I somehow doubt that for all their public bluster we can expect the AACS folks to come up with 746,000 take down orders. Even so, I wonder if Siva is really taking this seriously enough when he writes, Hahahaha! I am breaking federal law! Hahahaha!.
Unfortunately, selective prosecution is not illegal….
[Update (5/5 19:00): Google's up to over 1.4 million now…]
As everyone knows, Deborah Jeane Palfrey is accused of running a Washington DC. escort service that fronted for a prostitution ring. Her defense strategy is to get ABC to help her to identify her clients (from her phone records), so that she can then call them and have them testify that that they did not have sex with that woman (or man?). Palfrey's version is that her perfectly legal sexual fantasy escort service sent folks who had a contract with her promising not to break the law, and she would be shocked to learn otherwise — and wants the big-name DC types to back her up.
The Miami angle in all this is her lawyer, who it seems came up with this weird but in some sense clever defense strategy, is one Montgomery Blair Sibley who, while admitted in Florida, is facing disbarment for being a being a “vexatious litigant” — in Miami!. His other claim to local fame is that he enjoyed 77 days in a Miami jail for refusing to pay child support.
And according to The Colorful Case of A Well-Named Lawyer, his father is “Harper Sibley Jr., one of the richer and more powerful developers in Florida.”
Somehow it seems right that there would be a Miami link to a good sex & politics scandal.
There are consistent themes to this administration: incompetence, kleptocracy come to mind. But one area where it's shown disturbing competence is the war against the Rule of Law. The Padilla case and the ongoing attempts to keep law and lawyers out of Guantánamo are the most visible aspects of this strategy (ignore the minor bit of tactical posturing today — this is just about trying to avoid losing a lawsuit), but the corruption of the DoJ is part of the piece.
So here's the latest installment: Bush Wants Phone Firms Immune to Privacy Suits. See, those pesky lawyers are trying to get phone companies to obey the law. We can't have that if it gets in the way of our illegal wiretaps!
I have no idea who “looseheadprop” is, but he or she writes one heck of a great essay over at Firedoglake on The Federal Prosecutor. You should read the whole thing, but in case you're lazy, here's the conclusion:
In short, [then-Attorney General and later Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson saw] the Hatch [Act] as a good excuse for USAs and AUSAs to be able to fend off attempts by politicos to co-opt the awesome power of their office to achieve political ends.
For over a generation, it was these principals that were inculcated into DOJ lawyers serving in the USAOs. Young lawyers like Jim Comey cut their teeth on these ideals. And for my entire professional life, I have seen no other standard, nor ever guessed that any other standard might ever be applied.
Contrary to the gobbletygook, clapptrap, distortions and apparently outright lies being slung around these days; this is not a question of a change in style from a previous administration to the current one.
This is a wholesale departure from long established traditions and well settled fully functioning and successful policies that have served this nation well under both Republican and Democratic administrations since at least our grandparent's day.
I don't know what Jim Comey is going to say today. But I know that he was “brought up” as a lawyer in the same traditions that all federal prosecutors of my generation learned. I also know that I have long admired his integrity and courage and have long feared his wrath (not that it has ever been directed at me, but it is terrifying to witness).
As a side note, I was at the Law Day dinner at the Waldorf on May 1st. All the talk that night was on two topics: 1)The USA firing scandal/raping and pillaging of DOJ, and 2) an online petition that was circulated that day calling for the restoration of habeas corpus.
I am happy to report that lawyers, judges, and other public servants known to me to be registered republicans where amoung the most outraged with respect to the former, and amoung the ardent supporters of the latter.
This is not about political party any more. This is about the rule of law. It is also about whether we are a civilized country striving to reach our best aspirations or whether we have sunk into barbarism where might makes right and where the term “serves at the pleasure of the president” is twisted from a courtly expression used by one who would resign in protest if he could not in good conscience carry out a directive from the President which the appointee felt to be wrong, into an excuse, a coverup for nefarious meddling into the charging decisions made at the District level.
As Lord Moulton once famously observed
“The measure of a civilization is the degree of its obedience to the unenforceable.”
As opposed to the current administrations view “if is it is not a clear violation of an often used criminal statute, then it's perfect;ly OK.” And even then they have some carve out exceptions for “quaint” crimes involving violations of the Geneva conventions.
I will leave you with one last, chilling thought form the eloquent Lord Moulton
“Tyranny is yielding to the lust of the governing.”
If you are a law professor, lawyer, or law student, please consider signing the online petition to Congress requesting that it restore habeas corpus.
Micha Sifry is all over the Obama/MySpace story. Latest update is at techPresident — Obama's MySpace Mess: Enter the Shovel Brigade.
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