"This conversation doesn't exist"

Another form of the the Liar's Paradox ("This sentence is false"), as uttered by Rep. Jane Harman at the end of phone conversation with "a suspected Israeli agent" recorded by the NSA.

Details in this Jeff Stein story...

Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC

It is unclear whether or not this was an illegal wiretap. But, since the person on the other line was a foreigner, Harman foolishly made herself vulnerable to surveillance in connection with an investigation of Israeli espionage. (We wonder if her photo should occupy the position of the question mark in the Congressional section of Sibel Edmonds' State Secrets Privilege Gallery)

In any case, there is a certain irony here. Harman was a defender of the Bush policy on unwarranted domestic wiretapping. Indeed, her support of the policy was Gonzolas' motivation for not investigating further.

Given the strange logic implicit in the Obama DoJ argument for dropping the EFF suits against the NSA program, Harman's existential negation of the very communication she was engaged in, as it was in fact being recorded, provides us with a little brain teaser to indulge...

The government grants itself sovereign immunity from prosecution when it conducts illegal domestic wiretapping, so long as intercepted communications remain concealed from public view (that is, so long as the government is a "voyeur" and not a "pornographer"). What then, in the eyes of the law, is the existential status of communications that rest in this limbo of sovereignty?

Update, April 22

Washington Post reports wiretaps were FBI, not NSA

Other developments in Stein:

Source: Wiretap Caught Harman Discussing Pelosi Fundraising Flap

May 4

Sibel Edmonds comments, on Bradblog

Diane Feinstein, Go To Hell

...when your time comes.

But meanwhile... Marilyn Chambers, R.I.P.

Porn star Marilyn Chambers dies at 56

The Sovereign Voyeur

In it's response to the Electronic Fronteir Foundation's lawsuit against domestic wiretapping (Jewel v. NSA), President Obama's Department of Justice has upped the ante, arguing in effect that there is no basis for the lawsuit on grounds above and beyond Bush's citing of "State Secrets Privilege." The new claim invokes the "sovereign immunity" of the government.

So, as Glen Grenwald writes in...

New and worse secrecy and immunity claims from the Obama DOJ

the Obama DOJ has now invented a brand new claim of government immunity, one which literally asserts that the U.S. Government is free to intercept all of your communications (calls, emails and the like) and -- even if what they're doing is blatantly illegal and they know it's illegal -- you are barred from suing them unless they "willfully disclose" to the public what they have learned.

In essense, the government asserts that it may collect any and all private communications, regardless of any law Congress has passed or may pass in the future, largely on the grounds that Congress has not waived the sovereign immunity of the government in the PATRIOT Act (see page 12 et seq. of the DoJ response). Congress has then effectively neutered its law making powers, at least when it comes to matters of surveillance.

The only case when government may be held liable for unlawful surveillance is when it publicly discloses its intelligence product.

We might say, then, the government of the United States is permitted to be a voyeur, so long as it does not become a pornographer...

Obama exhibitng Stockholm Syndrome?

The auguries suggested that the new U.S. President might be throwing the "special relationship" with Great Britain to the four winds. For reasons of ancestral torture at the hand of the British, Barack Obama seemed to be signaling a personal dislike for the Brits, ousting a bust of the venerated Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, and treating the current PM Gordon Brown like any old foreign leader during his initial visit to the White House.

But, when it came time for Obama to cross the pond, groveling before former masters became the assumed posture, as one headlline suggests:

First Black President Grovels to Virulently Racist Royal Family

The niceties of such meetings can conceal underlying hatreds, betrayed in ever so slight departures from the proper decorum. For instance, how dare Michelle Obama, a descendant of slaves, presume to embrace Her Majesty!

But, if this was disrespect, that was the least of what she deserved. In fact, if a generational, eye-for-eye execution of justice were to be delivered, we might imagine Barack Hussein Obama pulling out a machette and stabbing Her Royal Scabbard, booming in an Afro-English dialect:

AND DEES IZ VOR WAT YOU DEED TO MY GRANVATAR, HUSSEIN ONYANGO OBAMA!

But, no, instead we heard such statements as...

I think in the imagination of people throughout America, I think what the Queen stands for and her decency and her civility, what she represents, that's very important.

There is just a extraordinary affinity and kinship that we have. We owe so much to England; that when you come here there's that sense of familiarity, as well as difference, that makes it just a special place.

There's one last thing that I should mention that I love about Great Britain, and that is the Queen.

LaRouchePAC offers these psychological observations to explain Obama's conciliatory behavior towards British interests:

Obama's Popularity

Obama's Ego

Obama's Nero Complex

A Trip to the Woodshed

Given the family history, however, we might add to the psychological profile a diagnosis of Stockholm Syndrome.

In any case, with the run up to and during the G-20 meeting, it seemed that it was Brown and Obama, bringing the "USUK" together again, against the world... But, particularly against Merkel and Sarkozy:

Merkel and Sarkozy Sharpen Their Tone in London

The time of useless summits has passed," intoned Sarkozy. When it comes to the regulation of the financial markets, he said, there will be no room for negotiation. Merkel seconded her French counterpart, saying that "nothing can be swept under the rug." For Germany and France, she said, regulation is not up for debate. "Whoever doesn't understand that is paving the way to the next crisis," she warned.

And so they apparently got their way...

An almost historic compromise...

The proposals for tighter regulation of the markets were surely a victory for French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Ms Merkel, who had declared much tougher rules on hedge funds to be a 'red line'. If it drives some of the more greedy and destructive speculators out of the market, the move will receive popular support.

But there is also the very real danger these moves will prove too repressive for the financial sector - Britain's great wealth creator, let us not forget - which could find itself strangled by red tape...

G20 summit: New global regulatory regime to cover 'shadow banking'

"Systemically important" institutions – including the shadow banking that encompasses hedge funds and credit rating agencies – face new rules in an attempt to correct the major failures in financial regulation and supervision considered to be fundamental causes of the current problems...

An elated Mr Sarkozy said: "We would never have hoped to get so much."

But, not so fast Sarkie...

Gambling on a dream: but do the G20 figures add up?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development took the G20's nod and on Friday began naming and shaming countries misbehaving and not meeting the new international standards on the exchange of tax information.

But the action on tax havens is not comprehensive. Low taxation zones will still operate and it is possible that closing tax-dodging territories will lead to new ones elsewhere.