Terkel, a plaintiff in one of the cases challenging the Bush administration’s illegal wiretapping in the NY Times:

EARLIER this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the White House agreed to allow the executive branch to conduct dragnet interceptions of the electronic communications of people in the United States. They also agreed to “immunize” American telephone companies from lawsuits charging that after 9/11 some companies collaborated with the government to violate the Constitution and existing federal law. I am a plaintiff in one of those lawsuits, and I hope Congress thinks carefully before denying me, and millions of other Americans, our day in court.

During my lifetime, there has been a sea change in the way that politically active Americans view their relationship with government. In 1920, during my youth, I recall the Palmer raids in which more than 10,000 people were rounded up, most because they were members of particular labor unions or belonged to groups that advocated change in American domestic or foreign policy. Unrestrained surveillance was used to further the investigations leading to these detentions, and the Bureau of Investigation — the forerunner to the F.B.I. — eventually created a database on the activities of individuals. This activity continued through the Red Scare of the period.

In the 1950s, during the sad period known as the McCarthy era, one’s political beliefs again served as a rationale for government monitoring. Individual corporations and entire industries were coerced by government leaders into informing on individuals and barring their ability to earn a living.

~~~

In 1978, with broad public support, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which placed national security investigations, including wiretapping, under a system of warrants approved by a special court. The law was not perfect, but as a result of its enactment and a series of subsequent federal laws, a generation of Americans has come to adulthood protected by a legal structure and a social compact making clear that government will not engage in unbridled, dragnet seizure of electronic communications.

The Bush administration, however, tore apart that carefully devised legal structure and social compact. To make matters worse, after its intrusive programs were exposed, the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee proposed a bill that legitimized blanket wiretapping without individual warrants. The legislation directly conflicts with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, requiring the government to obtain a warrant before reading the e-mail messages or listening to the telephone calls of its citizens, and to state with particularity where it intends to search and what it expects to find.

Compounding these wrongs, Congress is moving in a haphazard fashion to provide a “get out of jail free card” to the telephone companies that violated the rights of their subscribers. Some in Congress argue that this law-breaking is forgivable because it was done to help the government in a time of crisis. But it’s impossible for Congress to know the motivations of these companies or to know how the government will use the private information it received from them.

And it is not as though the telecommunications companies did not know that their actions were illegal. Judge Vaughn Walker of federal district court in San Francisco, appointed by President George H. W. Bush, noted that in an opinion in one of the immunity provision lawsuits the “very action in question has previously been held unlawful.”

I have observed and written about American life for some time. In truth, nothing much surprises me anymore. But I always feel uplifted by this: Given the facts and an opportunity to act, the body politic generally does the right thing. By revealing the truth in a public forum, the American people will have the facts to play their historic, heroic role in putting our nation back on the path toward freedom. That is why we deserve our day in court.

The decision by the Senate to give big time campaign contributors Telecom Companies retroactive immunity is one of the worst of all time. Vaughn Walker is the very model of what a conservative judge ought to be — truly conservative without an agenda — and doesn’t make bold statements lightly.

Rude Pundit catches a whiff of the story:

. . . former Secretary of Defense and bespectacled herald of doom and destruction Donald Rumsfeld had to make a break for it when a coalition of the way-more-than willing human rights groups filed a complaint with the French courts over his authorization of torture at Gitmo and elsewhere. Just the thought that, even for a moment or two, after his attendance at a breakfast in Paris sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine, Rumsfeld feared he might be jailed and told to answer for his crimes is enough to sustain this blogger for a while. It’s orgasm-inducing, isn’t it? The notion that Rumsfeld was sweating, wondering if at any moment French officials might actually have les couilles to do it?

Sounds too good to be true. Can you imagine Rummy giving his typical byzantine answers in a court of law?

More on the complaint from the IHT:

A group of U.S. and European human rights organizations is pursuing a legal complaint against Donald Rumsfeld in a Paris court that accuses the former defense secretary of being responsible for torture.

The group, which includes the International Federation for Human Rights, the French League for Human Rights and the Nork York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, filed the complaint late Thursday and unsuccessfully sought to confront Rumsfeld as he left a breakfast meeting in central Paris on Friday.

Jeanne Sulzer, a lawyer for the group, said the complaint was filed with a state prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, who has the power to pursue the case because of Rumsfeld’s presence in France.

Evicted nuns, that’s who! No, not the ones in Santa Barbara, or the other ones from the Army of Mary, or even those feisty Italian nuns, but rebellious, Polish nuns! It’s turning into a regular “Nuns Gone Wild: International Edition” year.

Updated: 2:31 a.m. PT Oct 11, 2007

KAZIMIERZ DOLNY, Poland (AP)- Police evicted 65 rebellious ex-nuns Wednesday from a convent they illegally occupied for two years after defying a Vatican order to replace their mother superior, a charismatic leader who had religious visions.

The defeated nuns walked out in their black habits — some carrying guitars, drums and tambourines — after a locksmith opened the gate to the walled compound and police in riot gear rushed in and arrested the mother superior. A former Franciscan friar who had locked himself away with the nuns also was taken into custody.

Several nuns, many of whom appeared to be in their 20s, screamed at police, calling them “servants of Satan,” as they were escorted out and into waiting buses.

“They were disobedient,” said Mieczyslaw Puzewicz, a spokesman for the Lublin diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican formally expelled the women from their Sisters of Bethany order last year, but has revealed almost nothing about the dispute.

About 150 police in riot gear went into the compound to find the ex-nuns defiantly singing religious songs and playing instruments, Puzewicz said. Lublin Archbishop Jozef Zycinski called the police operation a last resort meant to help the ex-nuns.

Well, that’s an interesting approach to “helping.”

Mother Jadwiga is a charismatic figure who claimed to have religious visions and was reportedly attempting to transform the convent into a contemplative order. The Lublin diocese hinted at that portrait in a statement on its Web site that said: “Mother Jadwiga’s private revelations, and the fact that she made it a guideline to stick by them, caused unease to the Congregation.”

The Vatican, which has authority over all convents, has traditionally been wary of people claiming visions, in part fearing others could be drawn in. When the Vatican formally expelled the nuns from their order in 2006, the women refused to leave the convent and cut themselves off from the outside world.

The church eventually sought legal action to remove them, and a court in nearby Pulawy ordered their eviction. The convent’s electricity was cut off earlier this year, but sympathetic local residents secretly funneled them food at night.

Aww! The underground nun railroad!

I’ve never quite gotten handle on “the public’s right to know.”

I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a constitutional scholar.

I am a writer and a journalist. I’ve made my living as one or the other or both most of my adult life. (I also worked two years as a private eye — which has nothing to do with anything, I just wanted to mention it.)

I understand the press has a right to tell. Congress can’t abridge the freedom of speech, or of the press, right?

But I’m unclear on the bridge between the press’ right of expression and the public’s right to receive that expression.

But I’m familiar enough with the phrase. Somebody might want to elucidate to me on the exact rights involved.

