They said it. A study of Ramsey Town Center's promised foreseeability.

This from the City of Ramsey's website, published there in 2002 although undated, looking to the future of Town Center:

As a growing community, we need to be thoughtful about our growth to maximize the benefits while minimizing any negative impacts. We know that we cannot stop development from coming to our town. Therefore, we must take the initiative to prudently plan and steer the development into something that we want rather than something that we're just stuck with.

[...] I am delighted to be part of our community's long term health and I would encourage others to take the time to become involved with the "smart" growth of our community. Ramsey truly has some outstanding opportunities that we need to be in front of and to help mentor.

Yeah. Right. "... rather than something that we're just stuck with." Uh-huh.

"... part of our community's long term health ...".

Uh-huh.

"Opportunities we need to be in front of." Like that commuter train. In front of it we are so lucky, it stops, everytime it passes Ramsey, so we can move from being in front of it. Makes sense to do that, doesn't it?

"We know that we cannot stop development from coming ...". Right? All over the place they are building like crazy in that weed patch that used to be only a held-for-speculation green acre cornfield?

Not exactly. "Progress" takes time.

Even though a tax-base bonanza and uninterrupted "progress" clearly was a foreseeable mechanistic thing, baking a cake.

There's more.

The Town Center planning ---

Mission

The Ramsey Town Center Task Force is created to facilitate and encourage a Transit-Orientated Development in the City of Ramsey that will fully utilize multi-modal transportation options, including the Northstar Commuter Rail, and that will provide the residents of Ramsey and the region access to desirable businesses, services, housing opportunities, natural resources and most importantly, a centralized area easily identifiable as the community of Ramsey.

[...]

Contact Information

City of Ramsey
Patrick Trudgeon
Principal Planner

They said ALL that "fully utilize multi-modal transportation options, including the Northstar Commuter Rail" stuff, from well before Bruce Nedegaard paid out any borrowed dollars for Kurak and other land. It was all this neat and tidy before-and-after presentation we received, while being told of how the tax base increase would be a relief to us all:

Before-



After-


Remember? It's there now on the ground, just as in the pictures, now that it's 2008 and years have passed.

Yeah. Right. There on the ground just as the artist rendered it. Warm. Fuzzy. Walkable. Transit oriented hub and all. All the stuff, and better than the drawing.

A 2002 Met Council posting, (since scrubbed by Met Council from its website - hello, are you there, Natalie - why's it gone Natalie),

Even greater change may come from the planned Northstar commuter rail, the first of its kind planned for the Twin Cities region. Recognizing the increasing growth pressure, the city and the Metropolitan Council have joined hands on a novel development opportunity for a 275-acre vacant greenfield site with a southwest edge along Hwy. 10 and the proposed commuter rail.

Ramsey is designated as a future station site. In spring 2003, Mn/DOT will open a transit park-and-ride stop in Ramsey on a line from Elk River to Minneapolis.

In contrast to the highway-oriented jobs and retail progressing up Hwy. 10, Ramsey's proposed town center would fill a void where no strong local community gathering place exists today. [...]

Phew!

"Ramsey is designated as a future station site." It said that. Back in 2002, before outsider Bruce Nedegaard bought into it, Nedegaard not being an old-time long-time Ramsey good-ol'-resident, not in that circle. He bought. Station got pulled. Presently Elwyn Tinklenberg's getting thousands for his group to accompany Elvig and Gamec to DC mid-April of this year, the very same day as the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board determines and posts that Tinklenberg is not a lobbyist. And why were they in DC? To get that "designated as a future station site" thing finalized, now six years later, or to make that attempt, with Nedegaard first going broke and then going dead, and with weed field replacing cornfield.

Elvig after chairing the task force was then, back in 2002 when Met Council posted that stuff, running for the first time for a city council seat, and we were being told of that lock-in to a Northstar station stop. Slam dunk. Done deal.

Uh-huh.

Some think leadership and sound decision making is a rare talent. Practiced with directness and without deception.

Others see things as easy as baking a cake. Or say so.

The Kuraks made fourteen million in the process.

