A recent AP article highlighted the stiff arm that Florida law enforcement was getting from House lawyers in their attempt to access Mark Foley's computers. The Multimedia widget in the sidebar includes a link to the July 24, 2007 letter from House counsel which states the DOJ allowed Foley and the Chief Administrative Officer of the House to conduct their own searches of Foley's computers and report back to the DOJ. A novel investigative technique that I'm sure thousands would like to participate in.
Attorney General Mukasey is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for an Oversight Hearing on January 30. I have a few questions for him, maybe you do too.
The July 24 letter was addressed to Mark Perez, Chief Inspector Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and signed by Deputy General Counsel Kerry Kircher. The letter explains who has custody and control of the computer equipment and various data files, which includes Foley.
The letter goes on:
we understand that Mr. Foley has already searched the data on the Office Computer Equipment-as well as the data on an office laptop that was in his possession at the time he resigned-and reported the results to DOJ. Accordingly, as to this data, we suggest you confer with Mr. Foley's lawyers (Bill Taylor and Leslie Kiernan, 202/778-1800), and/or with DOJ (Dan Butler, 202/353-9431).
At DOJ's request, the CAO has already searched the two sets of back up tapes for sexually explicit graphic attachments and embedded images. Nothing responsive was found.
With the above hypocritical double standard as a reference point, I offer the following for members of the Committee.
1) Why was a suspected sex offender (Foley) and a non law enforcement officer allowed to conduct their own searches for evidence of criminal activity and report the findings back to the DOJ?
2) Is the DOJ investigating Gonzales and Mueller for the distribution of child porn images to civilian business men, and if not, why not?
3) What is the status of the investigation of Georgia DA David McDade who re-produced and distributed copies of child porn to a number of individuals?
4) Why are images and footage of Tove Jensen and others copyrighted in the Library of Congress if the DOJ says its child porn?
5) Why is the DOJ wasting time, money and resources by prosecuting images of adult performer Melissa Bertsch (Melissa-Ashley) as child porn when they know she was an adult in all her images? (In a MySpace posting, Bertsch bemoaned her crappy 2007 which included FBI trials).
6) Does the DOJ intend to investigate whether or not MySpace/Murdoch violated any federal laws in their recent admissions that they knowingly allowed minors to access adult material, adult groups, adult profiles, adult classifieds, adult conversations, porn star profiles and pornagraphic links?
7) Does Mukasey intend to amend the AWA guidelines issued by Gonzales, now that states are actively speaking out against them and which the National Conference of State Legislatures says, "compound the burdensome, preemptive scheme of the underlying law they seek to clarify?"
Mukasey has been tasked with restoring the integrity and public reputation of the DOJ. Oversight hearings have the same task. No one expects Senator Hatch to leave his shoeshine kit with his staff--but what about the rest of the committee?