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There went Israel's excuse for launching war against Hamas in Gaza.

Horse puckey. The quoted article is misleading, attempting to conflate two distinct sets of documents that the Court ordered the CIA to disclose after removing all properly classified information. The duty to disclose segregable portions of  records that are not classified has been in place since the early 70s. It should have been done without a lawsuit having been filed and litigated. I.e.,it was a court order the CIA knew was coming since it first received the FOIA request from the ACLU. One set is the CIA response to the Senate Committee. The other set is the DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel memoranda on the legality of torture techniques. not documents documenting the torture itself and not the CIA response to the Senate Committee. Even if he CIA really needed more time for the documents in the Senate group, the legal memoranda could be shorn of classified information in a mater of hours, not days, weeks, or months.  It's the legal memoranda disclosure that CIA and DOJ are really trying to delay. At least two of them were written and/or signed by a former head of the DoJ Office of Legal Counsel whose nomination to the First Circuit Court of Appeals is now pending in Congress. And it's crystal clear that he signed memoranda arguing that torture was legal, which bears directly on his fitness to become a federal appellate judge. It takes a lawyer without ethics or morality to argue that torture is legal. It's not, under either U.S. law or the Geneva Conventions governing warfare. Neither  is grabbing people and turning them over to other governments for torture.  Those memoranda will establish that the nominee is a war criminal. We know this because we have already had a preview in the form of a white paper on the topic released by the White House last year that it's known the same nominee had worked on. And the legal arguments in that white paper are preposterous.   The delay attempt is transparently in aid of pushing that nomination through Congress before

From an Fight For the Future mailing: "Here's the deal: yesterday the Senate delayed its expected vote on CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that would let companies share your private information--like emails and medical records--with the government. "The delay is good news; but it's a delay, not a victory. "We just bought some precious extra time to fight CISA, but we need to use it to go big like we did with SOPA or this bill will still pass. Even if we stop it in September, they'll try again after that. "The truth is that right now, things are looking pretty grim. Democrats and Republicans have been holding closed-door meetings to work out a deal to pass CISA quickly when they return from recess. "Right before the expected Senate vote on CISA, the Obama Administration endorsed the bill, which means if Congress passes it, the White House will definitely sign it.  "We've stalled and delayed CISA and bills like it nearly half a dozen times, but this month could be our last chance to stop it for good." See also http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/125953876003/senate-fails-to-advance-cisa-before-recess-amid (;) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/activists-send-the-senate-6-million-faxes-to-oppose-cyber-bill/ (;) http://www.npr.org/2015/08/04/429386027/privacy-advocates-to-senate-cyber-security-bill (.)

".. no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Fourth Amendment. The changes to Rule 41 ignore the particularity requirement by allowing the government to search computers that are not particularly identified in multiple locations not particularly identifed, in other words, a general warrant that is precisely the reason the particularity requirement was adopted to outlaw.

Hillary's Army takes a hit from the Islamic Front.

There's an old saying in the Anglo legal tradition, "justice delayed is justice denied." To delay a habeas corpus proceeding is the antithesis of what that writ is all about; promptly freeing those unlawfully held. 

Yesterday a one-month extension from Washington's deadline to February 1. Today, even April would be okay if Karzai won't sign himself. Which makes winning that presidential election in Afghanistan very important to the U.S. War Party. Shortly to be followed by mid-term elections in the U.S. Are their pockets deep enough to buy both elections?   

NSA and crew decide to delay and try later with CISA. The Internet strikes back again.

"The Senate passed a bill Friday night to put the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on the Fast Track to approval. Its passage followed a series of stops and starts-an indication that this legislation was nearly too rife with controversy to pass. But after a series of deals and calls from corporate executives, senators ultimately swallowed their criticism and accepted the measure. If this bill ends up passing both chambers of Congress, that means the White House can rush the TPP through to congressional ratification, with lawmakers unable to fully debate or even amend agreements that have been negotiated entirely in secret. On the plus side, all of these delays in the Senate has led other TPP partners to delay any further negotiations on the trade agreement until Fast Track is approved by Congress. So the fight now starts in the House, where proponents of secret trade deals still lack the votes to pass the bill. But the White House and other TPP proponents are fiercely determined to garner enough support among representatives to pass the bill, in order to give themselves almost unilateral power to enact extreme digital regulations in secret. We cannot let that happen. In the House, we still have a chance to block the passage of Fast Track. That's why we are asking people in the U.S. to meet with their representatives and staff to nudge them to make the right decision. Back in DC, they may have heard arguments for and against the TPP. Your representative might think this so-called trade agreement is just about free trade, but they might not know how the copyright provisions and other leaked proposals in the TPP threaten the Internet, as well as users, developers, and start-ups across the country."

