Fred Clark of Slacktivist writes one of those blogs that I just love. He's smart, compassionate and very, very perceptive. This piece on the credit report industry is timely -- go read the rest:

Kevin Drum makes a helpful comparison between your credit history and your medical history:

In the same way that medical records are available only to people with a legitimate medical need, I think that credit records should be available only to those who actually extend credit. Beyond that, they're private. Employers don't get them, the FBI doesn't get them, journalists don't get them and my neighborhood association doesn't get them. I don't care how much each of these people really, reallythinks it would be handy to have a peek at them. Short of a subpoena or a court order, my financial records are my business. You can't have them.... The credit reporting agencies [have] been placed in a privileged position where they're allowed to collect sensitive private information — just as doctors and banks and census takers are. That privileged position means they have a heightened responsibility for maintaining privacy, not a license to use their databases for anything that can make them an extra buck or two.

I think that's exactly right.It also seems to be exactly the opposite of the current relationship between citizens and credit reporting agencies.

Right now, the credit reporting agencies are permitted to collect and evaluate sensitive private information about anyone and everyone. (Although, again, "evaluate" may be too elevated a term for the crude reductionist number-crunching of their secret "scoring" formulas.) Almost no information about you and your money and how it is spent is off-limits to them. They are further permitted to sell this information to anyone to whom they wish to sell it, repackaging and marketing your private financial information for sale to insurance companies, your boss or your prospective employer.

Fred goes on to describe the carelessness with which those agencies treat your information, and why protecting consumers from the consequences is a political winner:

There are at the moment Democratic attorneys general in 31 states. Of those, I'm guessing, about 31 are hoping some day to be governors or senators. Advocating for their constituents against the costly and predatory negligence of credit-reporting agencies seems like a promising step toward fulfilling such ambitions. (I forget who it was who first observed that some seek power in order to enact policies while others seek policies in order to attain power, but I think this should appeal to those in either category.)

The Federal Trade Commission estimates that about 9 million Americans are victims of identity theft every year, so it's a safe bet that each of these AGs (or A's G) has thousands of constituents whose credit histories are scarred by such theft and who are therefore being forced to pay premium rates for everything from mortgages to consumer loans to insurance and utilities. Some of these constituents may have been denied employment or promotion on the basis of these lucratively inaccurate and uncorrected credit scores.

These costs are real and therefore they can be measured and quantified and added up into a single Very Large Dollar Amount -- the amount that constituents have been inaccurately and unfairly overcharged due to the negligence and irresponsibility of others. That VLDA is the basis for the class-action lawsuits that these attorneys general ought to be filing on behalf of their constituents.

Whether or not such lawsuits can succeed in achieving restitution for the millions of citizens who have paid dearly for the carelessness of the credit-reporting agencies, the lawsuits ought to be able to achieve at least a bit more of what is desperately needed and sorely lacking in the current system: accountability and transparency.

Without transparency and accountability, the power that credit agencies have will be abused and expanded and extended until its abusive presence is felt, as Matt Lauer put it, in "all portions of your life."

State lawsuits will allow AGs to subpoena information on the calculations and variables that go into the credit-reporting agencies secret-formula scores. Such information would empower consumers to improve those scores beyond what is currently knowable from the best-guesses of hack finance writers and "credit-monitoring" scams.

More importantly, the state lawsuits would allow the AGs to subpoena information on the marketing of citizens private financial information -- to gauge the full scope of the credit-reporting agencies' plans for the use of this private information beyond the realm of actual credit. Informed attention to the misuse of this information for employment decisions or by insurers or utilities would likely lead to the sort of outcry that would make limits on such misuse a legislative priority.

And that could lead to a situation in which the misuse or sale of private financial records is as obviously illegal -- and unthinkable -- as the misuse or sale of private medical records.