I expect neither Tom or Pattiann would view it as a flawed process.

Nor would Elwyn Tinklenberg, or if he would it surely would surprise me. Not that he's ever voiced an opinion, flawed or not. He's cashed every check Ramsey issued Tinklenberg Group. He is agreeable to moving the process along.

So you tell me. Was Nedegaard hung out to dry? Led to believe the transit hub hype? Then with the rug pulled out, bled slowly?

More Burmese junta lobbyist ties, this time Michele Bachmann.

Normally I do not post job openings. And no, with the picture of Michele Bachmann, it is not about yet another Bachmann DC staff vacancy. I would neither lead nor lure anyone into that realm of disaster, I have standards, and do not hype accepting wooden nickles.

However, for a bright and enterprising GOP functionary out of work, I am aware that there is a major high-visability resume-building opportunity of a kind that seldom arises, a once in a lifetime opening, see here, and here.

It is a local job, some traveling probably involved, time away from family, short-term, not permanant. I am presuming it is still open. I would give the job to Mark Kennedy, a man courteous enough to have given his seat to a lady, and when last heard from a man proud of and touting how he could do consensus work even across an aisle.

Mark Kennedy should run Pawlenty's - er, McCain's convention.

But I digress. They could perhaps find some Burmese general to run things - with an iron hand. Bachmann and Coleman should have no problem with that.

The picture is from a Minn. Monitor, May 13, 2008, online supplemental item by Paul Demko:

Norm Coleman is not the only member of the Minnesota Congressional delegation to receive money associated with lobbying firm DCI Group. Freshman Rep. Michelle Bachmann received a $500 contribution from DCI Group partner Brian McCabe in 2006, according to Federal Election Commission Records. McCabe is also president of Progress for America, a conservative 527 group that spent roughly $45 million on advertising during the 2004 presidential campaign.

DCI Group has been under fire for its work lobbying on behalf of the despotic military junta in Myanmar. The man that John McCain tapped to run the Republican National Convention, Doug Goodyear, stepped down from the post after his DCI ties surfaced in Newsweek over the weekend. Doug Davenport, who was charged with heading up the McCain campaign in the mid-Atlantic states, also resigned owing to his work for the lobbying firm.

As first reported on Minnesota Monitor, Sen. Norm Coleman has received nearly $10,000 in campaign contributions from individuals and a political action committee affiliated with DCI. The DFL has called on Coleman to give the money to charity, but the senator has so far refused.

No other members of the Minnesota delegation [not even Kline?] have received DCI-related donations during the last three election cycles, according to FEC records.

Frist, credit is due Minn. Monitor for breaking the entire story, naming the various names and amounts shunted into the Coleman campaign treasury, and then supplementing it with news of the war chest building involvement of my district's representative in Congress, the one and only Ms. Michele Bachmann. (They can even be forgiven for spelling her first name the normal way instead of the Bachmann way, when they bring that kind of news.)


BUT THINK ABOUT IT --- If Bob Olson had gotten the DFL Sixth District endorsement, how he could make something of this situation.

Elwyn Tinklenberg is in no position to be throwing such stones.

If not in a glass house Elwyn himself has been several times through the glass revolving door, in the lobby.

It is similar to the situation where Peyton Manning can make the throws Ryan Leaf couldn't.

_____UPDATE______
The Coleman shoe dropping, days before the same with Bachmann, was something I learned of and posted yesterday, this link. I just added a footnote thought there - this thought - with reporting being of Franken and Coleman and their supporters moaning back and forth about the other's activities and ties - all of that leaves out the squeaky clean, intelligent, and progressive third Senate hopeful, Jack Nelson Pallmeyer, my first choice, over Franken [but with Franken being miles ahead of Norm Coleman so that whichever of the two, Nelson Pallmeyer or Franken gets the DFL nod, I would be supportive]. I like Jack better and believe he'd shake things up in DC more along the Wellstone lines than Franken, and bless him for that and for his cognizant and humane foreign relations views, but either DFL man is a good man who I would have no hesitation supporting.

They get the progressive one, we get the one with fleas.

