AP reporter e-mails: Yeah, it’s all Palin’s fault By Michelle Malkin • September 18, 2008 06:47 PM
Just call them the Associated (With Hackers) Press.
A reader e-mailed AP reporter Ted Bridis yesterday after Bridis’s article on the Palin e-mail hacking disclosed that the AP was refusing to cooperate with the feds and suggested that Palin was to blame for the crime. ( the AP Malkin refers to is the same news corp with a Republican hack parading as a reporter)
A headline from another right-wing blogger called Gateway Pundit, FATHER OF HACKER Is Tennessee Dem State Rep!!!!! …Update: Name- David Kernell …Update: He’s Been Contacted by Feds!
Easy to get the impression that these two Republicans care about privacy and the fundamental rules of law. Both of them supported the corruption of the 4th Amendment, FISA law and the FISA Court. They were and still are cheerleaders for the surveillance state. The big reason is that, seriously, they’re afraid they and their fans will be killed. If they chose to live their lives in fits of paranoid delusion that’s their business. Its their insistence on trampling over the rule of law and the privacy of others that is disturbing. An e-mail account that Governor Palin used to avoid public scrutiny is hacked and suddenly privacy and the rule of law matter. Two wrongs still don’t make a right as they say. Even though Palin may have been breaking the law by using a private e-mail to conduct official business and still get around Alaska’s laws that require government correspondence be achieved. Glenn Greenwald has a post up that details the blatant hypocrisy of the rightie pundits that were denouncing the “constitutional absolutists” and “civil liberties absolutists”. While most Americans think that we’re all equal under the law and think that we should have some consistency in our respect for the tenets of the Constitution the Right likes to take a different tact. They find a position that like on whatever issue on any given day and then backtrack to find some rationalization for it, Todd Palin Refuses to Comply With Subpoena. Ironically in the last 24 hours the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has renewed its efforts to stop illegal surveillance. Not a word of support from those Righties who have miraculously discovered the concept of privacy, Internet group sues Bush for electronic eavesdropping (Update)
“For years, the NSA has been engaged in a massive and massively illegal fishing expedition through AT&T’s domestic networks and databases of customer records.”
The suit names Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as attorneys general, the NSA director and 100 “john does” yet to be identified.
It accuses them of personally violating the US constitution and a host of federal laws by helping orchestrate or carry out illegal snooping of Internet and voice communications.
The lawsuit asks the court to order federal officials to account for and then destroy information illegally-obtained from AT&T databases and to pay unspecified cash damages.
It is unfortunate that Palin’s e-mails can’t be unhacked, we can all pretend they haven’t been and that if investigators flt they were pertinent to their investigation of her wrong doing to get them by legal means. We can undone some of the harm that has been done to our Constitutionally guaranteed rights by letting these lawsuits proceed.
McCain Flub? Republican Says He’d Fire SEC Chair as President
“While I have great respect for Sen. McCain, we have sometimes disagreed, and this is one such occasion,” Cox said in a statement. “The SEC has made plain that we have zero tolerance for naked short selling. In this market crisis, the men and women of the SEC have responded valiantly, as they always do –- with the utmost dedication and professionalism.”
The White House said this week it wants to stay out of politics, but a Bush administration spokesperson said today of SEC Chairman Cox, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, “The chairman has the president’s support.”
In the private sector asking someone to resign is frequently code for fired, but not so in government especially with chairs of regulatory agencies. McCain would know that if he hadn’t spent most of his adult life on the government payroll.
Obama campaign staffers note that several of McCain’s top advisors –- including campaign manager Rick Davis, vice presidential vetter Arthur Culvahouse, and McCain consigliere Charlie Black -– lobbied on behalf of the mortgage giants.
The Pain in Spain Falls Mainly on McCain
You gotta feel for Jos[a {e}] Luis Rodr[a {i}]guez Zapatero. Here the Spanish Prime Minister is only four months from an end to his government’s strained relations with that of President George W. Bush and blam! — along comes John McCain to suggest that the next four years might not be any better. During an interview in Miami earlier this week with Spanish-language station Union Radio, a reporter asked McCain whether, if elected, he would receive Zapatero in the White House. McCain answered, “Honestly, I have to analyze our relationships, situations and priorities, but I can assure you that I will establish closer relationships with our friends, and I will stand up to those who want to harm the United States.”
Spain is a member of NATO. You know, that organization that McCain thinks Georgia should be allowed to join. Those two major flubs. Serious flubs that once again raise doubts about McCain’s competence in two days would have sunk the Obama campaign. The worse the Obama-Biden team has done is suggest that paying your taxes is the right thing to do in order to maintain the infrastructure necessary to actually have a civilized country to live in.
The Long Goodbye 