Compromising The Constitution

Hey Congress, Just Say No!!!!

July 8, 2008

Editorial, NYT

Congress has been far too compliant as President Bush undermined the Bill of Rights and the balance of powers. It now has a chance to undo some of that damage — if it has the courage and good sense to stand up to the White House and for the Constitution.

The Senate should reject a bill this week that would needlessly expand the government’s ability to spy on Americans and ensure that the country never learns the full extent of President Bush’s unlawful wiretapping.

The bill dangerously weakens the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Adopted after the abuses of the Watergate and Vietnam eras, the law requires the government to get a warrant to intercept communications between anyone in this country and anyone outside it — and show that it is investigating a foreign power, or the agent of a foreign power, that plans to harm America.

The FISA law created a court to issue those warrants quickly, and over 30 years, the court has approved nearly 20,000 while rejecting perhaps a half-dozen. In any case, the government can wiretap first and get permission later in moments of crisis.

Lawmakers are already justifying their votes for making major changes to that proven regime by saying that the bill is a reasonable compromise that updates FISA technologically and will make it somewhat harder to spy on Americans abroad. But none of that mitigates the bill’s much larger damage. It would make it much easier to spy on Americans at home, reduce the courts’ powers and grant immunity to the companies that turned over Americans’ private communications without a warrant.

It would allow the government to bypass the FISA court and collect large amounts of Americans’ communications without a warrant simply by declaring that it is doing so for reasons of national security. It cuts the vital “foreign power” provision from FISA, never mentions counterterrorism and defines national security so broadly that experts think the term could mean almost anything a president wants it to mean.

Supporters will argue that the new bill still requires a warrant for eavesdropping that “targets” an American. That’s a smokescreen. There is no requirement that the government name any target. The purpose of warrantless eavesdropping could be as vague as listening to all calls to a particular area code in any other country.

The real reason this bill exists is because Mr. Bush decided after 9/11 that he was above the law. When The Times disclosed his warrantless eavesdropping, Mr. Bush demanded that Congress legalize it after the fact. The White House scared Congress into doing that last year, with a one-year bill that shredded FISA’s protections. Democratic lawmakers promised to fix it this year.

Bush decided that along before 9/11. He just needed 9/11 to get away with crime after crime and a limp-wristed congress who is either scared to stand up for the people or who are conspirators after the fact. Let the trails begin.

Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold, Christopher Dodd and Jeff Bingaman plan to offer amendments to do that, but there is little chance they will pass. The Senate should reject this bill and start over with modest legislation that makes the small needed changes and preserves Americans’ fundamental protections.

Senator John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee for president, has supported the weakening of FISA. Senator Barack Obama vowed in January (when he was still fighting for the Democratic nomination) that he would filibuster against immunity. Now he says he will vote for an “imperfect” bill and fix it if he wins. Sound familiar?

Proponents of the FISA deal say companies should not be “punished” for cooperating with the government. That’s Washington-speak for a cover-up. The purpose of withholding immunity is not to punish but to preserve the only chance of unearthing the details of Mr. Bush’s outlaw eavesdropping. Only a few senators, by the way, know just what those companies did.

Restoring some of the protections taken away by an earlier law while creating new loopholes in the Constitution is not a compromise. It is a failure of leadership.

Amen!

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Are You Being Tracked And, If So, By Whom?

As for me, I can say with some assuredness that I am not being tracked. Why? Because I am not all that important.

Sometimes being a "nobody" is a very good thing.

Wiretaps “R” Us: Is the FBI Tracking Your Cellphone?

by Tom Burghardt / June 16th, 2008

Under broad powers handed the Federal Bureau of Investigation by Congress in 2001 after it passed the Orwellian USA Patriot Act, the rights of ordinary citizens have progressively been stripped away by America’s national security state.

With a history of domestic counterinsurgency operations against the left, and despite bruising attacks after 9/11 on its (undeserved) reputation as the nation’s premier “crime fighting agency,” the FBI nevertheless, remains a formidable organization when it comes to repressing dissent.

In this light, a disturbing report showcased Wednesday by Wired, highlights the grave dangers posed to individual rights and freedoms when secretive and largely unaccountable federal bureaucracies are handed nearly unlimited powers. Ryan Singel writes:

Does the FBI track cellphone users’ physical movements without a warrant? Does the Bureau store recordings of innocent Americans caught up in wiretap in a searchable database? Does the FBI’s wiretap equipment store information like voicemail passwords and bank account numbers without legal authorization to do so? (”Secret Spy Court Repeatedly Questions FBI Wiretap Network,” Wired, June 11, 2008)

According to Singel, during a series of inquiries in 2005-2006 the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court repeatedly questioned the legality of Bureau electronic surveillance operations that targeted Americans. These revelations came to light in newly declassified documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The spy court inquired whether the FBI was using so-called “pen register” orders to “collect digits dialed after a call is made, potentially including voicemail passwords and account numbers entered into bank-by-phone applications,” Singel writes.

Title 18 of the United States Code, as amended by the USA Patriot Act, defines a pen register and/or a trap and trace device as

[A] device or process which records or decodes dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted, provided, however, that such information shall not include the contents of any communication, but such term does not include any device or process used by a provider or customer of a wire or electronic communication service for billing, or recording as an incident to billing, for communications services provided by such provider or any device or process used by a provider or customer of a wire communication service for cost accounting or other like purposes in the ordinary course of its business.

Under existing federal statutes, the FBI can compel a telecom carrier to turn over records of whom a “target” has called simply by claiming the information is relevant to an on-going investigation. However, under interpretations of existing case law, Wired reports that “so-called ‘post-cut-through dialed digits’ count as the content of a communication, and thus to collect that information, the FBI would need to get a full-blown wiretapping warrant based on probable cause.”

Coming on the heels of revelations of the FBI’s abuse of so-called National Security Letters to obtain electronic and financial records during “terrorism investigations,” the documents outline a systematic pattern by the Bureau to skirt the law. Wired reports,

Among other things, the declassified documents reveal that lawyers in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel and the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy Review queried FBI technology officials in late July 2006 about cellphone tracking. The attorneys asked whether the FBI was obtaining and storing real-time cellphone-location data from carriers under a “pen register” court order that’s normally limited to records of who a person called or was called by.