Ah, the lucky folks living in the third district.



Aswin Madia, by popular voting, has been elected the Newest Progressive Patriot. Please visit the site and see more about Ashwin Madia's honor. He deserves the honor. If only he were the DFL endorsed candidate in the sixth district. We'd have something good, if that were to be.



Instead we get a blue dog, replete with fleas.





A blue dog replete with fleas - which is the excess baggage a dog carries - but with a bunch of billboards saying he's optimistic.

He paid for the billboards, so he can make them say that. Yet no matter how optimistic he is the fleas will not go away. ET will be scratching through November. Jim Oberstar and others might try a flea bath, but washing out taconite tailings and all would take a humongous effort. Even with the Eighth safe and locked in, Jim still has his own fish to fry, his own load to carry, his own billboards to erect.

Justice delayed is justice denied. So fund the courts.

This is an overdue post. Other things intervened. I remembered I had intended to post about the courts and their budget situation.

MPR reported a month ago, April 13.

Strib editorialized, same time frame, April 11.

Both items are still online.

Courts always have backlogs. Some worse than others. When there are backlogs things are delayed. When there are insufficient numbers of law clerks things are delayed or pushed out in less than perfect form. Orders and opinions either can be done with insufficient attention, or later than best. And criminal calendar matters, speedy trial rules, etc., intervene to push the civil calendar back in the queue.


The picture is from MPR, their caption, "Anoka County Judge John Hoffman in his courtroom. Anoka needs seven more court clerks, but can't hire them because there isn't enough money in the budget. (MPR Photo/Elizabeth Stawicki)."

I have seen one motions calendar heard by Judge Hoffman, where the bulk of the calendar was unopposed matters, with one matter opposed.

I have seen one recent trial last December in the Anoka County District 10 courts, and a total of five motions calendars (including the one with Hoffman presiding).

Six different judges, no overlap, while I was tracking the progress of two separate civil cases. In one of the cases each side was represented. In the other one side was pro se, meaning the client representing himself/herself without counsel appearing in the matter (although a lawyer might be consulted in an advisory capacity with the party still litigating pro se).

On at least two instances I observed, the same law clerk had been assisting separate judges. The norm is each judge has his/her own law clerk, a recent law school graduate of above average standing in his/her graduating class, and the position is important to keep the courts functioning. The term "clerk" now suggests a functionary with limited duty, but before there were law schools one became learned in the law by clerking. Abe Lincoln did not go to law school. He clerked.

Unlawful detainer matters are heard on the motions calendar, i.e., ouster of tenants from housing by their landlords, with right to possession the limited issue. That is the most frequently calendared thing I have seen on motions calendars. It is routine, mostly, probably where the phrase, "Going through the motions," originated.

But some matters result in orders and opinions, and that takes time. Things are taken under advisement. After a hearing or trial with things under advisement statutes or court rules, I am not sure which, permit a judge 90 days to hold a case under advisement without any earlier duty to issue a ruling. And if something is not wrapped up in that time, no sane lawyer would oppose giving a judge more time if requested. That would be like provoking a pit bull unnecessarily - no good for the client would ensue, and the lawyer might end up chewed up, one way or another.

With that as background, last month MPR reported:

The governor and the Legislature are both calling for spending cuts for Minnesota's courts as a way to balance the state's budget. But those who work in the judicial system say they simply can't absorb any more. They say they've already eliminated critical positions and any further cuts will seriously jeopardize the state's system of justice.

Last year Gov. Pawlenty appointed two additional judges in Anoka County based on the county's burgeoning caseload. One of those judges, Tom Fitzpatrick, took the oath Jan. 1.

"The idea was that this courthouse would be fully equipped, 17 judges and 17 courtrooms simultaneously, and right now we don't have the budget to do that because we don't have the staff to support all 17 judges at once," said Fitzpatrick.

Judges are the public faces in courtrooms, but they don't work alone. They depend on administrative clerks to file and update court documents, fill out forms, take notes in court, and swear in witnesses. Right now, Anoka needs seven more clerks but can't hire them because there isn't enough money in the budget.

