Lamar Smith is not beginning the Patriot Act investigations that were promised. That makes the March 12 protest against the Patriot Act in Washington D.C. especially important.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler has called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate George W. Bush. Bush has now admitted that he personally ordered the U.S. government to torture prisoners.

Name of 111th Congress bill calling for formal investigative commission regarding illegal surveillance, search and seizure of Americans’ private phone records: H.R. 104 Number of new cosponsors of H.R. 104 in Congress after revelations last week that the FBI both lied and broke the law to seize Americans’ phone records: Zero There’s not much else [...]

Overnight, news emerged that for years, the FBI grabbed Americans’ private telephone records without any search warrants, and justifying the seizures of these records by claiming that there were emergency terrorist threats that in fact never existed. Thousands of times, the FBI completely invented stories of terrorist plots to attack the United States so that [...]

If Representative Candice Miller gets her way, and a torture investigation is blocked, then a harmful precedent will indeed be set: Presidents will learn that they have the power to do whatever they want, and will not be held responsible for breaking the law.

That Peter King is calling for such an approach, and an any-means-necessary philosophy, in order to protect the use of torture, ought to serve as a warning to his constituents that King is losing his mental balance. An approach to Homeland Security that destroys the United States in order to protect it is not something that most Americans are willing to support.

Senator Patrick Leahy has responded to the release of the documents by renewing his call for a commission to investigate the use of torture in a comprehensive way.

Rep. John Conyers‘ remarks on July 24, 2009 to the National Press Club concerning investigations of unconstitutional behavior by members of the Bush administration (my transcription of public NPC video): Eric Holder must appoint a special counsel to review the Bush administration abuses of power and misconduct. A criminal probe: he’s got to do that. [...]

It’s been six weeks now since a single member of Congress added his or her cosponsorship to H.R. 104, a bill to create an independent commission to investigate instances of torture and illegal surveillance by the United States government and report to Congress with the results. The momentum for such a commission, long weak, now [...]

The following four Democratic members of Congress decided that accountability for Bush’s high crimes would have to be sacrificed… for the sake of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway: