Let’s start with the facts; on election day 2008 in outside a polling station based in a housing project in Philadelphia two guys in rather in your face paramilitary looking gear stood around trying to look fierce and got caught on tape saying some mean stuff about white people. This was, as it should be, investigated by the local and Federal authorities for possible voter intimidation. It was decided by the Justice Department of President Bush and the local authorities that while these guys were assholes they did not do anything that could be successfully prosecuted and the case was dropped. All of this happened before President Obama ever took office.

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(Cross-posted from The Paragraph.) “[I]t’s quite extraordinary to grant government agents the statutory authority to secretly break into Americans homes,” said Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) last month at a Judiciary Committee hearing on the PATRIOT Act.⁸⁰ A month after 9-11, with half its members shut out of their offices due to anthrax-powdered letters, the Senate passed the PATRIOT Act by a vote of 98-1 — the lone “nay” vote cast by Feingold.⁸¹ The stated purpose of the PATRIOT Act was to help stop terror attacks, but there is little to show it has done that.⁸²⁸³ However, the PATRIOT Act has boosted federal snooping.⁸⁴ For instance, sneak-and-peak — the “authority to secretly break into Americans’ homes.” that Feingold mentioned — went from a seldom-used tactic to 760 warrants issued in 2008, but with only three warrants sought for terrorism cases.⁸⁵ Now, Feingold and nine other senators are sponsoring a bill — the JUSTICE Act — to rein in the PATRIOT Act’s broad and easy search and seizure powers.⁸⁶

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Happy Monday and welcome the Dog’s ongoing letter writing campaign. For those of you joining for the first time the idea is every Monday the Dog writes a to decision makers about accountability for the Bush Administration State Sponsored Torture program. This letter can be cut and by any reader or used as the jumping off point for your own letter. The point is to keep the pressure up on the decision makers to make those who apparently committed one of the worst possible crimes accountable for their actions. Today’s letter is to Sen. Patrick Leahy and the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

Dear Senator,

I write you today in your capacity as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Shortly you will be holding confirmation hearings on Judge Sotomayor in her bid to become a Supreme Court Justice. As part of the hearings I urge you to ask after the Judges opinion on the issue of need to fulfill our treaty obligations as a nation.

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