Judge John Hoffman who's been an Anoka judge for 11 years said that means the current clerks can't keep up.

"It is pretty consistent now that when I get my files up the day before for review, that current pleadings are not in my files," said Hoffman. "There's been more than one occasion in the last year where I get attorneys in front of me, litigants in front of me and they're talking about documents and I don't have them."

In addition to administrative clerks, judges depend on law clerks. These are typically new attorneys who perform much of the legal research. They also schedule calendars and are the court's contacts with attorneys and other parties in cases. Under judicial ethics rules, judges aren't supposed to talk with one side in a case without the other side present.

Anoka can only afford to pay 13 law clerks for 17 judges so four judges at a time work for six months without one. One of those is Ellen Maas who's been an Anoka County judge for 13 years.

"I just got back from an extended vacation and my voice mail was filled with messages from attorneys, She said. "Now ethically, I can't return those calls. I'm scrambling now because…I have a four week trial coming up in May involving four fatalities. I have no staff for that."

The budget problem facing the 10th district, which includes Anoka is not unique. The Minnesota court system as a whole has held open 207 positions or 7 percent of its staff, encouraged employees to take leaves without pay, closed public counters a half day a week in three districts and will close a satellite court in Washington County July 1.

And for the first time, districts are laying off personnel. The third district has given layoff notices to five long-term employees who will lose their jobs at the end of April. The tenth district has layoff plans. Now the governor is proposing to cut funding for the courts by 4 percent or $13 million which would cost another 220 positions.

Minnesota Chief Justice Russell Anderson said such cuts would be "devastating." He said the courts can't just cut caseloads. They have to handle the cases that come through the doors, particularly criminal cases. The Constitution mandates that the courts also offer services such as interpreters; psychological testing; and jury costs--costs that have all been rising in the last year.

The state House and Senate have proposed smaller cuts in the court budget than Pawlenty, but Anderson said it's still too much.

"We have appreciated the Legislature's attempt to lessen these cuts, but even with the Legislature's proposal we're estimating that we would have as many as another 100 positions that would be lost," he said.

Before 2005, courts negotiated their budgets with individual county boards. Now decision-makers in St. Paul negotiate for the court system statewide. Those decision-makers include the State Court Administrator's office and the Judicial Council, a 25-member committee which includes judges and administrators, chaired by the Supreme Court Chief Justice.

The goal in moving to a state-funded system was to save money and provide an equal level of justice throughout the state.

But several Minnesota judges, including Anoka County Judge John Hoffman, say new negotiators haven't asked for enough.

"I think most legislators would tell us that they're shocked that we have the financial problems that we have," Hoffman said. "I think when the people that negotiate our budgets build into the process 2 percent raises and then negotiate with many of the collective bargaining agents, 3.5 percent raises and then say, 'you have a structural deficit. Fix it.' We were never in control of those decisions."

Chief Justice Russell Anderson said the executive branch has much larger unions and the court system has to follow their lead.

"We certainly have to follow their lead in the negotiations," he said. "And I would say to our critics, 'where have you been? Where have you been when the rest of us have been over there day and night?' This just doesn't happen by staying home and complaining about St. Paul."

Other judges have told MPR privately they've tried to have a bigger say in budgeting. They say they've been told the court speaks with only one voice and that voice comes from St. Paul.

The judges said they wanted to speak on the record but were afraid that if they did, their districts might get penalized in future funding decisions.

I have not kept up with the situation, MPR reported that at the time there was conference committee work going on in the legislature on budget bills, with the ultimate say being the governor's via line item veto (as I understand it he can cut an item but not pencil it in for a newer higher or lower number - and he would not veto an entire court appropriation). I expect the final result will be in the last days of session, and the courts will not get enough. MPR noted, "the courts portion of the budget is only a small part of the overall negotiations over the state's $935 million projected deficit."

Strib's editorial from last month was supportive of the judiciary:

Minnesota's executive and legislative branches aren't the only parts of state government that feel pinched when the economy turns sour. The third branch of government, the court system, sees more cases of domestic violence, marriage dissolution, child protection, debt collection, foreclosure and low-level criminal activity. Constitutionally mandatory expenses for psychological services, interpreters and juries are all rising fast this year.

