The recession has lessened and all that cash your Company has been hoarding for the rainy days of the Obama years is burning a whole in your CEO’s pocket. He has his powder dry and is ready to make a big bang by going on a buying spree, targeting overseas entities, to beat the competition in coming out of your industry’s downturn. An initial inquiry should be made into the ownership structure of the target company. If any portion of the entity is owned or held by a government or governmental entity then such an entity is covered under the FCPA as a foreign governmental instrumentality…
"This week in Copenhagen, the agribusiness giant Monsanto won an award from global activists for being the worst corporate climate lobbyist on the planet. Now we have a chance to tell government officials here in the U.S. what we think about Monsanto and corporate control of our food.
Act Today:
Send a short, personalized email by December 31, telling Department of Justice officials you’re concerned that a few giant businesses like Monsanto have so much power over where your food comes from and how it’s produced.
For the first time ever, DOJ officials are asking for stories about how corporate control of the food system affects average citizens. Maybe you don’t feel like you’re qualified to write to the Justice Department, or you feel like your voice wouldn’t matter — but you are and it does. This is our chance to tell them what’s wrong."
Congress is still considering the Informed P2P User Act, a law that would supposedly make it safer to use peer-to-peer file sharing software, an effort that is similar to banning mosquitoes from sucking blood. It just isn’t happening…
Identity theft is preventable. As with any other crime, the risk will always be there. But there are many things people can do to minimize that risk, both online and offline. The National Foundation for Credit Counselors, which sponsors Protect Your Identity Week, has compiled a number of identity theft myths.
Pfizer and Lilly lead a parade of U.S. companies that have paid $7 billion in penalties after promoting drugs for uses not approved by the FDA. This unlawful behavior may not end until prosecutors force a drugmaker into bankruptcy.
Stemming from his sex videos with several female celebrities among them Katrina Halili, Maricar Reyes and a Brazilian model, the DOJ endorsed the filing of a case against Hayden Kho.Stemming from his sex videos with several female celebrities among them Katrina... more
Attorney General Eric Holder restated his intention on Wednesday to release a comprehensive report, declassified to the fullest extent, on the legal advice provided by the Bush administration in its authorization of enhanced interrogation techniques.
Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder said that delays in releasing the findings of the Office of Professional Responsibility's (OPR) investigation into former President George W. Bush's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) was the result of administrative obstacles and not political foot-dragging or objections from the CIAAttorney General Eric Holder restated his intention on Wednesday to release a... more
On April 16, 2009, the Department of Justice released four secret memos used by the Bush administration to justify torture.
View them at the link
For more than five years, the ACLU and other advocacy organizations have been seeking the release of Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos that supplied the basis for the Bush administration's interrogation, detention, rendition, and warrantless surveillance policies.
The OLC, which is a component of the Justice Department, was created to provide objective legal advice to the Attorney General and to resolve legal disputes among federal agencies. During the Bush administration, however, the OLC became a facilitator for illegal government conduct, issuing dozens of memos meant to permit gross violations of domestic and international law. Some of these memos have become public through leaks to the media and through the ACLU's litigation under the Freedom of Information Act. But most of them are still secret.
The Obama administration should release the still-secret memos. As the ACLU wrote in a January 28, 2009 letter to the OLC, the release of the memos would allow the public to better understand the legal basis for the Bush administration's national security policies; to better understand the role that the OLC played in developing, justifying, and advocating those policies; and to participate more meaningfully in the ongoing debate about national security, civil liberties, and human rights.On April 16, 2009, the Department of Justice released four secret memos used by the... more
Monday's naming of Ian Gershengorn, to become the department's deputy assistant attorney of the Civil Division, comes more than a week after nearly two-dozen public interest groups, trade pacts and library coalitions urged the new president to quit filling his administration with lawyers plucked from the Recording Industry Association of America.
The move makes it five RIAA lawyers Obama has appointed to the Justice Department.
Picture_28 Gershengorn, left, a partner with RIAA-firm Jenner & Block, represented the labels against Grokster (.pdf) and will be in charge of the DOJ Federal Programs Branch. That's the unit that just told a federal judge the Obama administration supports monetary damages as high as $150,000 per purloined music track on a peer-to-peer file sharing program.
