Will Bush's Illegal Wiretaps get People off?

Jeralyn Merritt and Reddhedd weigh in on how Chimpy's voyeurism is going to bite the Justice Department in the ass.

One of the real, unspoken scandals, in the thing christened the "War on Terror" (which is actually a "War on Somantics") is the relative inability of the Bush Administration to actually convict all that many folks of anything -- though they certainly accuse them of much.

Take the example of Brandon Mayfield, the lawyer who was falsely accused -- by the Justice Department -- of being involved in the Spanish train bombing, only to be completely absolved later. There are many others, including here in Iowa where people who have hade held political views opposed to the Bush Administration being accused of violating one federal law or another -- only to be completely absolved.

And to what level of abuse has the government gone to make their accusations -- and to what level have they gone in trying to convict them?

Which brings us back to this now known to be widespread use of the NSA to listen into conversations.

Jeralyn and Reddhedd are better at laying out the legal problems than me (I stay far away from criminal cases).

But let me speculate on one case in particular.

What did the government do with Jose Padilla?

It took them forever to charge him -- and they've completely changed, or attempted to change, the nature and venue of the case against him. What have they got and how did they obtain it?