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I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator and am now a journalist. I am the author of three New York Times bestselling books -- "How Would a Patriot Act" (a critique of Bush executive power theories), "Tragic Legacy" (documenting the Bush legacy), and With Liberty and Justice for Some (critiquing America's two-tiered justice system and the collapse of the rule of law for its political and financial elites). My fifth book - No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the US Surveillance State - will be released on April 29, 2014 by Holt/Metropolitan.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Quick notes

(updated below)

Several brief items:

(1) I have an article in tomorrow's edition of Salon regarding the Specter/FISA bill. The article is now available here.

For the reasons I explain in the article, I believe that blocking Congressional approval of the Specter bill is the single most important domestic political objective right now. Its enactment will do more to legitimize and institutionalize the Bush administration's radical theories of unlimited executive power than any other event in the last five years, not to mention will vest in this President the power to eavesdrop on Americans with no judicial oversight of any kind.

(2) Speaking of Salon, I will be guest-blogging there next week (which includes the Lieberman-Lamont primary on Wednesday Tuesday) at the War Room for Tim Grieve, who is on vacation for the next two weeks. I may begin guest-blogging there this upcoming week, but will definitely be there next week exclusively. I will have at least one guest blogger here while I'm blogging over there.

(3) I will be hosting two chats for the FireDogLake Book Club for John Dean's book, Conservatives Without Conscience, on August 27 and September 3. My review of the book is here. Dean will attend and participate in the second chat, on September 3.

Dean's book is doing exceptionally well -- it is #3 on the New York Times Best Seller List (last week it was at #2) -- and yet it has received a small sliver of the attention which, for instance, Ann Coulter's rantings have received. The book is highly worth reading in its own right, and the more it is supported, the more attention will be given to its important thesis about the true character of the so-called "conservative" movement. And reading the book and then being able to talk to Dean about it at the FDL Book Club is some added incentive read it.

UPDATE:

(4) As was discussed in the comments section over the weekend, I switched the commenting program here to Haloscan, as it provides much more flexibility for managing the comments section, eliminating deliberate disruptions, etc. The two principal problems are that (1) the commenting template for Haloscan is somewhat asthetically unappealing and, worse, (2) the comment threads from the prior posts do not transfer from Blogger to Halsocan, which means, for the moment, that the prior comment threads are not available online.

From what I understand, both problems can be addressed. The commenting format can be improved with HTML adjustments on Haloscan. The second problem is by far the more pressing one. I have often linked in my posts to comments here, and there are countless substantive contributions in comments that I'd prefer not to lose. Please e-mail me if you have any thoughts about how to restore or archive old comment sections and/or if you can help do that.

(5) The superb Anonymous Liberal will be guest blogging here next week when I am blogging at War Room.

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