We've been saying all along that if the Republicans take back the House in 2010, then crazy Michele Bachmann will lead the subpoena parade against the Obama White House to uncover ACORN's secret meetings with Obama where they plotted to steal the 2008 election. And she'll look to find every paperclip and rubber band that went unaccounted for and then call for impeachment proceedings. Well, now it seems that the Toyota corporate hack, Darrell Issa from the great state of California wants to take a similar position, only he'll shield Big Business and try to uncover other super secrets Obama is hiding. You may have forgotten that Issa receives plenty of "car bucks" from the auto industry and about his starring role when Toyota had a few brake issues:

The National Auto Dealers Association was one of Issa's biggest contributors when he first ran for his seat, and the auto industry as a whole is listed as one of his biggest donors.

You can expect Issa to try and uncover why Obama went to a baseball game when he pledged to plug that BP oil leak. You know, stupid stuff that bloggers like Gateway Pundit are concerned with.

Greg Sargent is on the job and acts like a real journalist:

The quote is buried in a Politico article about a recent speech Issa gave, in which he revealed he's planning to hire reams of subpoena-wielding investigators as chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee if Republicans take back the House:

At a recent speech to Pennsylvania Republicans here, he boasted about what would happen if the GOP wins 39 seats, and he gets the power to subpoena.

"That will make all the difference in the world," he told 400 applauding party members during a dinner at the chocolate-themed Hershey Lodge. "I won't use it to have corporate America live in fear that we're going to subpoena everything. I will use it to get the very information that today the White House is either shredding or not producing."

While that quote stops short of a full-fledged promise to never probe anything corporate America does, it's nonetheless an extraordinary statement: It sounds like a pledge to go easier on big corporations.

He's sending out his coded messages to Big Business that's slightly different than the Southern Strategy, which capitalizes on the racism in people. It appeals to the "free marketeers," the true religion of the conservative movement. He's telling them to fund all Republican races so he can be another Gingrich and protect their interests. Oh and remember, Barton's use of the word "shakedown" was no accident.

Digby always spots the unspottable:

Issa's making a big move to become a national GOP leader. And he's doing it by promising to let loose the hounds of hell on the White House if he gets his grubby hands on subpoena power. OK fine, GOP SOP, to be expected. But this is a new twist. He's openly promising to go easy on corporations at the same time.

Issa is an interesting character. He reminds me a lot of Newtie, without all the cheap imitation professorial posing. At heart he's an opportunistic backstabber with a boatload of ambition and a malfunctioning filter. He's basically a McCarthyite, just like Gingrich

Remember his protection of Blackwater? The free marketeers wanted to privatize everything including a militia force capable of securing their vision of "freedom" so real armies need not get involved. And they succeeded. Do you think he'd lead a hearing to hold Erik Prince accountable for anything? Issa's lackey responded to Sargent's post by trying to deny what Issa said in his speech.

Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella emails that Issa "never said he wouldn't subpoena corporations." "For anyone to try and push a narrative that Issa, as a Chairman, wouldn't pursue legitimate investigations that involve any company defies an already established record," Bardella says.
---
All that Issa was talking about was not using his authority to go on fishing expeditions targeting corporate America as was the case under Waxman. Just look at Issa's record so far. He has been very aggressive investigating cases where there is evidence of something to investigate."

Right. Nice try, you hack. Issa and his pals will bow down to the alter of Big Business and we know it. If there's a hint of corruption, he would ignore it. He'll act like Don Quixote looking for windmills.

As Susie noted earlier, Techcrunch is reporting that Pennsylvania Attorney General (and Republican candidate for Governor) Tom Corbett, in a classic "we respect the Constitution until we don't" Republican move, has summoned Twitter officials to testify before a Grand Jury about two members' accounts.

It appears that two members have been openly critical of the Attorney General on Twitter and on an anonymous blog created to "expose the hypocrisy of Tom Corbett."

Here's the specific information Corbett wants (from the subpoena):

"Any and all subscriber information pertaining to the users of:

http://twitter.com/bfbarbie

http://twitter.com/CasablancaPA

This should include, but not limited to: name, address, contact information, creation date, creation Internet Protocol address and any and all log in Internet Protocol addresses."

