Other headlines will read “Obama ends Miranda rights for American terrorists”, but I will not let such naive and ignorant headlines headline at this blog. – Brian
The Obama administration has created a new policy that allows investigators to waive Miranda warnings for domestic-terror suspects, even when there is not an “immediate threat,” a report said Thursday.
The rule was revealed by an FBI memorandum obtained by The Wall Street Journal. It says that in “exceptional cases,” investigators can hold suspects without informing them of their rights.
The policy applies where investigators “conclude that continued unwarned interrogation is necessary to collect valuable and timely intelligence not related to any immediate threat.”
I can hardly contain my frustration right now reading the breaking headline:
The U.S. military has launched a missile attack against Libya’s air defenses.
A senior U.S. military official says the strike was aimed at sites along the Libyan coast. The missiles were launched from U.S. Navy vessels in the Mediterranean.
The Pentagon said it fired 110 cruise missiles at 20 targets.
8 years ago today, Bush announced the expansion of the mis-directed war of terror:
This should be seens as quite a slap in the face to all of those who voted for Obama in hopes of stopping or slowing the war expansion; many of those people are marching in the streets today.
I sure do HOPE that people have taken the Obama stickers of their cars by now.
The title is misleading because 9/11 victims family members have really been waiting and acting for justice for almost 10 years now.
The families featured in this article by FOX news are not the same 9/11 families that are involved in the Building What campaign nor are these the 9/11 families that signed the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth petition - but they are 9/11 victims family members waiting for justice none-the-less.
Debra Burlingame is the sister of Cap. Charles Burlingame who was piloting the plane that was crashed into the Pentagon. Read more about him here.
Two years ago this month, President Obama met with the families of Sept. 11 victims and other victims of terrorism at a special meeting in Washington, D.C., and promised “swift and certain justice” for the perpetrators. But the high expectations of that meeting have given way to frustration for many who met with Obama.
“One of the first things he told us was that we were the conscience of the country and he wanted to give us swift and certain justice,” Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot on Flight 77 on 9/11, told Fox News. She was one of about 30 people at the meeting.
That same phrase “swift and certain justice” was used by the White House in its own press release after the meeting.
But with no timetable for a trial for those charged with being behind the attacks, Hamilton Peterson, who lost his father and stepmother on 9/11, says the families feel betrayed.
“Unfortunately, I would say, at a minimum, we were misled, ” Peterson said.
President Obama on Friday signed into law a bill that extends three Patriot Act surveillance authorities until late May.
Obama signed the “FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011,” which refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Surveillance authorities under that act were extended in part by amending the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act.
With Obama’s signature, the ability of the United States to access business records, conduct roving wiretaps and monitor individual terrorists is maintained until May 27. The administration has said it supports a longer extension, and the Senate next week will begin working on a three-year extension.
US President Barack Obama signed a benefits bill on Sunday that will help police, firefighters and other emergency workers who became ill after working in the area around the World Trade Center towers that collapsed on 9/11.
At a press conference President Obama told the world that it’s “important to remember” that the US is in Afghanistan because of 9/11. He made no mention of the fact that a large percentage of the world – including many 9/11 family members – question the US government’s account of 9/11.
If you care to hear the propaganda, or see the propagandist – here you go:
In February, as the Justice Department’s plan for civilian terrorism trials in Manhattan was collapsing, Obama administration officials said they soon would choose an alternative venue for the case that promised to secure justice for the Sept. 11 attacks.
In March, officials said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, probably would be tried before a military tribunal and that a decision appeared to be imminent.
In April, Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress that the White House-led review of the case would be completed in “a number of weeks.”
Why has a massive boycott of BP not been announced here in America? Are you buying gas at a BP gas station?
BP, or British Petroleum, is just one more shining example of corruption and lack of accountability – as well as apathy by most of the American populace. The foreign multinational Corporation has been pretty much useless in the last 2 months for anything other than letting oil spew in American and International waters and land. There is no price tag that makes this right. Just as there is no price tag for the taken lives of war, and the ways in which these events change our path, shaping the society and culture that we are surrounded by as we “advance” into the future. There is no price tag for such mistakes that harm irreparably ourselves and our environment. We must have accountability.
That said, there is a lot of interesting side notes to this event that I want to compile from a few different sources, just so YOU know the big picture.
Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups, according to senior military and administration officials.
Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s latest nominee to the Supreme Court, helped protect the Saudi royal family from lawsuits that sought to hold al Qaeda financiers responsible in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The suits were filed by thousands family members and others affected by the Sept. 11 attacks. In court papers, they provided evidence that members of the Saudi royal family had channeled millions to al Qaeda prior to the bombings, often in contravention of direct guidance from the United States.
But Kagan, acting as President Obama’s Solicitor General, argued that the case should not be heard even if evidence proved that the Saudis helped underwrite al Qaeda, because it would interfere with US foreign policy with the oil-rich nation. She posited “that the princes are immune from petitioners’ claims” because of “the potentially significant foreign relations consequences of subjecting another sovereign state to suit.”
During an interview Sunday on ABC television’s current affairs talk show This Week, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested creating an exception to so-called Miranda rights established in a 1966 Supreme Court ruling that forbids prosecutors from using statements made by suspects before they have been warned that they have a right to remain silent.
“We’re now dealing with international terrorists,” the attorney general told NBC television. “And I think that we have to think about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the threat that we now face.”
Monday morning, an anti-war organization for survivors of the September 11, 2001 attacks along with friends and family members of the victims, blasted the proposal.
BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Obama apparently also got more contributions from Exxon and Chevron than McCain.
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Back in 2005-06, I wrote a book, The Case for Impeachment, in which I made the argument that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as other key figures in the Bush/Cheney administration–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales–should be impeached for war crimes, as well as crimes against the Constitution of the United States.
These days, when I mention the book’s title, people sometimes ask, half in jest, whether I’m referring to the current president, Barack Obama.
Sadly, it is time to say, just 14 months into the current term of this new president, that yes, this president, and some of his subordinates, are also guilty of impeachable crimes–including many of the same ones committed by Bush and Cheney.
Let’s start with the war in Afghanistan, which Obama has taken full ownership of with an escalation that will bring the number of US troops in that country (not counting mercenaries hired by the Pentagon and CIA) to 100,000 by this August.
Posted by Brian 
