TEXGATE: COVERUP!
Houston Chronicle Texgate Coverup Story: Click
Here
Breaking!
Texas Democrats Allege Coverup!
Democrats allege cover-up of DPS records
By Jay Root and Ginger D. Richardson
Star-Telegram Staff Writers
AUSTIN - Revelations that state police ordered the immediate
destruction of records gathered during last week's Democratic boycott
of the Texas House prompted allegations of a Watergatelike cover-up,
sparked a review by Travis County prosecutors and raised more
unanswered questions Wednesday.
The Texas Department of Public Safety says it had to destroy
the records to comply with federal privacy guidelines, a claim
supported by Republicans but disputed by Democrats and several legal
experts
Click
Here For More!
The One Paragraph Order To Coverup:
To: Captains
Date: 9:39 a.m. May 14, 2003
Any notes, correspondence, photos, etc. that were obtained
pursuant to the absconded House of Representative members shall be
destroyed immediately. No copies are to be kept. Any questions please
contact me.
L.C. "Tony" Marshall
Commander, DPS Special Crimes Service
The Story
Last week the Democrats in the Texas state legislature fled
to Oklahoma in order to break "Quorum." (When 100 members of the state
Senate have to be present for a vote to be held.) It turns out that
the Department Of Homeland Security a U.S. Federal agency was used by
the Republican party to track the Democracts and to monitor them.
These facts came to light when the Dallas-Fort Worth Star Telegram
reported that an Air/Marine base in California had be contacted to
track the whereabouts of a private plane used by one of the Democrats.
We are standing on the threshold of dictatorship people.
Tracking your political enemies every movement? Redistricting states
so that you can't lose? What has this country become? If you are a
Republican is this really the America you envisioned?
Check out the story:
source: Austin
Statesmen
DPS reportedly ordered to destroy records on AWOL Democrats
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
FORT WORTH, Texas — Texas Department of Public Safety
captains were reportedly ordered to destroy all records and photos
gathered in the search for Democratic state representatives who sought
refuge in Oklahoma to protest a congressional redistricting bill
proposed by the Republican-dominated House.
The one-paragraph order, sent by e-mail, was obtained
Tuesday by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram under the Texas Open Records
Act.
It was revealed as officials were asked to disclose how
federal resources were used at state troopers' request to help track
the plane of former state House Speaker Pete Laney when he and other
Democrats didn't show up for the Texas House session May 12.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Tuesday he would
review the decision to withhold information about his agency's
involvement. He said there is an internal investigation into the
matter.
The DPS directive sent on the morning of May 14 was
apparently carried out, an agency spokesman said Tuesday. It came one
day before Democrats ended their boycott and returned to Texas.
The order addressed to "Captains" stated: "Any notes,
correspondence, photos, etc. that were obtained pursuant to the
absconded House of Representative members shall be destroyed
immediately. No copies are to be kept. Any questions please contact
me."
The order was signed by the commander of the DPS Special
Crimes Service, L.C. "Tony" Marshall. It angered the head of a state
House panel looking into law enforcement's role in the search.
"That's unbelievable," state Rep. Kevin Bailey, D-Houston,
chairman of the House General Investigating Committee, told the
newspaper.
"I'm appalled. It would appear as though there is something
to hide," said Bailey, who was one of the 51 Democrats who fled to
Ardmore, Okla., during the walkout. "And based on some information
we've been told inside DPS, it just concerns me more that there were
some overzealous people inside the agency. The question is who was
driving them so hard. I really am shocked that they would be
destroying any internal information."
He said the destruction of records "probably is a crime."
State Rep. Dan Flynn of Van, a GOP member of the House
committee, said he found word of the document destruction disturbing.
"If there is something that's being destroyed that's a
public record, yeah, that would disturb me," said Flynn, adding that
investigating the DPS' role in the search would be a "political
football" best left to others.
"Of course, if the speaker tells us to do it we'll go after
it, but it just doesn't seem to be an issue that would be in the
purview of what we're doing," he said.
House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, has said the
investigating committee could look at the issue if it desired.
Craddick originally ordered the DPS to find the Democrats and return
them to the state Capitol so that the House could achieve the quorum
necessary to bring up the redistricting bill which was successfully
killed by the boycott.
Tom Vinger, a DPS spokesman, disagreed that the order to
destroy records was inappropriate. He could not say Tuesday who, if
anyone, gave Marshall the order to destroy records.