The tweets which appear to be in question are ones like this:

Corbett is actively pursuing the prosecution of state employees alleged to have participated in a bonus program which used taxpayer dollars for campaigns. His results have been mixed: Two acquittals and three partial convictions.

Just a quick read through this article gives me the chills, especially when I came to the part where Corbett is under federal investigation for the very same charges.

Despite continued claims by the attorney general’s office that accusations, court motions and lawsuits against Corbett are baseless or “bogus,” it remains to be seen whether he can demonstrate to voters that he didn’t abuse his prosecutorial power in the semblance of cleaning up public corruption.

Additionally, a federal lawsuit filed against Corbett in 2008 alleges that thousands, perhaps millions, of public dollars were “illegally paid out to vendors.”

On March 11, Corbett was deposed in his office for six hours for a lawsuit filed against him and others in the office of the attorney general and Department of Revenue. The whistleblower case alleges that Thomas D. Kimmett, a former attorney with the AG’s office, and his assistant, Sherry E. Bellaman, were terminated because of Kimmett’s call for an independent investigation into the collection practices within the Attorney General’s Financial Enforcement Section.

The case alleges “pervasive wrongdoing” in the collection of accounts receivable amounting to upwards of $300 million to $500 million. It gives details of alleged fraudulent payouts to no-bid vendors and claims there was a “cover-up by Mr. Corbett and the other defendants.”

Back to Twitter for a minute. One of the most attractive features of the service is the rapid-fire message-in-140 one-to-many ability. It's easy, it's accessible via text message, the internet and just about any way one wants to access it, and so it enables free speech. True free speech. The kind that doesn't require millions of dollars and TV studio facilities to broadcast. It certainly facilitates the kind of free speech that Republicans extolled in their arguments for Citizens United.

What scares them most is their inability to control it like they do the airwaves and other venues. In my opinion, Corbett's efforts to expose anonymous Twitter identities is nothing more than a misguided slap at free speech and democracy.

Corrente: Confusing "America" with "Goldman Sachs." Make the call...

Balloon Juice: What did you expect?

TalkLeft: Blago requests subpoena for Obama

Jesus' General: Leghorns for Lowden

The Washington Note: Has Chuck Schumer EVER criticized Israel or its leadership in the way he just unloaded on Obama?

Papamoka Straight Talk: Officer Down

The Justice Department has subpoenaed indymedia.us for its visitor logs for a certain date. While this raises big flags regarding online privacy, something else happened with this action that is very odd. The recipient of the subpoena was told she could not talk about it unless authorized by the Justice Department – an essential gag order.

Of course news like this would send the right into a full frenzy that Obama is trying to silence the media, even a left-leaning site like indymedia. Here’s Hot Air’s take on it:

Did the White House try to open up a two-front war on the media?   Before the Obama administration launched an all-out battle with conservative-leaning Fox News Channel, the Department of Justice demanded the records of all visitor information of left-leaning Indymedia.us in an remarkable subpoena of a media outlet, for one specific day.  No one can recall any precedent for such a wide-ranging probe into the records of a media website, but it may provide a challenge to a national-security law if the DoJ presses hard enough:

But there’s a problem with this “blame Obama” mentality. The original source of the article is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and this is what they say about the subpoena:

On January 30th, 2009, Kristina Clair of Philadelphia, PA — one of the system administrators of the server that hosts the indymedia.us site — received in the mail a grand jury subpoena from the Southern District of Indiana federal court. The FBI had sent an email to Ms. Clair a couple of weeks earlier asking where a subpoena directed at the indymedia.us site should be sent. So, we at EFF were ready and waiting to evaluate the subpoena as soon as it arrived. Yet even we were surprised at what we saw. A PDF of the entire subpoena is available here.

And let’s look at when the actual subpoena was signed:

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OK, looks like the pressure is finally getting to Glenn Beck. You can't watch this rant, from his show yesterday, without concluding that the big implosion is on its way.