In addition to Gershengorn, the other Jenner & Block attorneys appointed to the Justice Department include:
*Donald Verrilli, associate deputy attorney general — the No. 3 in the DOJ, who unsuccessfully urged a federal judge to uphold the $222,000 file sharing verdict against Jammie Thomas.
*Tom Perrilli, as Verrilli's former boss, the Justice Department's No. 2 argued in 2002 that internet service providers should release customer information to the RIAA even without a court subpoena.
*Brian Hauck, counsel to associate attorney general, worked on the Grokster case on behalf of the record labels.
*Ginger Anders, assistant to the solicitor general, litigated on the Cablevision case.Monday's naming of Ian Gershengorn, to become the department's deputy... more
An exclusive report by the Washington Times quotes a Republican senator who claims that Holder offered assurances regarding prospective interrogation probes.
"Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, a Republican from Missouri and the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview with The Washington Times that he will support Eric H. Holder Jr.'s nomination for Attorney General because Mr. Holder assured him privately that Mr. Obama's Justice Department will not prosecute former Bush officials involved in the interrogations program," Eli Lake writes for the Washington Times.An exclusive report by the Washington Times quotes a Republican senator who claims... more
US lawyers battling against torture and other abuses at Guantánamo Bay are braced for George Bush issuing last-minute pardons to protect those in his administration most closely implicated.
The lawyers' warning came after a senior member of the Bush administration, Susan Crawford, admitted for the first time that torture had been carried out. Until now, the Bush administration, in particular the vice-president, Dick Cheney, had denied the interrogation techniques at Guantánamo constituted torture.
-Mrs. Crawford...you have the Right to remain silent,
anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.
You have the right to an attourney. If you cannot afford representation,
........., you're f*cked.US lawyers battling against torture and other abuses at Guantánamo Bay are... more
Bush administration Justice Department appointee Bradley Schlozman swore under oath before the Senate Justice Committee in 2007 that he had never used a political litmus test in hiring when he worked at the Civil Rights Division. However, a new report from the Justice Department indicates that he did just that.
As MSNBC's Keith Olbermann explained on Tuesday, "The Bush Justice Department is -- surprise, surprise -- not prosecuting Mr. Schlozman for his violation of, yes, civil rights laws, or for lying to Congress. But now at least we have Schlozman's own words."
quotes at link.....
-Looks like there's a fox in the hen house.-Bush administration Justice Department appointee Bradley Schlozman swore under oath... more
This is what I call earning your money, and what their job should be looking out for the intrest of the tax paying citizens. Not bothering NORML people.
The Justice Department recovered $1.34 billion in contracting fraud cases in fiscal 2008.
That brings to $21 billion the amount of money the government has collected through civil fraud suits since the federal False Claims Act was strengthened in 1986, according to a DOJ statement.This is what I call earning your money, and what their job should be looking out for... more
It’s hard to figure out the worst George Bush accomplishment. It’s a smorgasbord of horrors. The Iraq War is obviously up there, as is the slaughter of the economy. But, for me, it’s the rule of law. Without law, we cannot function as a democracy. The depth of shameful decisions throughout our justice system is staggering. Obama is facing a very ugly task in trying to clean up the Department of Justice because it has been turned into a tank of unqualified, partisan, religious nuts.
This summer, the Office Of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Justice issued a joint report about the Department of Justice’s hiring program under Bush. Turns out, it was not so great. Here's some of the many lowlights:
- We concluded that McDonald committed misconduct and violated Department policies and civil service law by considering political or ideological affiliations in assessing Honors Program and SLIP candidates. (93)
- We concluded that Elston violated federal law and Department policy by deselecting candidates based on their liberal affiliations. (94)
- We also concluded that Elston committed misconduct, and violated federal law and Department policy, when he deselected candidates and denied appeals based on his perception of the political or ideological affiliations of the candidates. (96)
- We also concluded that OARM Director DeFalaise did not adequately or timely address the concerns that were brought to his attention concerning the Screening Committee's deselections. (96)
- Finally, we concluded that Acting Associate Attorney General Mercer did not adequately address the concerns that were brought to his attention by several senior Department officials that the Screening Committee's deselections appeared to have been politicized. (97)...
- An OARM employee ... recalled that one of the [deselected] candidates she raised to DeFalaise's attention was first in his law school class at Georgetown University, had clerked for a federal district court judge, and was currently clerking for a Second Circuit judge. [footnote 41: This candidate also had worked as a law clerk for Senator Russell Feingold, a Democrat, and for Human Rights Watch, but the OARM employee does not recall pointing out the candidate's political or ideological affiliations to DeFalaise at this time.] (59-60)...