Yes, indeed. Do read the Statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Sergey Lavrov's shop) linked from this article. What Ukraine and the U.S. have been doing to delay humanitarian relief to Lugansk is beyond despicable. And though not dwelled on here, Kerry's State Dept. lodged an outraged demand that the Russian humanitarian aid convoy return to Russia post haste without unloading any of the supplies in Ukraine. Or else. Or else what? The U.S. also exercised its veto power on the U.N. Security Council to block a draft resolution instructing a temporary cease fire for delivery of the relief supplies.  Dumbout. Now Russia has officially violated Ukraine sovereignty under circumstances that are beyond reproach. The U.S. has no moral high ground to cry foul; the Russians have all of it.  I truly enjoy watching Mr. Lavrov play chess brilliantly while John Kerry steadfastly clings to his belief that the game is checkers. Kerry just can't accept that he's hopelessly outclassed by Lavrov.  And that blunt Russian promise to retaliate militarily if Kiev attacks the convoy? That's an announcement that future Russian humanitarian aid convoys into Ukraine will not be delayed or Russia will simply ignore the Kiev government and ride on through the border. Giving credit where it's due, Lavrov undoubtedly coordinated this action with Vladimir Putin. 

Major Obama scandal brewing here. The current head of the CIA, John Brennan, has been caught conspiring with former CIA heads and others to counter the Senate Intelligence Committee's pending report on CIA torture and extraordinary rendition, even as Brennan works to delay the report summary's publication by censoring it, resulting in delay while the Committee argues with the CIA over the deletions. All of which sharply contrasts with Obama's publicly expressed desire to have the report published promptly.    The article also makes a very strong case that those CIA officials who participated in the torture and rendition program have been enabled, on Obama's watch, to act as the censors of the Senate Report.  A must-read

 Though not touched on in the article, the real problem is that the A10 has no proponents at the higher ranks of the Air Force because it is already bought and paid for; there's nothing in the A10 for the big Air Force aircraft manufacturing defense contractors. The F35, on the other hand is, is a defense contractor wet dream. It's all pie in the sky and big contracts just to get the first one in the air, let alone outfit it with the gear and programming needed to use it to inflict harm. It's been one cost-overrun after another and delay after delay. It's a national disgrace that has grown to become the most expensive military purchase in history. And it will never match the A10 for the close air support role. It's minimum airspeed is too high and its close-in maneuverability will be horrible. The generals, of course, don't want to poison the well for their post-military careers working for the defense contractors by putting a halt to the boondobble. Their answer: eliminate the close air support mission for at least 10-12 years and then attempt it with the F35.   As a former ground troop, that's grounds for the Air Force generals' court-martial and dishonorable discharge. I would not be alive today were it not for close air support. And there are tens of thousands of veterans who can say that in all truth. The A10 wasn't available back in my day, but by all reports its the best close air support weapons platform ever developed. It's a tank killer and is heavily armored, with redundant systems for pilot and aircraft survivability. The A10 is literally built around a 30 mm rotary cannon that fires at 3,900 rounds per minute. It also carries air to ground rockets and is the only close air support aircraft still in the U.S. arsenal. Fortunately, John McCain "get it" on the close air support mission and has managed to mostly protect the A10 from the generals. If you want to learn  more about the F35 scandal, try this Wikipedia article section; although it's enoug

The War Party wins again. Spending cuts will come out of non-defense branches of government. Meanwhile, the Judicial Branch is nearly flat on its back because of sequestration. Judicial spending before sequestration was only 0.19 per cent of federal spending (19 cents of each $100) but  $350 million got chopped by sequestration.  The result: things like massive delays in court proceedings and a 35 per cent cut in personnel in the Federal Defenders office, a loss of institutional knowledge that will never be recovered.

Here's hoping that the Jirga or Afghan Parliament will nix the deal as Iraq did, by refusing to grant U.S. troops and contractors immunity from Afghan criminal law. I read the leaked U.S. markup version of the deal two days ago. It would extend the U.S. Afghan War until 2024 or beyond. Kerry and Obama might be upset; both announced that Kerry had signed the deal this morning. According to Kerry, U.S. involvement will gradually wind down to about 15K troops plus who-knows-how-many contractors and subcontractors. Number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan when Obama took office: 26,607. Number of U.S. troops there as of October, 2013: roughly 51,000. Our Nobel Peace Prize Prez who jokes to his staff about how many people he kills. Ha, ha. Funny. Not.  Let's remember that as recently as June, Obama said that the U.S. could have all troops out before the present deal expires in 2014 if there's no new agreement. I can hope.