Sibel, States Secrets' gag and ATT

* the egadministration has decided to pull the 'States Secrets' gag again - this time to block the EFF's lawsuit about ATT's spying vacuum.

* Glenn:

This administration endlessly searches out obscure legal doctrines or new legal theories which have one purpose -- to eradicate limits on presidential power and to increase the President's ability to prevent disclosure of all but the most innocuous and meaningless information.

Glenn quotes the ChigTrib from last year:

Use of the secrets privilege could also eliminate a suit by a former FBI contract linguist who charges that the bureau bungled translations of terrorism intelligence before and after the Sept. 11 attacks.

'bungled translations', sheesh.

sibel:

“…what happened was, FBI had this information since 1997. In 1999, the Clinton Administration actually asked the Department of Justice to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Hastert, and certain other elected officials that were not named in this Vanity Fair article, to be investigated formally. And the Department of Justice actually went about appointing this prosecutor, but after the Administration changed they quashed that investigation and they closed it despite the fact they had all sorts of evidence, again I’m talking about wiretaps, documents- paper documents- that was highly explosive and could have been easily used to indict the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. That investigation was closed in 2001, and this was around the time I started reporting my cases to the Congress.”

Larisa:

So it is fair to say that there is reason to believe the Speaker Hastert is indeed taking money from foreign nationals, that is bribes, in exchange for something. In fact, the evidence was such that the FBI took this to the DOJ and an investigation was being assembled when the new administration came into office and Ashcroft, the then-new Attorney General shut it down. Clearly shutting down an FBI/DOJ investigation instead of allowing it to move forward would also support the allegations against Hastert, but he is not alone in these allegations by any measure.

[...]

One would hope that in a democracy a citizen would have her right in court and the politically appointed AG would not shut down an FBI sting operation that had been going on for several years.

[...]

But if you really want to understand why Sibel is gagged, you need to focus on what happened with Hastert - not Hastert himself, but what happened with Hastert - because THAT is the holy grail to understanding why she is gagged - and also to some extent understanding Brewster Jennings. Not Plame - but Brewster Jennings - and that's the best I can do on the record (and off really).

Bungled translations.

The AP pulled the same stunt last week:

"Edmonds has said the FBI terminated her contract after she complained about the quality of translations of terrorism-related wiretaps"

no wonder the ccountry is in such a state when the media continues to cover for espionage at the highest level of government as 'bungled translations'.