This is my personal favorite.
- The Committee used paper copies of the applications on which Fridman and McDonald made handwritten notations about the applicants, but those documents were destroyed prior to the initiation of our investigation. (68,69)
Destroyed. Papers destroyed at the Department of Justice before an investigation began! That’s not a good thing for the guys who are enforcing the law to do, right?
Click on link above for more on this scandal.It’s hard to figure out the worst George Bush accomplishment. It’s a... more
After so many years of being the dept of jobs, not the Dept of Justice.
As a transition team for the Obama administration begins work on a Justice Department overhaul, the key question is where to begin.After so many years of being the dept of jobs, not the Dept of Justice.
As a... more
Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee gave the green light to S. 3325, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Act of 2008. We need you to show them the red light, NOW! This intellectual property enforcement bill lets the DOJ enforce civil copyright claims and lets the government do the MPAA and RIAA’s intellectual property rights enforcement work for them—at tax payers’ expense.
By allowing the federal government to sue infringers in civil court, the DOJ would be asking a court for monetary damages on behalf of content owners. In a civil suit brought by the government, the defendant loses many of the protections he possesses in a criminal action—including his right to free legal representation. What’s more, the government’s legal burden of proof is lower: the government only needs to prove infringement with a “preponderance of the evidence,” meaning that it’s more likely than not that infringement occurred, as opposed to the usual criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Does the content industry need this help from the Department of Justice? Absolutely not! In the last five years, the RIAA filed or threatened more than 30,000 suits against alleged infringers. If the Enforcement bill passes, not only will the number of such suits increase—they’ll also be paid for with your tax dollars.
Now, the bill’s backers are pushing to have it pass the Senate as early as today via a streamlined procedure, without the full Senate voting on the measure. Tell members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that you don’t want your tax dollars spent on DOJ’s civil enforcement of copyright, and to put a hold on the bill. Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee gave the green light to S. 3325, the... more
28 Aug 2008 // Today CREW filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in CREW v. Dep't of Justice, a FOIA lawsuit seeking copies of the FBI's interview of Vice President Cheney in connection with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert identity. Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused to turn the interview and related notes over to the House Oversight Committee in response to a Committee subpoena, claiming that the documents were subject to executive privilege in their entirety. The vice-president had no promise of confidentiality when he spoke to the FBI. Although the Department of Justice ("DOJ") granted CREW's request to expedite the agency's processing of the FOIA request weeks ago, it has yet to produce a single document to CREW or otherwise claim an exemption for any of the requested documents. CREW's emergency motion seeks to compel DOJ to process the request within 10 days.
Join C.R.E.W. with a donation of any size. They are tenacious and use your important contributions to use our justice system to go after wrongdoers. They also have a tip line for citizens to make them aware of other illegal activities.
Financial support from members is fighting to recover those 5,000 “lost” emails in the DOJ scandal and another suit is seeking information about Cheney’s part in the Plame leak case.
Please help expose these crooks since the Democratic Congress seems not to have the time or inclination to pursue many of these issues with hearings and subpoenas. 28 Aug 2008 // Today CREW filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in CREW v.... more
New rules on FBI investigations of national security cases should be delayed, top Senate Judiciary Committee members said Monday, raising concerns that ethnic or racial groups could be targeted despite no evidence of wrongdoing.
In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the senators called for congressional hearings on the rules before they are finalized. They suggested delaying the rules — known as the attorney general guidelines — until FBI Director Robert Mueller appears before the panel Sept. 17.
Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel's top Republican, called the guidelines a "laudatory effort to ensure that front-line agents are given clear rules to follow in pursuit of their investigations."
"Nevertheless, efforts to harmonize the rules governing criminal and national security matters also raise potential civil liberties concerns, given the broader latitude currently given to investigators to consider race and ethnicity in national security matters," Leahy and Specter wrote.
They added: "The important aims of the guidelines, and their potential implications for civil liberties, require a meaningful dialogue between Congress and DOJ."
DOJ stands for the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI.
The rules are expected to be finalized later this week or early next week. Justice spokesman Peter Carr said Monday that the department is reviewing the letter.New rules on FBI investigations of national security cases should be delayed, top... more
