The privacy of law-abiding, average American citizens has been compromised by the federal government. Recent reports by the Justice Department's Inspector General, cited extensively in last week's news, make it clear that basic rights are being trampled right here at home. The Administration insisted publicly that no wide-net would be cast, yet the real volume of intercepted email and magnitude of eavesdropping is staggering. To find out how the federal government may be gathering and using information about you, check out this interactive site owned by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
More onerous is the fact that the process has been overseen by fumbling and incompetent operatives with no sense of public responsibility or personal honor. Techies, ponder this: The Feds have a data mining operation in place that can take ten-terabyte gulps of data and process it in under a minute. Now that's very good for science, but it doesn't bode well for maintaining personal privacy.
On weekend news shows, prominent Democratic senators Joe Biden and Charles Schumer called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to do the honorable thing: resign. After all, this massive intrusion into our personal lives and information came on his watch. Can anybody say "accountability?"
Not Gonzales. During his tenure our privacy and basic rights have been compromised; we have continued to use widely-questioned methods of torture in our interrogations, and have legions of seized prisoners to whom we have denied the basic rights of Habeas Corpus. 
Now, we are faced with the specter of political firings of perfectly performing federal attorneys — who resisted overt pressure from Washington to put justice aside for political motives. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse. In one case, a federal attorney was fired to make room for an aide to Arch-Mage of the Dark Side, Karl Rove. Will somebody please pass the air sickness bag?
Making matters worse, instead of being accountable the AG has been dismissive of the problem, labeling it an "overblown personnel matter." Yea, uh huh. News bulletin: all the fired attorneys had great performance reviews. The president could take a lesson from Sec. of Defense Robert Gates, who when confronted with the same dismissive attitude about the treatment of disabled veterans at Walter Reed Hospital's outsourced rehabilitation center immediately fired the top two generals involved and sent a strong message to the services that this kind of outrageous behavior would not be tolerated. I'm guessing that's not going to happen in the Justice Department.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Barbarabow
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
2 - moonraven
He should be FIRED!
But he won't be fired, as he is the Bush Mafia's consigliare (sp?)--doing exactly what his bosses want him to do, as well as putting a feather in their affirmative action cap.
He will continue to pass the buck to his subordinates, as in this--just off the Yahoo news site:
"Gonzales earlier accepted the resignation of his top aide, Kyle Sampson. Authorities said that Sampson failed to brief other senior Justice Department officials of his discussions about the firings with then-White House counsel Harriet Miers.
E-mail correspondence between Sampson and Miers indicate they began two years ago to consider individual U.S. attorneys for possible dismissal. As the list took shape, their correspondence indicated possible political backlash from the attorneys and their congressional allies."
3 - Dave Nalle
In an effort to be bipartisan Bush keeps on the overwhelming majority of the Clinton appointed prosecutors and now people get upset when he has 8 of them fired.
Are you aware that when Clinton took office he fired EVERY SINGLE FEDERAL PROSECUTOR?
Dave
4 - moonraven
It was probably an okay idea for Clinton to fire the prosecutors. Clinton is not stupid.
It was NOT an okay idea for Alberto Gonzalez to be appointed Attorney General.
He should be fired--for being a scumbag and for sponsoring the destruction of human rights--both in the US and in other countries where the US has tortured folks.
5 - Yo-Duh
With respect to Dave's comment, I am aware that Clinton fired federal prosecutors when he was elected. I submit, however, that cleaning house when putting a new administration in place is a substantially different circumstance. If Bush kept Clinton prosecutors, and I confess I don't have those numbes, I would guess that it was because they were above reproach and doing fine jobs. The 8 Bush just fired, BTW, were his own appointees from my research. Just moved aside for good work and ethical judgements to make room for more politicized sorts. I am gratified that this discussion is taking place. Now for the loss of privacy part...
6 - Anpu
Some of the employees are misplaced and better suited at other line of work, including the governor of California and Minnosota along with a number of the senators.
7 - JustOneMan
moonraven...Based upon your left wing racists views should all SPICs, NIGS, JEWS, etc be fired??
JOM
8 - The Truth
moonraven shows that its all politics for her. if it's a lib it's o.k. if a republican, the world has come to an end. it's o.k. when clinton hacks steal clasified documents but if a republican president replaces a few attorneys it's a crime. what a bunch of jokes.
9 - Dave Nalle
Yo-Duh, were you aware that several of the US Attorneys Clinton fired were investigating him, his wife or his cronies like Webster Hubble at the time they were fired?
Dave
10 - jaz
once again, i had raised this very Issue earlier on other Threads...allow me to place some links and talk about what appears to have been missed...to misunderstood
these Prosecutors serve "at the pleasure of the President" and can be fired for almost any reason at all at any time...when fired, anew appointee is selected by the WH and confirmed by the Senate...
that was the case in all previous instances of firing these attorneys, usually a policy "clean sweep" once the office was taken
in this instance, such is not the case....information that has come out, as well as the allegations by some of the Prosecutors themselves (all republican Bush appointees) that there were purely [partisan political reason they were terminated
this article touches the surface of the real issues at hand.
