The Clapper Tell ... The Boy Can't Lie Good

With the flourishing of Texas Hold Em Poker, and the propagation of tournaments being televised, we've all had the chance to learn a bit about the game, the strategy and the tactics.  We all know, now, about the importance of learning the "tell" of each player at the table.

The "tell" is that involuntary action or posturing -- body language -- that indicates the state of mind of the player.

I watched Director Clapper's testimony before the Senate.

For your convenience, I have circled the gesticulation associated with the only known LIE told by Clapper on that occasion.

So, if you find yourself in a conversation with Director Clapper, and he begins furiously scratching his head, check for mosquitoes, or watch out for the flying lies!

An Apology for Tyranny: How One Evangelical Conservative Legal Group Contributed to Liberty's Loss

As I mentioned the other day, there is responsibility to be assigned for the massive constitutional violations of privacy and liberty uncloaked this week, the logging of billions and billions of phone records, the PRISM program and related adventures in domestic surveillance.  And there is responsibility that flows back to Bush/Ashcroft and the Patriot Act.  And there is responsibility that flows back to the leadership of conservative and evangelical Christian groups that should have opposed the surrender, in 2001, of liberty in the name of obtaining security.

But now I want to back up my assertion by directing you to the October 2001 "Open Letter" of Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ.  There, Sekulow baptizes the maiden voyage of this government intrusion, giving my former employer's blessing to what became the Patriot Act.

In the "Open Letter," Sekulow stakes the claim that the legislation is constitutional, and asserts that the conclusion was supported by Senior Staff.

This was not true at the time that it was promoted to the conservative and evangelical community in October 2001.  "Senior Staff," of which I was one, raised serious questions and objections to the legislative proposal at the time that it was discussed with us.  Truth be told, the ACLJ's support for the act was a fait accompli by the time that consultation was had.

It was unsound -- then -- to support the arrogation of power by the Executive Branch, and to support the derogation of individual liberties.

To my own shame, I kept silence with the notion of keeping my job.  Even when the deleterious impact was reflected in greater and greater encroachments on the exercise of well-established constitutional rights (such as through the creation and maintenance of speech free zones in the name of providing security to "protected persons"), and I should have criticized the security crazed and liberty loathing sense of the Bush administration's policies, I kept silent within the ACLJ, while strenuously litigating for the rights of clients, such as Reverend Patrick Mahoney, to conduct prayer vigils and demonstrations in close proximity to events involving the President, Supreme Court justices, etc.

Now those policies have grown up under the nurture and care of the Kenyan, but the seeds should never have been planted by Bush and Ashcroft, nor watered with the praise of the ACLJ.

Accountability and Uncomfortability

I guess, unless you are a true stooge of the Obama administration, you are shocked and angered at the collection of Verizon network records, being conducted on the grand scale by Obama's Department of Justice under the thin skin of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order.

If you are angered, welcome to the club.

The National Journal is angered.

The New York Times is angered.

The Atlantic is angered.

Piers Morgan is angered.

Get the point?

Except stooges -- Lindsey "Light in the Loafers of Liberty" Graham and his ilk -- we all know that Obama's sweeping sweep sweeps too far.

Maybe, finally, the Republican led House of Representatives will exhibit the manly firmness of a resolute legislature by investigating the Administration via select committees ... it asks too much to hope that Boehner & Co. will craft articles of impeachment in response to the Administration's tyrannical excess.

But, and this is an important but, do not think the job is done by searching out Obama's toadies and seeking to affix all responsibility on them for the rape of the Fourth Amendment.  To fully excise the tumor against liberty, we have to follow the cancer back to its birth in the fear generated by the September 11 terror attacks.  In that long view, an honest appraisal indicts then-President Bush, that Congress and its paramours for making this all so easy with the Patriot Act and the sacrifices of liberties then in the name of providing security for which so many desperately craved.

When I served as Senior Counsel with the ACLJ, I was thunderstruck when none of the organization's senior attorneys -- seasoned counsel with decades of constitutional law practice between them -- were NOT consulted before the organization loaned its name and support to the Patriot Act.

Thus began the rape and pillage of our rights to privacy, respect for constitutional rights and liberties, with the blessing of America's leading religious liberties nonprofit.

Today, if you are thunderstruck with the present administration's excesses, you should not only hold it accountable, but should seek out those that stood this monster up and welcomed it to the table. When you do, you will ask my former employer whether the security it craved was worth the liberty we lost.

Blame Obama, But Remember Verizon Is Playing Along