"The investigation was complete. Since this was not a
criminal investigation, we feel it would be inappropriate to keep any
files," said Vinger. Asked if all the records created during the hunt
for the missing Democrats were indeed destroyed, Vinger said, "To the
best of my knowledge, yeah."
Texas law generally requires that records be kept for a
certain period of time, but it was unclear late Tuesday how those
guidelines would affect DPS' actions.
A spokeswoman for GOP Attorney General Greg Abbott said it
would be a crime to destroy records that had been requested under the
Texas Open Records Act. It could not be determined late Tuesday if
there was a standing request for the records before they were
destroyed. The spokeswoman, Angela Hale, said destroying records
before state guidelines allow it would not be within the purview of
the attorney general.
"As a general rule, government agencies don't destroy
records this quickly . . . that is very unusual," said Rob Wiley, past
president of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
"A reasonable person would certainly believe that somebody
thinks something ought to be hidden," Wiley said. "The likelihood was
there was some kind of attempt to use the governmental processes for
what was clearly a partisan political issue."
According to the newspaper, the destruction order first went
out to the DPS captains at 9:39 a.m. May 14, a day before runaway
Democrats began returning to Texas. At 1 p.m. that day, the e-mail
order was forwarded to an officer lower on the DPS command chain — Lt.
Will Crais.
Federal officials and published reports have named Crais as
the law enforcement officer who called for federal help in locating a
plane owned by one of the missing Democrats. But the DPS would neither
confirm nor deny that Crais called in the Air and Marine Interdiction
Coordination Center, a division of Homeland Security based in
Riverside, Calif. The federal agency, which normally tracks drug
smugglers and terrorists, made some phone calls but never found the
plane.
U.S. Rep. James Turner, the ranking Democrat on the House
Homeland Security Committee, asked that Ridge release any recordings
or related information to the plane tracking. Ridge, during a
committee hearing Tuesday in Washington, D.C., said the department has
referred the matter to the inspector general.
That office is looking into assistance provided to DPS by
the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has said it
was led to believe Laney's plane could have crashed.
State Reps. Lon Burnam, Yvonne Davis and Timoteo Garza —
members of the House law enforcement committee who were among the
fleeing lawmakers — filed a Texas Public Information Act request
Monday seeking all printed and electronic documents about the DPS
involvement in the search.
Dallas Fort Worth Star-Telegram Breaking Story: Click Here
excerpt:
A one-sentence order sent by e-mail on the morning of May 14 was
apparently carried out, a DPS spokesman said Tuesday. The revelation
comes as federal authorities are investigating how a division of the
federal Homeland Security Department was dragged into the hunt for the
missing Democrats -- at the request of the state police agency.
:: RobN 10:10 AM [+]
::
...
:: Friday, May 16, 2003 ::
TexGate: Supposed Liberal Press Forgets To Report On It
In what is perhaps one of the most shocking scandals in
American history, the use of Federal agencies by the Republican party
to monitor Democrats, there has been but a whisper in the national
press. The American press has become so saturated by Right wing
idealogues that it didn't even bother to report on infringments even
worse than the Nixon area Watergate breakins. Nary a word has been
said since the Houston Star-Telegram reported that the Republicans were
using the Federal Homeland Security department to track the movements
of Texan Democrats who were fighting to prevent illegal redistricting
that would cause the Republicans to gain five more seats.
The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, L.A.
Times, San Francisco Chronicle, all of them just simply didn't even
bother to report on this dictatoral-like abuse of power.
This has been a very sad week for American Democracy when
the papers are too busy reporting Scott Peterson and the murder of his
wife Lacie Peterson. Too busy the papers have been reporting on the
opening of The Matrix Reloaded and the moral, religious implications
of the film (oh please!) Even my favorite news and opinion website
Salon couldn't find the time to place this scandal at the top of the
page, instead relegating it to a Joe Conasan story while the front
page story was about American Idol's color issues and it's oh so lovable
Clay Aiken versus Ruben Studdard (aka Random Black Guy Who Can't Win
Because He's Black According to Salon Color Commentator Bomani Jones.)
:: RobN 5:14 PM [+]
::
...
TexGate: Texas Republicans Resort To Gerrymandering!!
So this is how Gerrymandering works. Let's use
California as an example. California has very conservative rural
areas, and two very liberal major cities San Francisco and Los
Angeles. The majority of California's population lives in those two
cities and as a result the state tends to go Democratic. But let's
imagine for a second what could happen if the Republicans were able to
determine voting districts.