That makes this a bad time for Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature to cut court budgets. Yet Pawlenty recommended a $9 million reduction in the state's judiciary funding for the coming fiscal year -- 4 percent of nonmandated salaries. The Legislature's conference committee is considering smaller figures, but still has a court funding reduction in its sights. Facing a $935 [million] deficit, many difficult budget decisions are being made in St. Paul this year. But viewed in the context of a $34 billion budget, the governor and Legislature should be able to find room to maintain a quality court system.

This is the second year in a row that court administration has been on the budget chopping block. The 2007 Legislature allocated $13 million less than the courts projected for employee costs through mid-2009.

As a result, judicial staffing already has been cut 7 percent around the state. Public service counters have been closed one-half day per week in three of the state's judicial districts, including the largest, Hennepin County. Hennepin has also stopped doing criminal-background checks for the public and terminated arbitration services. The Rochester-based Third Judicial District cut the frequency of conciliation court and extended jury terms. A satellite court in Washington County has been closed.

That's the story the state's about-to-retire judicial branch CEO, Chief Justice Russell Anderson, is telling anyone who'll listen these days. He's spending his final weeks in office pleading that the judiciary be spared from the latest round of state budget cuts.

His message deserves heed. Courts are a bedrock function of democratic government. Yet justice delayed, and hence denied, will be the story in every courthouse in Minnesota if Pawlenty's proposal becomes law, Anderson warns. Staff reduction in this biennium would swell to 15 percent, the chief justice said in a recent letter to the State Bar Association. Drug and conciliation courts would be curtailed or eliminated, and some courthouses may close.

The courts don't come to the Capitol with the well-heeled special interest friends that defend other parts of the state budget. But they have Minnesota's foundational compact on their side -- and for elected officials sworn to uphold the state Constitution, that ought to count for much.

So in a nutshell, at least three factors - first, everyone gets cut, so the courts get cut; second, the pay rate negotiation does not involve the judiciary but they are bound by its results so they cannot meet budget by adjusting compensation, only by cutting head count; and last, the lobbyists take care of the special interests [think of Elwyn Tinklenberg's many Tinklenberg Group contracts with municipalities to aid their transportation funding thirsts] while the courts do not hire or use lobbying; and get disadvantaged because of it.

More reason to dislike the "way things are done" with revolving door lobbyists, and to not want to send one of them to DC as my representative, where the pool for such mischief as lobbyists do for a living is far bigger and I worry the man will mainly focus on making contacts, and in two years time, if elected now, will be back through the revolving door in the lobby when Minnesota is projected to lose a seat and it likely will be via the Sixth District being cut up and parceled out to other existing districts. I would hate to see my vote have any chance of going to a career politician - revolving door lobbyist who would or even could view the thing as a two year paid opportunity, with pension and health benefits, to build up the lobbying rolodex. Two more years of Michele Bachmann in the minority, juxtaposed against that; who is to say what is worse. Neither option is in any way appealing, in my view.

The junta needs rice not BLO and GOs, but there's spare cash for junta lobbyists. They give it to Norm Coleman, it's green, and he's keeping it.

So why does the junta like Norm? Have they been given Asian distribution rights for the BLO and GO? I doubt it. But John McCain put distance in place when the story broke. Norm wants to keep the campaign funds the junta lobbyists gave him. The DFL says that is shabby. Norm says Franken used to work at Air America talk radio and asks questions. A good question is why anyone would listen to that talk radio junk, from either Air America or Rush, but aside from that the junta is in a different league altogether.

You be the judge. I don't like military juntas. Not Somoza's, not this one. The GOP seems more amenable to them than I am. Iran-Contra and all that earlier stuff. Now it's Norm Coleman and the generals.

Here's the reporting, via an excerpt from PiPress picking up Fred Frommer's Tuesday, May 13, AP wirefeed.