You read that right: real-time cellphone-location data from carriers.Why should you care if the government knows where you are every minute of the night and day? After all, you don't break laws, nor do you go to illegal places, like crack houses, for example.

Brother, if I really must explain that one to you, you really are incapable of self-governance and, just possibly, too dumb to live.

In 2006, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge Coleen Kollar-Kottely ordered the FBI to report how its phone wiretapping network known as Digital Collection System, handled information it obtained illegally and whether it stored them in its centralized data-mining repository known as Telephone Application. Wired further reports that FBI documents show that

the majority of FBI offices surveyed internally were collecting that information without full-blown wiretap orders, especially in classified investigations. The documents also indicate that the information was being uploaded to the FBI’s central repository for wiretap recordings and phone records, where analysts can data-mine the records for decades.

According to EFF attorney Kevin Bankston, this demonstrates that FBI offices had reconfigured their “digit-recording software, DCS 3000, to collect more than the law allows.”

Give them an inch and they will take a mile every time.

Most Americans are clever enough to know that being data-mined by the government is not such good thing. For those who do not understand that, maybe they can understand that the government collecting data on American citizens and feeding said information to certain corporations would be a nightmare; financial institutions, health-care institutions, insurance companies, one's employer....maybe even known identity thieves. Just think what old Tricky Dick would have done to the people on his "enemies list" with such an information gold-mine.

In other words, despite prohibitions on the FBI’s ability to spy on Americans, the Bureau is storing illegally-obtained data in a centralized data-mining “warehouse” for indefinite retrieval purposes, say, during a “state of national emergency” when the “usual suspects” can be “disappeared” under Continuity of Government plans already in place.

Lest there be any question that federal surveillance programs are concerned with far more than wiretapping alleged terrorists, National Security Presidential Directive 59/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 24 (NSPD 59/HSPD 24), “Biometrics for Identification and Screening to Enhance National Security,” should clear up any lingering doubts.

Signed June 5, 2008 by President Bush:

This directive establishes a framework to ensure that Federal executive departments and agencies (agencies) use mutually compatible methods and procedures in the collection, storage, use, analysis, and sharing of biometric and associated biographic and contextual information of individuals in a lawful and appropriate manner, while respecting their information privacy and other legal rights under United States law.

The executive branch has developed an integrated screening capability to protect the Nation against “known and suspected terrorists” (KSTs). The executive branch shall build upon this success, in accordance with this directive, by enhancing its capability to collect, store, use, analyze, and share biometrics to identify and screen KSTs and other persons who may pose a threat to national security.

As analyst Michel Chossudovsky points out in a scathing critique of Bush’s directive,

NSPD 59 goes far beyond the issue of biometric identification, it recommends the collection and storage of “associated biographic” information, meaning information on the private lives of US citizens, in minute detail, all of which will be “accomplished within the law.” …

The directive uses 9/11 as an all encompassing justification to wage a witch hunt against dissenting citizens, establishing at the same time an atmosphere of fear and intimidation across the land. It also calls for the integration of various data banks as well as inter-agency cooperation in the sharing of information, with a view to eventually centralizing the information on American citizens. (”‘Big Brother’ Presidential Directive: ‘Biometrics for Identification and Screening to Enhance National Security’,” Global Research, June 11, 2008)

In other words, in addition to “known and suspected terrorists,” presumably al-Qaeda and their minions, additional “potential threats” to the capitalist order are named: domestic “radical groups” and “disgruntled employees.”

Disgruntled employees? I think we can safely assume that this does not mean disgruntled employees of the federal government only, but of any business, anywhere. It seems likely that this category might well apply to 99.9 % of Americans at one time or another in their working lives. How do disgruntled employees become, somehow, categorized right along with Known or Suspected Terrorists?

Of course, it is equally easy to figure out that this term does not apply, unless deemed necessary by the powers-that-be, to a person working for the local florist or barber shop. No, this is a category likely applied to people who work for big American corporations; corporations which are deeply intertwined with the federal government. Examples would be "security companies," such as Blackwater, telecoms, such as AT&T and Verizon, the usual suspects associated with the military-industrial-complex, like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, KBR, Halliburton and others, Oil and/or other energy companies of the fossil fuel era, technology companies, financial institutions, etc., etc..

So far, the "domestic radical groups" referred to here, who have been under surveillance by certain federal agencies of the executive branch, including the Pentagon, are a dangerous lot for sure; like Quakers, for example, and other non-violent groups of people who really do believe that war must always be an action of very last resort and only then, when it is a matter of life and death to thousands of people. Whenever war is employed to solve a problem, the people and their leaders have already lost the only "battle" that will matter "at the end of the day" with the greatest tyrant of them all: The never-ending battle with the individual ego/personality as well as the national one.

As a good friend of mine used to say, "If war is the answer, it must have been a very goofy question.

One needn’t be a “conspiracy buff” to recognize — coolly and rationally — that the national security surveillance state under construction since before 9/11, can trace its lineage back to domestic counterinsurgency operations such as the FBIs' COINTELPRO or “civil disturbance” contingency plans such as NORTHCOM’s contemporaneous “Garden Plot” and “Cable Splicer” projects.

Cellphone and internet tracking, now ubiquitous after the USA Patriot Act, are but two of the repressive bricks shoring-up the decaying edifice of the corporatist American empire. In this light, it would be a fatal mistake to hope for ameliorating the erosion of our rights by relying on the Democratic party, or to believe that “change” in the form of an Obama presidency will somehow, magically perhaps, reverse ruling class consensus on this score.

Of course, that would be a mistake. Our Founders were very clear on a number of issues, according to our founding documents. One of those issues was whom Americans should trust for security of their civil rights. They did not believe that politicians of any stripe were to be blindly trusted with our rights; not even with one good eye open, should we trust politicians with our liberties. Democracy, without which there can be no liberty and vice versa, involves a constant tug-of-war or tension between "power-over" and power of, by and for the people.

I don't believe that what I hear Barack Obama saying is that his, or anyone else's, election will be the end of our troubles on the domestic front. We, the people, should not ever believe that we can put our democracy on auto-pilot, in the hands of any political party. We simply must understand that Democracy is not a spectator sport. It requires vigilance especially when, for whatever reason or excuse, we are in a state of war. It requires a lot of "hard work," as Junior would say. As a matter of fact, what I hear Obama saying is just the opposite; that it is going to take much more than a new president and a new congress, as the result of a new election, to begin undoing what has been done and, of course, the results of some of what has been done by this criminal administration can never be undone.


I hear Obama saying that the changes we need now, as a nation, will require the attention of the American people and their voices; not just on election day, but every day. We, the people, have allowed the ship of state to fall into terrible disrepair and into the hands of amoral nut-jobs. Righting the ship and setting a new course will take time and great effort by all of us, not just our elected officials.


The pundits of the Right like to say that "freedom isn't free." On this point, I whole-heartedly agree with them. The answer to this question is the very important point upon which we differ, wholeheartedly, "Who and what are the true threats to our way of life and our constitutional rights? I say that the danger comes from within and from high places, and that that has been quite obvious for a very long time now.


All indicators are there, red lights are flashing all over the place and the "prophets" among us have been running around with our "hair on fire" for years.


Our civil rights and those of others will, more than likely, not be restored until we demand that they are. Even then, we will need to "trust, but verify," as Ronald Reagan once said about Soviet compliance with arms treaties. As our founders understood, power is a dangerous addiction and one which is very difficult to resist for humankind, even for those among us who seek power with all of the good motivations imaginable, like to make positive changes in the lives of Americans possible, for example.


Our laws and the Constitution have taken a horrific beating in the last 7 years or so. What's truly frightening is that the situation can and probably will get much worse in the waning months of this appallingly murderous, deceptive, fear-mongering, anti-constitutional, illegitimate administration.

Over the past decade, the Democrats and their “progressive” critics have stood idly by — or joined in the assault on democracy — as the sinister Bush regime hijacked a national election, launched an illegal war, systematically tortured prisoners, covered-up their criminal negligence, or worse, in the 9/11 attacks, while shredding the Bill of Rights.

Sickening, is it not? Nevertheless, it is not just the D.C. Dembulbs who are guilty of malfeasance and infidelity to America's citizens and military, but a vast majority of Americans themselves have stood by and/or cheered for an amazing number of years.

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press. Read other articles by Tom, or visit Tom's website.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Here and There: The News

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The RESTORE Act, with FISA revisions backed by most House Dems, cleared a major hurdle today: “In 20-14 vote today, the House Judiciary Committee passed the RESTORE Act, which seeks to update the hastily-passed Protect America Act and restore a balance between civil liberties and security. Upon the passage of the bill, Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) said in a statement that the bill gives “the Director of National Intelligence everything he said he needed” while still protecting the ‘vital rights of Americans.’”

* AP: “Thousands of Chrysler LLC autoworkers walked off the job Wednesday after the automaker and the United Auto Workers union failed to reach a tentative contract agreement before a union-imposed deadline. It is the first UAW strike against Chrysler since 1997, when one plant was shut down for a month, and the first strike against Chrysler during contract talks since 1985. Negotiators stopped talking after the strike began, according to a person briefed on the talks who requested anonymity because the talks are private.”

* Alberto Gonzales is still worried about the legal questions surrounding him: “No sooner did Alberto Gonzales resign as attorney general last month than he retained a high-powered Washington criminal-defense lawyer to represent him in continuing inquiries by Congress and the Justice Department…. The top concern for Gonzales, and now [George] Terwilliger, is the expanding investigation by Glenn Fine, the Justice Department’s fiercely independent inspector general, according to three legal sources familiar with the matter who declined to speak publicly about ongoing investigations.”

* CNN: “The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday. ‘I don’t think it. I know it,’ Carter told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. ‘Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights,’ Carter said. ‘We’ve said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we’ve said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused.’”

* Barack Obama criticized Hillary Clinton by name today. That’s a little unusual.

* If Col. Robert P. “Powl” Smith, the chief of operations for the Standing Joint Force Headquarters, U.S. Northern Command, wants to tout the Bush war policy, that’s entirely his call. But doing so at Republican Party events seems like a bad idea.
Read more

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Are the Dems Going To Fold Again?

Every time I have to write some silliness like "the Patriot Act" or "Protect America Act" I almost have to barf.

Democrats to Offer New Surveillance Rules

Bill Aims to Meet Privacy and Security Concerns; Fierce Debate Is Expected

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 7, 2007; A04

House Democrats plan to introduce a bill this week that would let a secret court issue one-year "umbrella" warrants to allow the government to intercept e-mails and phone calls of foreign targets and would not require that surveillance of each person be approved individually.

The bill is likely to resurrect controversy that erupted this summer when Congress, under White House pressure, rushed through a temporary emergency law that expanded the government's authority to conduct foreign surveillance on U.S. soil without a warrant. The Protect America Act, which expires in February, has been criticized as being too broad and lacking effective court oversight.

The Democrats' legislation, drafted by the Intelligence and Judiciary committee chairmen, is aimed to reconcile civil liberties, privacy and national security concerns. It would overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a 1978 law amended many times that the Bush administration argues has been outstripped by technology.

"Some conservatives want no judicial oversight, and some liberals oppose any notion of a blanket order," said James X. Dempsey, Center for Democracy and Technology policy director. "So the challenge of the Democratic leadership is to strike a balance, one that gives the National Security Agency the flexibility to select its targets overseas but that keeps the court involved to protect the private communications of innocent Americans."

The bill would require the Justice Department inspector general to audit the use of the umbrella warrant and issue quarterly reports to a special FISA court and to Congress, according to congressional aides involved in drafting the legislation. It would clarify that no court order is required for intercepting communications between people overseas that are routed through the United States. It would specify that the collections of e-mails and phone calls could come only from communications service providers -- as opposed to hospitals, libraries or advocacy groups. And it would require a court order when the government is seeking communications of a person inside the United States, but only if that person is the target.

A target is defined as a person, group, cell or government of interest to a foreign intelligence investigation.

"Democrats have made huge strides in making improvements over the Protect America Act," said Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Yet we think that the Constitution requires as a minimum that an individualized warrant is required whenever an American's communications are targeted. This is going to be the big sticking point."

Democrats are wary of being called weak on national security. That concern is exacerbated by the government's withholding of details on its surveillance activities that would enable Congress to gauge whether expanded powers are needed, said Mark Agrast, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

The bill would not include a key administrative objective: immunity for telecommunications firms facing lawsuits in connection with the administration's post-Sept. 11 surveillance program. House Democrats have said that as long as the administration withholds requested documents explaining the basis for the warrantless surveillance program, they cannot consider immunity for firms alleged to have facilitated it.

The White House on Friday evening told the chairmen of the Senate and House intelligence and judiciary committees that it would put together that information by Oct. 22 but would not say when or whether it would make the information available to lawmakers.

"We have told the White House for weeks that the House plans to consider FISA legislation on October 17," said a senior Democratic congressional aide involved in the White House negotiations. "How can members of Congress consider any proposal for immunity if the documents relating to the company's conduct aren't even being assembled by White House lawyers until October 22?"

In the Senate, Democrats are working with Republican colleagues on a bill to be introduced this month that probably will contain some form of relief for telecom companies -- an issue that was sidestepped in August to help win passage of the Protect America Act.

Four possibilities are being discussed, said a Senate aide familiar with the discussions. The broadest would be blanket immunity, which would immunize anyone, including government officials, who had anything to do with any surveillance program. That is the approach the government favors and is strongly opposed by civil liberties advocates.

The second is targeted immunity, in which companies that can prove they were acting in good faith would be granted immunity from prosecution. The third is substitution, in which the government would replace the defendant in the lawsuit. Finally, there is indemnification. The cases would proceed through the court system, and if there were financial penalties, the government would assume them, the aide said. (Say What? We, the tax payers get to pay fines because we were spied on?)

Aides spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record.

Adding a new perspective on the debate, a group of prominent computer scientists from organizations including Sun Microsystems, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania recently warned that the current emergency law opens doors to the interception of purely domestic communications without a warrant. The computer scientists are concerned that the government's actions could threaten the privacy and security of U.S. communications.

Administration officials have testified that any information gathered that involves an American who is not a target will be "minimized" -- their identities blacked out -- so that their privacy is protected.

Michael Sussmann, a partner at Perkins Coie in Washington who represents communications providers, said carriers that are alleged to have participated in the government's warrantless surveillance program want immunity to halt pending cases, while those who did not are either agnostic or do not want their competitors to get a free pass.

"It's a tough call," he said. "If they were breaking the law, it was not out of any greed -- there was no remuneration or benefit to their business. It was from a sense of patriotism and interest in protecting against terrorist attack."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

McConnell: I Lied To The Senate About FISA

Jeebus, do these people even know what the truth is anymore? Yikes!

DNI McConnell: I Lied To The Senate

Earlier this week, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell claimed the new expansive FISA legislation passed by Congress prior to the August recess — the so-called Protect America Act — had helped to thwart a an alleged terror plot in Germany.

A government official later told the New York Times that McConnell was wrong, and that the intelligence had been collected under the old FISA law which required warrants. A chorus of House Democrats immediately raised concerns about McConnell’s claims.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) demanded McConnell back up his sworn statement. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) said the Protect America Act “played no role in uncovering the recent German terrorist plot.” House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes urge McConnell “to issue a public statement immediately” correcting his remarks.

In a statement released today, McConnell unapologetically acknowledged he lied to the Senate:

During the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on September 10, 2007, I discussed the critical importance to our national security of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and the recent amendments to FISA made by the Protect America Act. The Protect America Act was urgently needed by our intelligence professionals to close critical gaps in our capabilities and permit them to more readily follow terrorist threats, such as the plot uncovered in Germany. However, information contributing to the recent arrests was not collected under authorities provided by the Protect America Act.

Read the statement here. McConnell would be well-advised to officially correct his testimony.

Note that in the statement, McConnell does not apologize, but rather uses it as another opportunity to call for Congress to authorize the “unnecessary and dangerous” expansion of the administration’s spying power.

UPDATE: Here’s exactly what McConnell said in his Senate testimony:

MCCONNELL: [The new FISA law] was passed, as you well know, and we’re very pleased with that. And we’re better prepared now to continue our mission; specifically Germany, significant contributions. It allowed us to see and understand all the connections with –

LIEBERMAN: The newly adopted law facilitated that during August?

MCCONNELL: Yes, sir, it did. [Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, 9/10/07]

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Both Major Parties should be outlawed

Shame on the Dems

It's bad enough that the Democratic Congress went along with the Bush administration's demands to limit court reviews of foreign wiretaps. As more details emerge of the rushed revisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which were approved before Congress left town for its August break, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau reported in the Aug. 19 New York Times that the new surveillance powers allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include -- without court approval, and in apparent violation of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution -- certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans' business records.

Bush administration securocrats told the Times there would be "strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance," but it should be noted that the Bush administration ignored the strict rules that were in place before the FISA revisions. The securocrats also said the president still claims "constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes ... Senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress."

Meanwhile, Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales has repeatedly been contradicted in testimony to congressional committees and the White House has refused to allow current and former aides to testify before Congress or produce relevant documents, thumbing its nose at Constitutional oversight.

At least Congress put a six-month expiration on the FISA revisions. Contact your Congress member and senators to insist that they let FISA return to its Constitutional status. If the 1978 rules were good enough to keep track of the Soviets, who actually had a navy, an air force and spies dispersed around the world, the old rules ought be be good enough to keep track of al Qaeda operating in the frontiers of Pakistan. Some technical adjustments might be needed to account for changes in technology in the Internet Age. But certainly Democrats should expect more from the Bush administration than, "Trust us."

Sometimes critics berate us for putting up with Democrats instead of supporting independents and/or alternative partisans. Lame acts like the FISA previsions don't make it easier for us. (And we don't cut House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid too much slack. While large majorities of the Democrats in the House and Senate opposed the cave-in, the bill still would have not have passed without the leadership clearing the way.) But there are several Democratic parties -- progressive Dems on the left, Blue Dogs and Democratic Leadership Council types on the right and any number of combinations in between. Compare those mixers-and-matchers with the Republican Party, which enforces orthodoxy that Pelosi and Reid can only dream about.

Pelosi and Reid are not the enemy -- fear is the enemy and the GOP have worked that theme artfully ever since 9/11. Too many congressional Democrats fear Washington lobbyists and Fox News more than they fear their constituents. But taking out congressional Democrats at the ballot box doesn't make sense unless you are replacing them with someone who is more progressive. And most of the House districts that, in an idealistic world, might elect Greens or progressive independents already are electing pretty good Dems.

In other states or House districts, until Congress or legislatures are persuaded to enact instant runoff elections or proportional representation, we don't see the merit in splitting the progressive vote between Democrats and alternative partisans, allowing Republicans to win. Damn me for a patronizer if you must, but if Greens or progressives can't win a Democratic primary they aren't going to win a general election either.

Next year, as Dems try to expand their 29-seat House majority, they will need to protect some tough House seats. One of them is the 9th District in Indiana, where Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos.com noted Aug. 20 that in the last three cycles, Baron Hill (D) and Mike Sodrel (D) have squared off, with the seat flipping each time (Hill, Sodrel, Hill). Hill ranks with fellow Indiana freshmen Dem Reps. Joe Donnelly and Brad Ellsworth near the bottom in "party unity" scores, mainly because of their conservative social policy views, Moulitsas noted, but their votes keep the House in Democratic control. He noted, "50% of a House member is better than 0%, as obnoxious as it may seem at times."

One of the National Republican Congressional Committee's top targets will be the 8th District in Georgia, where Rep. Jim Marshall (D) won by less than 2,000 votes in a district the GOP redrew mid-decade in a partisan power grab. While the conservative Marshall sided with Bush on Iraq war and torture authorization votes, Moulitsas noted that he still votes with the Democratic Party 80.5% of the time, "a number that would drop to zero to 5% if Republicans grab the seat. So yeah, I'm still rooting for him to pull this off."

A Gallup Poll released Aug. 21 found that congressional approval ratings have dropped to a record low 18%. Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com noted that the the overall ratings for Congress are so low because only 21% of Democrats approve of the Democratic Congress. That's not much better than Republican approval (18%). (Independents give Congress 17% approval.)

Gallup noted that Americans gave Dems the majority in Congress in November 2006 in large part due to frustration with the Iraq war and an ineffective and scandal-plagued Republican-led Congress. But approval ratings have dropped from 35% in January as Republicans have blocked Dems' attempts to force a change in Iraq war policy and bottled up much of the Democrats' domestic agenda in the Senate.

Greenwald attributes the unpopularity of Congress, particularly among Democrats, to "their ongoing capitulations to the Bush administration, their failure to place any limits on his Iraq policy, and their general inability/refusal to serve as a meaningful check on the administration. Democrats and independents overwhelmingly dislike the President. Thus, the weaker Congress is in defying the President, the more unpopular Congress becomes."

Democrats disappoint progressive populists at times but Republicans have shown consistently that they will go out of their way to screw progressive initiatives and working people. The Bush administration has distinguished itself with the neglect of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The recess appointment of Richard Stickler, a mining executive, last fall to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration, over the objections of the United Mine Workers, the AFL-CIO and Senate Democrats, set the administration's standard for worker safety. Bush even opposes expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program, telling working parents that they should take their kids to hospital emergency rooms when they get sick if they can't afford private insurance.

The 2006 election victories of Democrats should have given the party more confidence in dealing with the con men, but 16 Democratic senators and 41 House Dems fell for the Bush bamboozle on FISA. Shame on them, but at least Rep. John Conyers at Judiciary and Rep. Henry Waxman at the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Sen. Pat Leahy at the Judiciary Committee are documenting the corruption and incompetence of the Bush administration, building a potential case for impeachment in case the Democratic leaders find their backbones.

If your Congress member won't shape up, find somebody else to run. Preferably in the Democratic primary. -- JMC

(Preferably, do away with both major parties. They have outlived their usefulness to the people they are supposed to be serving.)

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2007

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Law Broadens Bush's Spying Power on Americans

When, oh when, are the Democrats going to learn that the Bushites cannot be trusted any further than I could throw the White House?

They do not give a hoot about Democracy or the Constitution or the people, for that matter. All they care about is money and power, how to get more and retain it.. They will do anything to that end.

It' s that simple!

Concern Over Wider Spying Under New Law

By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 — Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans' business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.

Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.

They also emphasized that there would be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance.

(Haven't we heard this somewhere before?)

The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought. It also offers a case study in how changing a few words in a complex piece of legislation has the potential to fundamentally alter the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a landmark national security law. Two weeks after the legislation was signed into law, there is still heated debate over how much power Congress gave to the president.

“This may give the administration even more authority than people thought,” said David Kris, a former senior Justice Department lawyer in the Bush and Clinton administrations and a co-author of “National Security Investigation and Prosecutions,” a new book on surveillance law.

Several legal experts said that by redefining the meaning of “electronic surveillance,” the new law narrows the types of communications covered in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, by indirectly giving the government the power to use intelligence collection methods far beyond wiretapping that previously required court approval if conducted inside the United States.

These new powers include the collection of business records, physical searches and so-called “trap and trace” operations, analyzing specific calling patterns.

For instance, the legislation would allow the government, under certain circumstances, to demand the business records of an American in Chicago without a warrant if it asserts that the search concerns its surveillance of a person who is in Paris, experts said.

It is possible that some of the changes were the unintended consequences of the rushed legislative process just before this month’s Congressional recess, rather than a purposeful effort by the administration to enhance its ability to spy on Americans.

“We did not cover ourselves in glory,” said one Democratic aide, referring to how the bill was compiled.

But a senior intelligence official who has been involved in the discussions on behalf of the administration said that the legislation was seen solely as a way to speed access to the communications of foreign targets, not to sweep up the communications of Americans by claiming to focus on foreigners.

“I don’t think it’s a fair reading,” the official said. “The intent here was pure: if you’re targeting someone outside the country, the fact that you’re doing the collection inside the country, that shouldn’t matter.” Democratic leaders have said they plan to push for a revision of the legislation as soon as September. “It was a legislative over-reach, limited in time,” said one Congressional Democratic aide. “But Democrats feel like they can regroup.”

Some civil rights advocates said they suspected that the administration made the language of the bill intentionally vague to allow it even broader discretion over wiretapping decisions. Whether intentional or not, the end result — according to top Democratic aides and other experts on national security law — is that the legislation may grant the government the right to collect a range of information on American citizens inside the United States without warrants, as long as the administration asserts that the spying concerns the monitoring of a person believed to be overseas.

In effect, they say, the legislation significantly relaxes the restrictions on how the government can conduct spying operations aimed at foreigners at the same time that it allows authorities to sweep up information about Americans.

These new powers are considered overly broad and troubling by some Congressional Democrats who raised their concerns with administration officials in private meetings this week.

“This shows why it is so risky to change the law by changing the definition” of something as basic as the meaning of electronic surveillance, said Suzanne Spaulding, a former Congressional staff member who is now a national security legal expert. “You end up with a broad range of consequences that you might not realize.”

The senior intelligence official acknowledged that Congressional staff members had raised concerns about the law in the meetings this week, and that ambiguities in the bill’s wording may have led to some confusion. “I’m sure there will be discussions about how and whether it should be fixed,” the official said.

Vanee Vines, a spokeswoman for the office of the director of national intelligence, said the concerns raised by Congressional officials about the wide scope of the new legislation were “speculative.” But she declined to discuss specific aspects of how the legislation would be enacted. The legislation gives the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales broad discretion in enacting the new procedures and approving the way surveillance is conducted.

The new legislation amends FISA, but is set to expire in six months. Bush administration officials said the legislation was critical to fill an “intelligence gap” that had left the United States vulnerable to attack.

The legislation “restores FISA to its original and appropriate focus — protecting the privacy of Americans,” said Brian Roehrkasse, Justice Department spokesman. “The act makes clear that we do not need a court order to target for foreign intelligence collection persons located outside the United States, but it also retains FISA’s fundamental requirement of court orders when the target is in the United States.”

The measure, which President Bush signed into law on Aug. 5, was written and pushed through both the House and Senate so quickly that few in Congress had time to absorb its full impact, some Congressional aides say.

Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by President Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess as being soft on terrorism.

Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.

At the meeting, Bruce Fein, a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, along with other critics of the legislation, pressed Justice Department officials repeatedly for an assurance that the administration considered itself bound by the restrictions imposed by Congress. The Justice Department, led by Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, refused to do so, according to three participants in the meeting. That stance angered Mr. Fein and others. It sent the message, Mr. Fein said in an interview, that the new legislation, though it is already broadly worded, “is just advisory. The president can still do whatever he wants to do. They have not changed their position that the president’s Article II powers trump any ability by Congress to regulate the collection of foreign intelligence.”

Brian Walsh, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who attended the same private meeting with Justice Department officials, acknowledged that the meeting — intended by the administration to solicit recommendations on the wiretapping legislation — became quite heated at times. But he said he thought the administration’s stance on the president’s commander-in-chief powers was “a wise course.”

“They were careful not to concede any authority that they believe they have under Article II,” Mr. Walsh said. “If they think they have the constitutional authority, it wouldn’t make sense to commit to not using it.”

Asked whether the administration considered the new legislation legally binding, Ms. Vines, the national intelligence office spokeswoman, said: “We’re going to follow the law and carry it out as it’s been passed.”

Mr. Bush issued a so-called signing statement about the legislation when he signed it into law, but the statement did not assert his presidential authority to override the legislative limits.

At the Justice Department session, critics of the legislation also complained to administration officials about the diminished role of the FISA court, which is limited to determining whether the procedures set up by the executive administration for intercepting foreign intelligence are “clearly erroneous” or not.

That limitation sets a high bar to set off any court intervention, argued Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who also attended the Justice Department meeting.

“You’ve turned the court into a spectator,” Mr. Rotenberg said.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Blackmailed, Cowardly Democrats

There come a time, people, when you must either stand up to the criminals or become one.

August 8, 2007

Roll Call of Traitors

By Wayne Madsen

August 6, 2007 -- Bush signs bill permitting warrantless eavesdropping of digital communications

With the support of 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was amended to permit warrantless eavesdropping on digital communications passing through the United States.

The FISA Modernization Bill could not have been signed into law by President Bush without the active support of Vichy Democrats, who bolted their leadership, including the Chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees -- Jay Rockefeller and Sylvestre Reyes, respectively -- and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to embrace Bush's grab at increased surveillance powers.

The 41 Vichy Democrats in the House who voted against the Bill of Rights are:

Robert "Bud" Cramer - AL-5 (former Madison County District Attorney)

Vic Snyder - AR-2 (former state senator)

Mike Ross - AR-4 (former state senator)

John Salazar CO-3 (former state rperesentative)

Allen Boyd - FL-2 (former state representative)

Daniel Lipinski - IL-3 (former college professor)

Melissa Bean - IL-8 (former consultancy director)

Ben Chandler - KY-6 (former Kentucky Attorney General)

Charles Melancon - LA-3 (former industry lobbyist)

Collin Peterson - MN-7 (former accountant)

Gene Taylor - MS-4 (former state senator)

Earl Pomeroy - ND-AL (former State Insurance Commissioner)

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin - SD-AL (former attorney)

Henry Cuellar - TX-28 (former Secretary of State, Texas)

Jim Matheson - UT-2 (former businessman)

Jason Altmire - PA-4 (former hospital executive)

Heath Shuler - NC-11 (former NFL quarterback, real estate developer)

John Barrow - GA-12 (former Clarke County Commissioner)

Dan Boren - OK-2 (former state representative)

Leonard Boswell IA-3 (former state representative)

Chris Carney - PA-10 (former professor)

Jim Cooper - TN-5 (former professor)

Jim Costa - CA-23 (former state assemblyman)

Artur Davis - AL-7 (former Assistant U.S. Attorney)

Lincoln Davis - TN-4 (former state senator)

Joe Donnelly - IN-2 (former printing executive)

Chet Edwards - TX-17 (former state senator)

Brad Ellsworth - IN-8 (former Vandenburgh County Sheriff)

Bob Etheridge - NC-2 (former public schools administrator)

Bart Gordon - TN-6 (former Tennessee Democratic Party state chair)

Brian Higgins - NY-27 (former state assemblyman)

Baron Hill - IN-9 (former state representative)

Nick Lampson - TX-22 (former US Representative, 9th CD)

Jim Marshall - GA-8 (former mayor of Macon)

Mike McIntyre - NC-7 (former attorney)

Harry Mitchell - AZ-5 (former mayor of Tempe)

Ciro Rodriguez -TX-23 (former U.S. Representative, 28th CD)

Zack Space - OH-18 (former attorney)

John Tanner - TN-8 (former state representative)

Tim Walz - MN-1 (former National Guard Command Sergeant Major)

Charlie Wilson - OH-6 (former state representative)

For those who may be considering challenging these traitors to the United States and the Democratic Party, their previous occupations are listed for purposes of opposition research and determing levels of past political hackery.

It should be noted that two Republicans voted against increased surveillance powers for the Bush regime: Walter Jones (NC-3) and Tim Johnson (IL-15).

And as with some Democratic cowards in the Senate, the following House Democrats did not show up to vote for a continuation of the Bill of Rights:

Xavier Becerra CA-31

Yvette Clarke NY-11

William Lacy Clay MO-1

Bill Delahunt MA-10

Ruben Hinojosa TX-15

Carolyn Kilpatrick MI-13

Ron Klein FL-22

Tom Lantos CA-12

Ike Skelton MO-4

Authors Website: http://www.waynemadsenreport.com

Authors Bio: For more, visit Wayne Madsen Report, which its publisher, Wayne Madsen, keeps refreshed with more news than any one reporter has a right to.

Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist, nationally distributed columnist, and author who has covered Washington, DC, politics, national security, and intelligence issues since 1994. He has written for The Village Voice, The Progressive, CAQ, Counterpunch, and the Intelligence Newsletter

Look for his new book, Overthrow a Fascist Regime on $15 a Day: The Internet Irregulars vs. The Powers That Be!, in the fall. (based in Paris).

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

It's The Over-sight, Stupid

That's where conversations between Congress and the White House break down every time. OVERSIGHT!

As Junior says about Americans who do not want their privacy invaded by government or corporations, "if you don't have something to hide, you don't have to worry."

So, why does the White House detest over-sight to the degree that they would leave the country unprotected for months just to avoid it? Gee, according to the illegitimate administration, they must be hiding something.

That "something" is what we are concerned about and we want to know what it is, NOW!

August 11, 2007

Reported Drop in Surveillance Spurred a Law

By ERIC LICHTBLAU, JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — At a closed-door briefing in mid-July, senior intelligence officials startled lawmakers with some troubling news. American eavesdroppers were collecting just 25 percent of the foreign-based communications they had been receiving a few months earlier.

Congress needed to act quickly, intelligence officials said, to repair a dangerous situation.

Some lawmakers were alarmed. Others, jaded by past intelligence warnings, were skeptical.

The report helped set off a furious legislative rush last week that, improbably, broadened the administration’s authority to wiretap terrorism suspects without court oversight.

(It's not the wiretapping of terrorists that concerns us. It is the possible, if not probable, wiretapping of political opposition and dissidents along with the huge data-mining project that concerns all Americans, as well it should.)

It was a surprising victory for the politically weakened White House on an issue that had plodded along in Congress for months without a clear sign of urgency or resolution. A flurry of talk in the last three weeks on intelligence gaps, heightened concern over terrorist attacks, burdensome court rulings and Congress’s recess helped turn the debate from a slow boil to a fever pitch.

For months, Democrats had refused to give the administration new wiretapping powers until the White House agreed to turn over documents about the National Security Agency program to eavesdrop on some Americans’ international communications without warrants.

The White House refused to back down, even after Congressional subpoenas were issued. The administration ultimately attracted the support it needed to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from moderate Democrats who felt pressed to act before the recess.

For the White House and its Republican allies, the decision by the Democratic-controlled Congress to act quickly was critical to safeguarding the country this summer as intelligence officials spoke of increasing “chatter” among Qaeda suspects.

To many Democrats who opposed the action, it was a reflection of fear mongering by the White House, and political capitulation by some fellow Democrats.

“There was an intentional manipulation of the facts to get this legislation through,” said Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, a Democrat on the Intelligence Committee who voted against the plan.

(Well, Russ, there is an up-side; at least they didn't send anthrax to Capitol Hill again.)

The White House, Mr. Feingold said Friday in an interview, “has identified the one major remaining weakness in the Democratic Party, and that’s its unwillingness to stand up to the administration when it’s making a power grab regarding terrorism and national security.”

“They have figured out that all they have to do is start talking about an imminent terrorist threat, back it up against a Congressional recess, and they know the Democrats will cave,” he added.

Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, said the White House “very skillfully played the fear card.”

“With the chatter up in August,” Ms. Harman said, “the issue of FISA reform got traction. Then they ran out the clock.”

A White House official said the push was driven by genuine concerns by Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, for the government’s ability to conduct terrorist surveillance.

“There was no real argument on the need for a fix” between Democrats and Republicans, the White House official said. “He’s a straight shooter.”

The prelude to approval of the plan occurred in January, when the administration agreed to put the wiretapping program under the oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The court is charged with guarding against governmental spying abuses. Officials say one judge issued a ruling in January that allowed the administration to continue the program under the court’s supervision.

A ruling a month or two later — the judge who made it and its exact timing are not clear — restricted the government’s ability to intercept foreign-to-foreign communications passing through telecommunication “switches” on American soil.

The security agency was newly required to seek warrants to monitor at least some of those phone calls and e-mail messages. As a result, the ability to intercept foreign-based communications “kept getting ratcheted down,” said a senior intelligence official who insisted on anonymity because the account involved classified material. “ We were to a point where we were not effectively operating.”

Mr. McConnell, lead negotiator for the administration in lobbying for the bill, said in an interview that the court’s restrictions had made his job much more difficult.

“It was crazy, because I’m sitting here signing out warrants on known Al Qaeda operatives that are killing Americans, doing foreign communications,” he said. “And the only reason I’m signing that warrant is because it touches the U.S. communications infrastructure. That’s what we fixed.”

In April, Mr. McConnell began talking with lawmakers in classified meetings about that “intelligence gap” and alluded to it publicly, too. At the time, the administration proposed sweeping measures to “modernize” the foreign surveillance law, a much broader proposal in some respects than what Congress approved.

The proposal was considered dead on arrival by some Democrats, who argued that the administration was overreaching and asking Congress to legislate blindly without access to documents on the legal history and operations of the program.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’ s political problems, including questions about truthfulness in testimony on the eavesdropping, helped stall any action, in part because the administration wanted him to have oversight of the broadened wiretapping authorities.

When the administration proposed its revisions in April, “everyone kind of laughed at us,” said a Justice Department official who insisted on anonymity. “We got bludgeoned. People just said: ‘Are you kidding? We’re not even going to consider it.’ ”

The administration’s classified briefings on the “intelligence gap” grew more urgent. In May, members of the Intelligence Committees began hearing about specific cases in which eavesdroppers could not intercept certain communications, said Representative Heather A. Wilson, Republican of New Mexico.