when the firings first happened, the WH and AG's office said ti was all about "performance", yet many of these Prosecutors had recently had their reviews, and they were beyond reproach when it came to their performance of duties
instead, what e-mails and memos begin to show (talked about in the linked article) was that these Republican, Bush appointees were not following up on cases the Administration (and others) wanted prosecuted for political reasons
(one involves a GOP senator who wanted a prosecution pushed up, so tha an indictment could be in the newspapers just before last November's election..the Prosecutor refused, on the grounds of not having enough evidence to go forward at the time, still under investigation...this was complained about to the WH....the Prosecutor is one who was fired)
the underlying problem here is the attempt to deliberately undermine the Justice department and turn it into an enforcement arm of partisan politics rather than an impartial exercise of the Rule of Law, this was covered extensively by former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough last night.. Including the e-mails outlining the WH and AG role in the decision making , as well as the why of it being discussed in said e-mails.
it was all about circumventing the confirmation process by abusing a provision in the PATRIOT Act that allowed Prosecutors to be replaced without confirmation by the Senate "in times of extreme emergency"
So the problems are not with the firings in and of themselves...but about
1) lying about the reasons
2) ousting Prosecutors who are intended to be impartial , a political and non-partisan with loyal to the Administration partisan appointees who would carry out the political directive (NOT judicial ones)
3) deliberately attempting to exploit a flaw in the Patriot act(by Gonzalez, th man instrumental in writing the Patriot act while WH counsel) in order to bypass confirmation hearings (that being what differentiates this from ALL other firings of these prosecutors in the past...if fired, new ones were ALWAYS confirmed by the Senate)
more info here.
still far too early in the investigations to say anything with certainty, the process will continue to be looked at by the Senate and Congress
but this is a VERY important Issue due to the structure of our government into 3 equal branches meant to check and balance each other
this incident shows the possibility of an attempt to undermine the system, not to make the Justice department better at catching criminals, but to try and establish the Justice department as an enforcement arm of partisan politics
11 - Nancy
Just more of the same old same old courtesy of Karl Rove, Dirty Dick Cheney, & our paragon of Ethics, Dubya.
12 - moonraven
It is always All about politics.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply misinformed.
13 - Yo-Duh
Today, 3/14, NH Republican Senator John Sununu joined his Democratic colleagues in calling for the resignation of AG Gonzales. Puts an exclammation point on the issue, as well-known Republicans abandon ship. Now, it is about the cover up and honesty in government.
14 - Dave Nalle
that was the case in all previous instances of firing these attorneys, usually a policy "clean sweep" once the office was taken
This is the story that's being circulated, but it is not true. The only recent president to do a clean sweep firing was Clinton. Prior presidents all did selective firings based on personal criteria on which they were not called into question.
The truth is that it has been a tradition of Republican administrations, including this one, to keep on good solid prosecutors regardless of political affiliation if they are willing to enforce administration and DOJ policy. With all of these firings the main problem was that the attorneys weren't willing to do the job the way their higher-ups told them to.
You may think their ideas of how their jobs should have been done were better than those of the administration, but the fact is that these guys serve at the will of the administration and should be following orders.
Dave
15 - moonraven
Whose orders is Dave following by being so deliberately obtuse about this issue?
16 - The Truth
Moonraven -
So since it's all about politics for you, it makes no difference what someone does, it is all about party politics? If a Dem has $90 grand, from bribes, in their freezer thats O.K. but if a Republican farts in public they should be fired? The health of the Country means nothing its all about your Lib/Social agenda.
17 - troll
do you think that moonraven is a democrat - ?
18 - jaz
point of fact ...this is not about what fucked up shit Clinton did...funny how ALL the usual suspects have been trotting this one out to try and distract from the facts
let the investigations proceed and see how it works out, funny how Gonzalez's chief of staff resigned immediately
but i'm more than content to allow the process to take it's course
19 - troll
well the investigations certainly will keep a bunch of congressional staffers off the streets...
20 - moonraven
It is not all about politics for ME.
There is nothing that is not political--that's just reality.
All education is political.
All economics are political.
And an infinite host of etceteras.
Being naive is also a political stance--akin to covering ones eyes to avoid seeing.
21 - moonraven
Oh yeah, the health of the country--what the fuck is that?
Troll, Since I have stated many times over that I have no ideological afiliation, I obviously have no party afiliation either.
22 - troll
yes I know
23 - Arch Conservative
"But he won't be fired, as he is the Bush Mafia's consigliare (sp?)--doing exactly what his bosses want him to do, as well as putting a feather in their affirmative action cap."
That's right Moonbat..you don't like a house nigger unless he's your house nigger huh?
24 - The Truth
moonraven,
I'm new here so set me straight - you don't care about the Country? I do agree that everything is political but it doesn't have to be partisan. The reason I fugured you and Jaz were Dem's is because you don't want to talk about any of the MANY lying, thieving Democrates. And Jaz I'm not talking about Slick, maybe his wife though. Current scum like Murtha, Jefferson etc,etc...............
25 - jaz
for #24...you should read up more..i've trashed a few dems, and am a reknown Independent who think s the partisan bickering tactics are symptomatic of more serious issues in our culture at this point in our history
Jefferson..i'll easily agree with..same thing i said earli9er, investigate fully and prosecute where needed
Murtha, you will have to show me solid proof of any allegations, he gets a bit more benefit of the doubt due to his service...i'm funny like that, could be why out of the GOP field i can only deal with Sen. Hagel...even thought i disagree with him on many positions
now that you have completed identifying yourself as another partisan hack, i'll know how much to weigh your words and motivations...