WASHINGTON—The Minnesota DFL called Tuesday on Sen. Norm Coleman to divest campaign donations made by employees of a firm that lobbied for Myanmar's junta, three days after the firm's chief executive resigned as coordinator of this year's Republican National Convention.

At issue are donations from [lobbyist] DCI Group's political action committee and employees. The firm's chief executive, Doug Goodyear, who had been picked by John McCain's campaign to run the convention in St. Paul, resigned from that role Saturday after Newsweek reported that the company was paid $348,000 in 2002 and 2003 to represent Myanmar's military government.

The DFL urged Coleman, R-Minn., to donate to charity the roughly $10,000 in donations made to his campaign and leadership PAC by DCI's PAC and employees, including Goodyear.

"Senator Coleman should rid himself of tainted contributions from DCI, a lobbying firm that has represented an oppressive regime that is denying vital assistance to its own people during a time of crisis," DFL Party Chairman Brian Melendez said.

He also called on Coleman to reveal what he discussed with DCI lobbyists, including whether the firm lobbied him on behalf of Myanmar's junta.

Justice Department records show DCI signed a contract to work to "improve relations between the United States and Myanmar" and to act as the junta's public relations agent in Washington.

In a statement, Coleman campaign spokesman Tom Erickson referenced an improper $875,000 transfer from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in New York City to the liberal radio network Air America when Franken was a star host there. That transfer prompted a probe by the city's Department of Investigation.

"Franken continues to remain silent about his role in this matter," Erickson said. "As for returning a legal contribution from an individual and company engaged in legal activities, of course we will not be returning the contribution."

"Norm Coleman took nearly $10,000 from a firm representing an oppressive military regime," Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr said in an e-mail. "He won't return the money, and he won't say what he did in return for it. That's shocking. And if the best he can do by way of explaining this stunning and suspicious behavior is to recycle long-discredited smears, Minnesotans are going to start to wonder if there isn't an even uglier story soon to come."

I only wonder, did the junta first seek Elwyn Tinklenberg as its lobbyist, and get turned down and only then turn to these other folks?

Probably not.

The likelihood of the junta getting federal highway funds is so remote anyway, that the Tinklenberg Group probably was not even viewed as a player.

But -- the article suggests the big question is whether there was any quid pro quo.

If that has legs, Norm's got some explaining to do. McCain wants distance and deniability. Norm wants to keep the cash.

And that lame response, it's not trying to add apples and oranges, it's responding to concern about ties to a reprehensible and represive junta; vs. talk radio.

Yes, talk radio is awful. Yes the entire phenomenon, Rush and Jason Lewis especially, is very, very strange and distasteful.

But even on the GOP side of that spectrum and at its vilest, it's not the same as having ties of any nature to a junta or to those promoting the junta as just fine.

________UPDATE________
As a thought I had when reading the reporting, I should have said this in the post and not as an update. However, this is Franken people critical of Coleman's junta money ties then Coleman's people critical of Franken's talk radio money ties. In all of that one thing is missing. Jack Nelson Pallmeyer is clear on his views of how our nation should relate to other nations of the world, ones less wealthy, and it is clearly a view that is 180 degrees away from taking cash from represive junta affiliates. Jack is squeaky clean in his money affairs, and is an exemplary person. We should all strive to be as good as Jack. Yet Coleman gets press coverage, Franken gets press coverage, and because Jack Nelson Pallmeyer IS so squeaky clean, he gets no attention. AND THE DFL ENDORSEMENT CONVENTION FOR ITS SENATE CANDIDATE HAS NOT YET BEEN HELD. FRANKEN IS HOPEFUL, NOT ANOINTED OR APPOINTED. BE PROGRESSIVE. THINK JACK.

True Patriots Act.

I will jump around with this post, but for coherence, it is about privacy.

First here's what one of the little hummers look like, with redactions (where it could be you) and with a lot of background scanner/copier "noise."






Isn't that last page special?

Even the criteria of what they might be poking the long noses into is secret.

I got it off the Internet.

An NSL. That's National Security Letter. Mailed out per the pernicious federal statute named in true Orwellian doublespeak, the Patriot Act.