They would divide the ultra liberal city of San
Francisco into 20 voting districts and then combine each of those
small voting districts with larger rural Republican districts. As a
result not a single Democrat would be elected from San Francisco
because their votes were combined with larger Republican voting
regions.
So what is happening in Texas? U.S. Senator Tom DeLay
asked Texas to redistrict the state of Texas in order to steal five
seats away from Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Those five seats don't
disapear though, they become Republican because of the way the
district was remapped. How does this work? It's simple. Austin is
perhaps the most liberal city in Texas. It somewhere between LA and SF
in it's politics. So the Republicans in Texas redrew the districting
map to divide Austin into 5 districts which stretch all the way across
the state and just have tiny little bits that go into Austin.
It's illegal.
And thank god the Texas Dems are standing up for themselves. Check out
the new redistricting map:
:: RobN 12:48 PM [+]
::
...
:: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 ::
This is bigger than
wateragete.
Interesting that the supposed Liberal Media isn't
reporting on what is in effect an abuse of power worse than watergate.
At least in watergate Nixon paid non-government people to do the dirty
work.
Rather than having a branch of the government do the dirty work.
:: RobN 4:31 PM [+]
::
...
Republicans Use Homeland Security Department To Track
Texas Democratic Representatives
From: Common Dreams
Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Homeland Security Department Used to Track Texas Democrats
by Glenn W. Smith
Republicans in Washington and Austin, Texas apparently used a Homeland
Security Department agency to track Texas Democratic legislators who
left the state to block passage of a GOP-backed Congressional
redistricting bill.
This is the same Homeland Security Department that is
supposed to be making America safe from foreign terrorists. It's the
agency we were told would never be used for domestic political
purposes.
But today's edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
reports that the Air and Marine Interdiction and Coordination Center,
in Riverside, California, became involved in the Republican search for
51 Democratic state representatives who went to Ardmore, Oklahoma to
break a quorum of the House and block action on the redistricting
bill.
Here's what the Star-Telegram reported: "The agency
received a call to locate a specific Piper turboprop aircraft. It was
determined that the plane belonged to former House Speaker Pete
Laney." Laney is one of the Democrats who is fighting against the
redistricting bill.
The newspaper said, "Laney's plane proved to be a key
piece of information because, (Republican House Speaker) Craddick
said, it's how he determined that the Democrats were in Ardmore. 'We
called someone, and they said they were going to track it. I have no
idea how they tracked it down,' Craddick said. 'That's how we found
them.'"
The Interdiction and Coordination center "falls under
the auspices of the Homeland Security Department," the Star-Telegram
reported.
Republican Craddick, at the request of U.S. Rep. Tom
DeLay, is pushing a redistricting plan that would eliminate five
Democrats from the U.S. Congress. Currently, the Texas delegation
contains 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans.
While saying they "called someone," Craddick denied
making calls to any federal agency, but DeLay confirmed that
Republicans sought the assistance of federal law enforcement.
The action by the House Democrats, dubbed the "Heroes of
the House" and the "Killer D's" (a reference to a similar
quorum-busting action by Texas Senate Democrats in the late 1970s),
has gained national attention. Their action has also received a
surprising amount of support from Texas newspapers, which have
criticized the deeply partisan actions of Texas Republicans.
Republican leaders in Texas and Washington are furious.
They have called the Democrats, holed up in a Holiday Inn in Ardmore,
"cowards" and "terrorists."
State troopers have followed the Democrats wives,
parents and children. Troopers even staked out a hospital where one
lawmaker's premature twins are being cared for. Staffers have been
harassed. All this has happened after the location of the Democrats
was known.
Now, in a chilling revelation, we discover the Homeland
Security Department was apparently used to try and track the
Democrats' whereabouts.
It was no doubt a ham-fisted, incautious and bungled
attempt (like the Watergate burglary) by Republicans to use all the
law enforcement they could find to overcome the Democrats' temporary
advantage.
But the use of the Homeland Security Department for
partisan political purposes should alarm all Americans. It deserves a
full, complete and independent investigation.
The warnings of civil libertarians appear to have been
justified. Even if it turns out that some half-crazed Republican
staffer or independent investigator called the Air and Marine
Interdiction and Coordination Center, it raises disturbing questions
about the operations of Homeland Security and the lengths Republicans
will go enforce their will.
Americans deserve to know the details of this scandal.
And they deserve to know them now.
:: RobN 3:29 PM [+]
::
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