Oh please, you people! ... with your expectations that the head of the United States Justice Department not end the careers of other honorable and successful attorneys purely based on political motives.

You obviously don't know anything about how he also said the constitution has no guarantee of Habeaus Corpus (just a mysterious prohibition on taking it away...)

... and how he also helped try to get a hospitalized, extremely ill and disoriented John Ashcroft to sign off on renewing the domestic eavesdropping program, which Mr. Ashcroft had previously stated he would not sign off on, while Mr. Ashcroft was not even the acting Attorney General.

... you crazy people. You should either move to Canada or stop paying attention to what your Government is doing. Bush has got it under control!

NMTS system that was widely used before GSM, at least across Europe, in the early 90's wasn't even coded so you could eavesdrop any phone in the vicinity (say 500m) with a standard Motorola radio or any other ham radio (freq. was in the 420-450 MHz range). you could also catch standard land line phone sets with a remote receiver unit (that was usualy in the kilo hertz range)

qm, lying to the country is illegal even if your strange assessment of the "success" of the invasion is correct.

The only mistake in taking out saddam was we didn't level iran first.

as for giving iran the "smackdown"... well, you can't fucking afford it.

A few dozen Raptors over Tehran and the shadow of one B-2 is all it would take, just like Israel kicked Syria's ass from the air(also underreported).

Oh and while you're at it could you please illustrate some of this "alternate history of the past eight years" you refer to?

1) Claims that Bush "stole" the election when in fact it was the taxocrats who tried to steal it
2) Bush "knew" about 9-11...or planned it (not worthy of any response deeper than "Koo-koo!")
3) After 12 years of sanctions and an entire world intelligence community agreeing saddam had wmds (which he did, since he used them) claiming that poor saddam was "illegally attacked".
4) Slick Willie "did everything in his power" to answer muslim terrorist attacks in the 90s.
5) Islam is a 'religion of peace' the government is picking on.
6) Non-stop doomsaying over how Iraqi thugs were going to defeat the world's finest armed forces.
7) Deliberate (what-liberal-media?) blackout of any positive news from Iraq
Sandbagging Gen. Petraeus.
9) Hillary supports the war unless the crowd she's bowing to opposes it.
10) Terrorists at Gitmo are being "held without trial" (even tho US law doesn't apply to them).
11) The Patriot act has led to rampant eavesdropping on regular joes and internment camps, etc.

Liberal alternate history: a negative, half-baked fairy tale focused only on greed, exploitation and cynicism, sold to neo-hippies by paleo-hippies, both who've never been hungry for more than a day and therefore have no understanding of what privation really is, resulting in no gratitude, no shame, no nothin' except hatred for Bush.

yeah, QM is pretty fun at times. this new guy is just weird.

A Republican majority impeached Bill Clinton for lying.

This guy is lying about firing public servants solely for political motives and attempting to coerce a severely ill, highly medicated, non-acting Attorney General, at his hospital bed-side, into declaring himself acting AG and renewing the expiring domestic eavesdroping act he had previously swore he wouldn't renew.

neat. its the same basic idea behind CRT eavesdropping. Your crt monitor (assume for simplicity that its monochrome) is basically an electron beam that turns on and off very rapidly as it scans across the surface of the screen. to eavesdrop on someone then, you dont need to SEE the screen itself. all you need to see is some part of the room that is lit up by the light from the screen. then, if you know the type of monitor it is and its refresh rate then just decode the time delays of flashes of light you see on the wall or the window blinds or what ever and bingo, you can read what the person is looking at plainly. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html

Wepwawet, you are scarily wrong. You always have the right to record a public official. (Except if you posed a threat, block traffic, do not follow orders, or interfere)
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"When a public employer is involved, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its state equivalents are implicated. (A few states apply their Fourth Amendment equivalent to private parties as well. These states include Massachusetts, California and Florida. All employers in those states must comply with the constitutional tests, in addition to the statutory and common law tests.) The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by state action. Actions by a public entity employer may qualify as "state actions."

Generally, there are two components to a Fourth Amendment analysis, under the public employer test: (I) is there a subjective (actual) expectation of privacy and (ii) is this expectation of privacy reasonable. If the surveillance is of an area open to public view, surveillance is generally permissible, since there can be no expectation of privacy in an area open to public view. The issue of whether other less obvious examples invoke a reasonable expectation of privacy is less settled.
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More examples of police getting in a huff about videotapes. But I think in the case of a police officer, the public interest outweighs the wiretap laws. (as it pertains to audio) Not sure what the FL law is. http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060629/NEWS01/106290121 http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060805/NEWS01/108050086

NH law: "It is a crime under state law (RSA 570-A:2) to use any sort of electronic device to eavesdrop or record conversations without the consent of everyone involved. It’s a felony to record other people’s conversations, and a misdemeanor to record one’s own conversations without the other person’s consent."

There is also the ruling of a man videotaping Truck inspections, that was arrested multiple times by police. PA courts upheld his right to videotape. http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/05D0847P.pdf
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The activities of the police, like those of other public officials, are subject to public scrutiny. Indeed, "the First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers." City of Houston, Tex. v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 461 (1987).
Videotaping is a legitimate means of gathering information for public dissemination and can often provide cogent evidence, as it did in this case. In sum, there can be no doubt that the free speech clause of the Constitution protected Robinson as he videotaped the defendants on October 23, 2002. See Smith v. City of Cumming, 212 F.3d 1332, 1333 (11th Cir. 2000); see also Stanley, 394 U.S. at 564 (1969); Whiteland Woods, L.P. v. Township of West Whiteland, 193 F.3d 177, 180 (3d Cir. 1999).