If your local library got one with your name on it, or your ISP got one for you, that is about what they would have gotten. And they could not tell you or anyone else about it. And no reviewing judge need spend time. Court approval in advance of propounding the inquiry is not required.

And because their very existence is secret, this one getting published is an anomaly. An unusual chance to see what one looks like, unless you are a librarian or ISP officer, or otherwise a recipient.

You wonder whether the postal carrier is sworn to secrecy, or if you don't wonder that, I do.

They must have special nationwide fleet of special postal staff, looking like Herzog's Don Aguirre or like characters out of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, to deliver these top secret letters.






It is an inside-out Omerta, where cooperation with the government is kept secret, and not where secrets are kept by noncooperation.

It is paid for by your taxes.

Again, the document source is about the Internet Archive [aka the WayBack Machine] which is a useful tool to see what, for example, a lawfirm like Dorsey Whitney had on its website about lawyer Jay Lindgren and Ramsey Town Center in the luster days before the thing landed in reality with a big bug-on-the-windshield splat.

That archive service allows you to see what Dorsey Whitney scrubbed.

Or you can go WayBack in time, and see what the now defunct Nedegaard financed Ramsey Town Center LLC's website, ramsey03.com, had to say about Natalie Steffen at the Town Center Groundbreaking back in 2003, etc.

I will not give those archive links. Work your way through the navigation for yourself if you care to. Learn to use the resource.

I downloaded the above NSL, originally posted as redacted in pdf format, here.

Internet Archive posts about their giving their single finger salute to the FBI, here. That page gives links to other coverage. The EFF, an organization all freedom loving people should know of and support, on its homepage features the litigation against the FBI, (in which it played a key role), here.

EFF gives its detailed account of things, here, including of all things, an archive of litigation papers from the lawsuit.

This is one of those morning coffee, that's interesting things to read - but then I decided to post when I thought of my intellectual mentor in these things, TwoPuttTommy; he being my mentor via his email "signature"

It’s A Great Day To Be A Veteran

NOTICE: The National Security Agency ('NSA') of the United States may have read this email without warning, warrant, nor notice, nor legislative or judicial oversight. You may not review the secret file so derived nor challenge actions resulting from it. The US President, through the use of 'signing statements', further reserves the right to circumvent any legislation restricting this exercise of executive authority or assigning executive accountability. For this reason the owner of this email account cannot ensure the privacy of this communication.

And do other true patriots act up, about the NSA spying, trying to quell the offensive practice?

EFF does, here. In great detail, and it probably will make TwoPutter smile to see company in that quest.

Anyone who has exchanged emails with TwoPuttTommy will instantly recognize that signature ending to his messages AND TwoPuttTommy made the daily newspaper news, in a way, with Strib today reporting about Ron Carey living in a glass house while throwing a truckload of stones at Al Franken's people's handling of accounts. Apparently Strib took notice, as it reports, when,

A left-leaning blogger tried to ask Carey about the party’s FEC reports at a news conference the GOP called last week to highlight Franken’s problems. Carey dismissed him, saying the press briefing “is something for our credentialed media here.”

Carey did not respond this week to Star Tribune requests for an interview about the FEC filings.

“Just like any political entity, the Republican Party of Minnesota continues to work with the FEC to make certain our filings are in compliance,” party spokesman Mark Drake said in an e-mail Tuesday.

Take you hat off, TwoPutter, and salute the flag. It's you they mean.

And to go back full-circle, that Internet Archive NSL target - was it me, was it you, was it TwoPuttTommy? We will not know and can only guess. My guess?

It was not Michele Bachmann. It was not Elwyn Tinklenberg. They're both likely okay with the FBI. Only malcontents would be targeted. My guess - Former FBI agent Coleen Rowley, who had the malcontentious termerity to whistleblow on the stupidity and bureaucratic mindsets of her FBI superiors when strange people were showing up in flying schools and wanting to know how to manage commercial jet in-the-air flight without being interested in how to land one of those aircraft. Then, beyond that attention getter as "not a real team player" she had the further termerity of wanting to unseat Col. Kline from his place in Congress, another thing the FBI et al. might not have liked. More "not a real team player" stuff.

