this. There are many more and if only half of them are true it still puts our country in a downward spiral of civil liberties.
 

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I found professor Murphy's email address on his Princeton facility web page, and then personally wrote the professor to see if this was in fact . He said He indeed did go through this, and once more again on April 12th!!! He said he's recently gotten dozens of calls from other professors that have gone thru the same thing. I'm going to try an post it the full email he sent me if I'm aloud.
 

This is the Email the professor wrote back to me when I ask him if it was true, and that I was very concerned ect..
-----------
Sorry, I tried earlier to send you a long e-mail. but somehow it flew off into cyber
space.

I don't know which blog you read (I don't have one) but , on 1 March 07, I was denied a
boarding pass; I was told by 2 airline employees (TSA agents instruct airlines, they
themselves do not come out and speak to passengers) that I was on the Terrorist Watch
List. It took a bit of discussion but a sympathetic Am Airlines clerk took my USMC ID
and left the check-in area. He returned about 10 minutes later and said he could issue me
a boarding pass.

I'm sure I'm on one of TSA's lists (TSA officials said I can't know that as a fact)
because when I tried to fly on 12 April, the same thing happened, tho' this time, another
very synmpathetic clerk said TSA would not tell her why I was denied the pass.

You may want to know how TSA (really Homeland Security) prepares the lists (several,
arranged according to degree of badness): 1st HS collects info from the FBI & CIA and
its own sources; then agents (names sceret, of course) apply standards that HL will not
reveal, to compile lists, which are kept secret. The only way to know if you or I are on
the list is to try to fly. Thus we have secret lists, compiled in secret by secret
agents using secret standards -- hardly an open process. Because, if we think we're on
any of the lists, we can't know why, we are helpless -- unless we're willing to go public
and embarrass these agencies. And they're not easily embarrassed. When Nat'l Public
Radio asked TSA why I was on their lists they replied that they only put people on who
are suspected of being terrorists or associated with terrorists. That claim destroys the
only innocent possibility here: A simple bureaucratic error.


My belief that I am being punished for publicly criticising Bush has been reinforced by
numerous phone calls and e-mails from other critics who are being similarly punished.
And, of course, there is the punishment meted out to Ambassador Wilson when he showed
that Bush was speaking falsely in claiming that Iraq was importing weapons-grade Uranium
from Nigeria. Immediately, White House officials "outed" Wilson wife, Valerie Plaime, a
CIA agent. They not only put her life in danger but also the lives of her various
contacts in foreign countries. Incidentally, they also committed a serious federal crime.

I know that I have been accused of making up the story. Thus when I tried to fly on 12
April I brought a witness along. I am prepared to swear to the truth of what I described
in my letter to Sen. Bingaman and, along with my witness, to what happened on 12 April.

As I noted, the only way to fight this effort to destroy the American system of
government, under which any citizen can at any time criticize any public official, is to
speak out. I shall continue to criticize Bush, having also criticized Clinton and many
other presidents. Bush's efforts to punish his critics is an attack on the basic fabric
of our political system.

Thanks for being concerned,

WFM

-----------
He wrote me back the very next day !
 

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It is SO nice to be under the opressive thumb of Hitler and the Fourth Reich; bush and his flying monkey administration is, if nothing else, what America didn't want to be.

Thanks in part to his "Fatherland Security", we now are witness to the destruction of America, and the beginning of the new Republic of the USSA.....

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To the people on here that just can not believe the level of suspicion it takes to believe the TSA treated the professor that way... would you stop and think that maybe that is why there are so many people upset at the level of paranoia our government is showing these days?

This incident is not isolated. Search for the washington post article "Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented"

Zakariya Reed, a Toledo firefighter, said in an interview that he has been detained at least seven times at the Michigan border since fall 2006. Twice, he said, he was questioned by border officials about "politically charged" opinion pieces he had published in his local newspaper. The essays were critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, he said. Once, during a secondary interview, he said, "they had them printed out on the table in front of me."

-end paste-

So who does not have an opinion on the Iraq war? Would this guy have been shaken down at the boarder if his opinions were just as strong IN FAVOR of the current administrations policies?

Anyone who is a student of history should feel much less safe with such totalitarian information regimes in place.

At what cost "safety"? Allow me risk!
 

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"I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any elected official, Democrat or Republican. That harassment is, in and of itself, a flagrant violation not only of the First Amendment but also of our entire scheme of constitutional government. This effort to punish a critic states my lecture's argument far more eloquently and forcefully than I ever could."

what a great article. The above quote is extremely true, and i agree with it 100%.
This is pretty outrageous.

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I'm not surprised that Professor Walter F. Murphy is being watched. A friend of my daughter is on the 'no-fly' list for demonstrating against NAFTA years ago. Remember that Cat Stevens wasn't allowed into the country? Please recall that when the Taliban first took over Afghanistan, they destroyed the schools, kept all females from being educated or working, killed teachers & burned books, locked down the various forms of media, captured, tortured people who did not conform to their radical beliefs (men had to wear beards, women had to be completely covered) all in the name of religion. Mussilini & Hitler did very much the thing as we see G.W.B. & Cheney doing now..only no one is stopping them. We're too afraid of terrorists. Well please don't worry about me. I'm not afraid of people coming here & killing me, unless they're in US Military clothing. Wake up people. Since when would ANY plane be allowed to enter the air space of the Pentagon? Wake up.
 

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