I find the legal machinations that governments have gone through over the last seven years, since 9/11 quite fascinating.

In Australia we had a period of time under Howard where the immigration minister did some things that were quite amazing and logic defying as well as humanitarian defying.

I just came across this article by an American lawyer that is truly amazing.

Here are a couple of pars:

“Our proof is a top-secret classified document, which the government
accidentally gave to Al-Haramain's lawyers in August of 2004. We call
it “the Document.” It appeared in a stack of unclassified materials
that the lawyers had requested from OFAC. Six weeks later, after the
government realized its blunder, FBI agents personally visited each of
the lawyers and made them return their copies of the Document. But the
agents made no effort to retrieve copies that the lawyers had given to
two members of Al-Haramain's board of directors, who lived outside the
United States.

I can't publicly reveal what's in the Document because, well, it's a
secret. I would be committing a crime — a violation of the Espionage
Act of 1917 — if I were to do so. But we assert the Document as proof
of allegations we have made that in March and April of 2004 the
National Security Agency conducted warrantless electronic surveillance
of attorney-client communications between a representative of
Al-Haramain and two of its attorneys, and that in May of 2004 the NSA
gave logs of those surveilled communications to OFAC.”

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Posted in Government Main Page by Chris Gilbey No Comments Yet