So, without anything else to go on, my guess is ex-FBI agent Colleen Rowley was the undisclosed target of the FBI's NSL in the Internet Archive, et al v Mukasey et al, No. 07-6346-CW (N.D. Cal) litigation. Clearly as a voice of discord that way, and as a true patriot acting up, she was a nail that stood up. And we all know that old saying. And bloggers, they often are voices of discord, acting-up, and they have that habit - ferreting around the internet and when current postings are in question, or unavailable, they have that other habit, using Internet Archive as a bit more ferreting. So, me, TwoPuttTommy, any one of us caring to raise a public voice, any of us could have been the target of the secret NSL that EFF, ACLU and Internet Archive had the will to oppose.

Or it could have been Bruce Nedegaard, J. Scott Renne, or Bill Sandison. The three were under federal investigation. However ---

My second guess is they'd focused on Tuttle but there was a bug in the computer.






Finally, for all of us who would like to tell the FBI and the NSA and George Bush and Dick Cheney about what we think about the things they are doing to our liberty and privacy and pride in America, there is this:





_______UPDATE_______
I forgot these C/net News links that give history, and link to online pdf copies of a judicial opinion on constitutionality of the secret NSL procesures (see c/net, here); along with a link to a 2007 Justice Dept. Inspector General report on FBI handling and "serious misuse" of FBI surveilance authorization, including its NSL powers (at c/net, here).

Each pdf is 100+ pages, so I recommend scanning them, over detailed study. The judge writes double space, but it's legalese. The Inspector General report is single space and twice as many pages.

Ramsey Town Center in the news again, sort of, actually same old, same old. What about the Barabo solution?

A ton of money, but private money was spent keeping that horse alive, even in a sling, and ultimately the only choice was euthanasia.

What about that, for Town Center? Instead of more of the same old flavor, with Strib reporting May 5, 2008, "Bank wants out of Ramsey Town Center restrictions"?

The bank let Bruce Nedegaard and henchmen sell off half the land without paying down any part of the debt and now says the plan is unrealistic, flawed or stupid.

If they want stupid, give them a mirror.

So they can see an asleep-at-the-due-diligence-switch kind of being stupid.

Really stupid. Not watching the security. You always concentrate on the security.

Cut the losses, since any spending, we can anticipate would be a ton of taxpaper money, spent anew, because of sunk loss.

In business, no sane decision is based on sunk loss. Only potential for a yield matters. If there is no potential, and there really is none, then be sane, and go for the Barabo solution. Cut future losses. Tell the bank the plan is the plan, it binds them, as has been the City's litigation position, and then sit.

Let the bank do as it chooses. Just do not bleed the taxpayers anymore for the lost cause, and don't unrealistically say that any sunk loss can be recaptured easily.

With the market as it is now for shared-wall dense housing in the exurbs, get real.

_______UPDATE_______
An interesting comment was left claiming the loan was paid down but the principal balance remained the same because people were working the money not giving it to the bank. But beyond that, I had a chance to see a rebroadcast part of the most recent Ramsey City Council meeting - the tail end of discussion about authorizing city spending a good part of a million dollars for lighting and sidewalks along a virtually deserted street. City Administrator Ulrich indicated that the money is in a pot with some strings tied to it (and arguably to the interest it earns if the city sits on the cash as reserves) - but he quite practically noted, the only party having a right to contest how the earmarked pot of money gets spent is Ramsey Town Center LLC. Defunct, buried, bankrupt ventures usually don't sue over something that will put no money into the LLC or the onwership pockets. Not his exact words, but he more tersely noted that as a realistic thought. There's a lot of very costly Town Center storm water drainage money being spent. If the slush fund is not tapped for that costly work then taxpayers are.

Ben keeps smiling.

And one council member saying, in effect, it is something Ramsey can be proactive about, so let's do it. No rationale other than that. Light the vacant empty street and sidewalks once we put the sidewalks in before there is construction, if there ever is, to tear up the sidewalks and fend around the lightpoles.

Hooey. Not even a good appearance of thinking. Why waste?