~~~

That said, the New York Times opines today on the Free Flow of Information Act.

Efforts to enact a federal shield law for journalists have passed a critical milestone in the Senate. By a 15-to-2 vote, the Judiciary Committee approved legislation sponsored by Senators Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, to grant reporters limited protection against being forced to reveal confidential sources in federal court.

The measure, the Free Flow of Information Act, offers reporters and their confidential sources weaker protection in the broad realm of national security than a bill approved by the House Judiciary Committee in August — weaker than we would have liked.

But some compromise was necessary to reassure wavering senators that a journalist’s pledge of confidentiality would not be allowed to trump public safety and to give the measure a realistic chance of passage.

Despite the compromise, its enactment is important.

For me, it goes to at least part of the heart of the war on terror.

We have rights in this country worth fighting for, including the freedom of the press. If we abandon those rights to combat our enemies, then what exactly are we fighting for in the first place.

This one is like getting big thumbs up from Torquemada.

I couldn’t help it.

Inmates go on sausage ‘temper tantrum’

N.M. prisoners angry after being told they could only have 1 dinner sausage

6:03 a.m. PT Sept 14, 2007

HOBBS, N.M. - Some Lea County inmates set fires and broke toilets and windows after being told they would be allowed only one sausage at dinner. Jail officials said the inmates began yelling and banging on their doors in what they described in a news release as a “temper tantrum.”

Officers from the Lea County Sheriff’s and Hobbs Police departments were called in to restore control, and the jail was locked down after Tuesday night’s incident.

Some 33 prisoners were involved, Warden Jann Gartman said.

Obviously, a large amount of the prison population aren’t Jimmy Dean fans:

The remaining 300-plus prisoners at the jail accepted the meal without incident, authorities said.

UPDATE (Paul): At least they didn’t demand 50 eggs.

Glenn Greenwald’s blog today on the Bush administration’s contempt for civil liberties and the rule of law — a high official hoping for another terrorist attack so they can extend warrantless searches.