Beck: Does sacred honor even exist in Washington anymore? Because I ratted out a self-avowed Communist in the administration in Van Jones, the same organizations, the same politicians, the same progressive media that are ignoring or standing for ACORN now, have called me Joseph McCarthy. They have such little regard for your intelligence that they don't think you're going to figure out that Joseph McCarthy was a powerful senator! Surrounded by the trappings of power of the United States government. With the power of subpoena and the power of Congress! The guy who stood against that was alone. While everybody else wet their pants and cowered in fear!

You'd think the members of the media might remember his name. It was Edward R. Murrow. And while I am nowhere near an Edward R. Murrow, never claimed to be, let me use the words of, finally, somebody that stood up to the power, and these senators, and said, Senator, have you no shame? Have you no shame?

Indeed, his critics have been making the all-too-accurate comparison to McCarthy, most notably Media Matters, who put together a handy side-by-side comparison that's devastating. Looks like Beck watched it and it made him cry.

Or maybe he saw the tallies from the latest set of advertisers to flee his sinking rat's nest of a show: over 50 percent of his ad dollars have now gone elsewhere. Bet that makes him cry too.

But really, Beck did make at least one accurate statement here: He's no Edward R. Murrow.

Hell, he's not even a Krusty the Klown.

Well! This certainly should be an interesting summer:

WASHINGTON – A House panel has subpoenaed documents that lawmakers say could shed new light on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's role in Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

The subpoena comes ahead of a hearing next week in which Bernanke is scheduled to testify.

Lawmakers have accused Bernanke and President Bush's treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, of pressuring Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis into the deal and urging him to keep quiet about Merrill's financial problems.

Not divulging that information would have violated Lewis' fiduciary duty to the bank's shareholders.

Lawmakers also have questioned whether Lewis threatened not to go through with the merger in order to squeeze money from the government.

But he and Sarah have nothing to hide. I promise.

Yahoo!

The governor's husband, however, refuses to answer questions to a panel that he believes is politically motivated, according to campaign officials for Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Palin.

"The objections boil down to the fact that the legislative council investigation is no longer a legitimate investigation because it has been subjected to complete partisanship," campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan said.

Todd Palin could be found in contempt of the legislature for failing to comply, but the whole body would have to be in session to do so, and it is not scheduled to reconvene until January.

Josh makes a great point:

Who would you expect to announce that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin won't cooperate with the Alaska Legislature's probe into whether she abused the power of her office in Trooper-Gate?

Not Palin herself. Nor the spokesperson for the Governor's Office. Nor the lawyer the state is paying to represent her in her official capacity in the case. Instead, that announcement was made today by a spokesperson for John McCain's presidential campaign.

Just keep that in mind as this case unfolds.

(h/t Cernig)

Download | play Download | play (h/t BillW) *video fixed

Dan Abrams, who has been outstanding about keeping the Don Siegelman story at the forefront of his show, had Siegelman on to speak out about his incarceration and the fight in front of him to get Congress to investigate his prosecution and uncover the corruption and White House tentacles that railroad Democrats but ignore Republicans.

SIEGELMAN: We have got to seek out the truth. And I want to, again, commend you and Bush League Justice for pushing this issue forward. This case and these circumstances will make Watergate look like child`s play if Congress will dig into these things. You brought up something right before the break about two prominent Republicans who were exposed during the course of this investigation but were not pursued.

Remind me again, what was it that Congress forced to do when the details about the Watergate break in started to leak out to the general public?

Transcripts below the fold

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With all due respect, Mister Vice-President, we got yer subpoena right here...

From Congressman Wexler's website:

Unlike the show trial put on by Republicans against President Clinton, a proper impeachment hearing would involve a fair and objective presentation of the facts without hyperbole or political gamesmanship. The hard evidence that is presented at the hearings will be judged fully both by Congress and the American people. The evidence alone will determine the outcome, and if it is determined that Vice President Cheney committed "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" he should be properly impeached and put on trial before the Senate.