By June and early July, Ms. Wilson said Friday in an interview, the scope of what intelligence officials were missing had grown “frighteningly large.”

“I begged my colleagues to act,” she said. “They did nothing for six weeks. They weren’t going to act unless they were forced to. So we started raising the pressure.”

Some Democrats reacted skeptically to the closed-door briefings by Mr. McConnell and other intelligence officials. Intelligence Committee members acknowledged that they learned in May that the secret court ruling had caused some problems, but it was not until last month that the administration reported the gaps.

“They changed that story,” a Democratic Congressional aide said, amid talk about a backlog in warrant applications.

By mid-July, Mr. McConnell’s briefings, coupled with the release of a new National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism, set the tone for a series of talks between the White House and Mr. McConnell’s office and Democratic Congressional leaders.

After learning of the intelligence problems, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, contacted the White House to discuss repairing them. On July 12, the White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, discussed the problem with the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, a senior White House official said.

At first, some Democratic leaders favored amending the surveillance law in September. Mr. McConnell pressed for an immediate repair.

Two weeks later, the administration lowered its sights, slimming its original 66-page proposal to 11 pages and eliminating some of the controversial plans like broad immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that aided eavesdropping.

Congressional Democrats effectively agreed to try to forge a narrow bill to address the foreign problem that Mr. McConnell identified. But they were at odds over a critical detail, the court oversight.

Democratic leaders did not demand that the security agency seek individual court warrants for eavesdropping. But they did want the court to review and approve the agency procedures soon after surveillance began.

The administration, however, wanted the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to approve the surveillance, with the court weighing in just to certify that no abuses occurred, and only long after the surveillance had been conducted.

The talks intensified in the days before the recess last weekend, highlighted by proposals and counterproposals in calls between Mr. McConnell and the Democratic leadership.

By Aug. 2, the two sides seemed relatively close to a deal. Mr. McConnell had agreed to some increased role for the secret court, a step that the administration considered a major concession, the White House and Congressional leaders said.

But that night, the talks broke down. With time running out, the Senate approved a Republican bill that omitted the stronger court oversight. The next day, the House passed the bill.

(In other words, they were blackmailed, again!)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Can Bush Be Charged With A Crime After Leaving Office?

Go to Original

Wiretap Denial a Criminal Cover-Up
By Jon Eisenberg
The Recorder

Friday 10 August 2007

Eight words: "These calls are not intercepted within the country." That's how President Bush has described the so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program" - the president's warrant-less wiretapping of communications between persons inside and outside the United States when the government claims a link to al-Qaida. The president said this during a press conference on Dec. 19, 2005, three days after The New York Times revealed the program's existence.

But now it seems those eight words weren't true. In fact, they concealed unlawful conduct.

Over this past weekend, Congress passed a hastily drafted bill amending FISA - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. One of the bill's key provisions amends FISA to allow warrant-less wiretapping whenever the target of the surveillance is "a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States."

In little-noticed testimony before a Senate committee on May 1, director of national intelligence Mike McConnell disclosed the reason why the White House wanted this amendment. He said: "When seeking to monitor foreign persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activity who are physically located in foreign countries, the intelligence community is required under today's FISA to obtain a court order to conduct surveillance." At the same hearing, National Security Agency director Keith Alexander explained that a FISA warrant is required because the communication is "collected in the United States."

Alexander was referring to a provision in FISA that requires a warrant for electronic surveillance if "such acquisition occurs in the United States." At FISA's inception in 1978, the interception of most communications between persons inside and outside the United States occurred outside the United States. In the 21st century, because of technological innovations, such communications pass through switching stations within the United States, where they are subject to interception - thus bringing them within the scope of FISA's warrant requirement. That's what Sen. John Boehner was referring to when he told Fox News on Aug. 2 that a recent court ruling prohibits electronic surveillance "where the communication could come through the United States."

But this means it's untrue that, as the president previously told us, "These calls are not intercepted within the country." They are. That's what has made their warrant-less interception unlawful. And that's why the White House wanted this weekend's amendment - to exclude such communications from FISA and its warrant requirement if the person targeted is located outside the country.

President Bush has been untruthful to the American people before, perhaps most infamously in his 2003 State of the Union address, where he uttered these 16 words to back up his claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." As former ambassador Joseph Wilson revealed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, those words were untrue, and the White House knew it.

The president's 16-word falsehood about Iraq in January 2003 helped take us to war. Although the claim might have been morally repugnant, technically it was not a criminal cover-up.

But the president's eight-word falsehood in December 2005 is something else entirely. If it is true that the Terrorist Surveillance Program intercepted communications from switching stations inside the United States, that means each warrant-less interception was a criminal violation of FISA - a felony, punishable by up to five years' imprisonment. And that means the president's false assertion that "these calls are not intercepted within the country" was arguably a cover-up, in that the true facts reveal unlawful conduct.

Some fine-tuning of FISA is indeed overdue. There is no disputing that legislation governing the protection of national security must keep pace with today's rapid advances in technology. But, under the rule of law that prevails in America, the right way to deal with an outdated act of Congress is to update it, not to ignore it. Regardless of whether this weekend's amendment is a good solution, the president's prior flouting of FISA definitely was not. Nor was his untruthful statement on Dec. 29, 2005. As the United States Supreme Court said in its 1974 decision rejecting President Nixon's claims of absolute executive privilege, no American - not even the president - is above the law.

(As a matter of fact, the administration was asked after 9/11 if they needed something like this up-date of FISA and they said that they did not. Why would they say that Congress need not bother themselves with the FISA laws when they were already finding it necessary to break the existing ones? Probably to avoid over-sight which might lead to the discovery of even worse crimes.)

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Jon Eisenberg represents the now-defunct US arm of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi charity that was shut down by Saudi authorities after the US Treasury Department declared it a terrorist organization that was allegedly funding al-Qaeda. Eisenberg sued the US government in Portland, Ore.'s federal court, alleging the National Security Agency had illegally intercepted telephone calls without warrants between Soliman al-Buthi, the Saudi national who headed Al-Haramain's US branch, and his two American lawyers, Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor. The case is scheduled to be heard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco next week.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.