Wiretapping Lawsuits Filed; Dr. King Rolls Over

Eric Lichtblau reveals that two lawsuits are being filed in regards to President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program.

According to the article, in Tuesday’s New York Times, the two separate suits are being filed by the in Detroit, and the Center for Constitutional Rights in Manhattan, on behalf of Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, Guantanamo Action Network, oft-scrutinized journalist Christopher Hitchens and Tara McKelvey, senior editor of The American Prospect.

The full-page ACLU ad at left appeared in Monday’s Washington Post.

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Classes were not in session in the United States today, in observance of what would have been the 77th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but while it is honorable to celebrate the man, we certainly have not come far as a society in holding up his legacy as a civil rights visionary. Robin Shulman writes in Tuesday’s Guardian:

Millions of Americans marked Martin Luther King Day yesterday with tributes to the civil rights leader, despite a Harvard University report showing that racial segregation in schools has been increasing since the early 1990s, when the courts made a series of decisions to dissolve desegregation orders.

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Unless you were watching C-Span, you missed the very important speech (foreshadowed by The Nation’s John Nichols on Friday) given by former Vice President Al Gore.

In a midday speech memorializing Dr. Martin Luther King at Constitution Hall, Gore criticized the president for his careless and repeated constitutional breaches, and warned the public against “a gross and excessive power grab” by the Bush Administration.”

transcript – (Raw Story)
Audio (.mp3)

“Where was this Gore when we needed him?” queried a journalist seated next to The Tribune’s Frank James, according to his glowing review in the Trib Washington Bureau’s The Swamp blog. At any rate, it appears that Gore will not stand down.
Additional commentary at Digby’s Hullabaloo, The Left Coaster, and Susie was there and highlights tomorrow’s headlines, in which the media finally shows up for the bashing. Seems the much needed blast of new blood is being injected by the people’s president that never was? The “right blogosphere” is quick to juxtapose Gore’s rage against his policies as a VP, but libertarians tend to be on Al’s side when it comes to guarding against Constitutional transgressions.
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Also, Lyndon Johnson’s Attorney General, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, who remembers wiretapping Dr. King.