Group challenges phone companies’ wiretapping immunity

By GottaLaff

The BushCo wiretaps are being challenged again. Good:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is appealing, on behalf of several plaintiffs, a June federal court decision that upheld legislation that protects the companies, who acted without court authorization, from being prosecuted. [...]

EFF argues that the legislation is "unconstitutional" because it grants "the attorney general the unconstrained power to decide whether to nullify existing federal and state law governing these actions." [...]

EFF, a privacy group that focuses on civil rights on the Internet, is working with the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of 46 plaintiffs to challenge the legislation.

After 9/11, it was "anything goes". BushCo used fear tactics to advance their greedy little power grabs, secrecy, and otherwise criminal and unconstitutional agenda at every opportunity they had.

And that included eavesdropping on fellow Americans.

Obama DoJ Continues to Assert BushCo's "State Secrets" Argument

By GottaLaff

Forgive my not offering more commentary today, but it's hard to type.. wrist issues. As a result, it's a copy-and-paste day. However, you can imagine that I am not thrilled with this:

In legal papers filed in the middle of the night, the Obama administration has weighed in again on the case of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation et al. v. Obama, asking the judge to drop the case and continuing to wield President Bush's "state secrets" argument that has drawn criticism from civil libertarians, liberals and progressives.

The Saudi charity the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, investigated for terrorist financing out of its Oregon offices, sued the government in 2006, alleging it was targeted illegally under the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. They made this assertion after U.S. officially accidently turned over logs of phone calls. [...]

Jon Eisenberg, one of the attorneys for the charity, said the filing indicated "not only that the Obama administration isn't hedging on the state secrets argument, if anything it's solidified."

The Obama Justice Department continues to assert, as first reported by Politico's Josh Gerstein, that the charity's officials have not yet "set forth specific, uncontroverted facts establishing that they were the targets of, or have been subjected to, warrantless electronic surveillance. Plaintiffs instead continue to rely on the same speculative 'inferences' and conjecture that plainly fail to establish their standing."

There has been some confusion among legal experts about the argument the Obama administration is making, because its lawyers assert they are not relying "on an assertion of the state secrets privilege to cover-up alleged unlawful conduct. The central concern in a case such as this is that the disclosure of whether or not someone is or has been subject to surveillance (and, if so, what type of surveillance) would reveal intelligence sources and methods—in this case, sources and methods concerning alleged surveillance of an entity determined to have provided support to the al Qaeda terrorist organization."

Follow the link for more details.

Read the Entire Unclassified Report on Surveillance Program

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

The pdf of the report in its entirety can be found here.

Breaking: BushCo pushed Ashcroft to re-authorize spy program

By GottaLaff

MSNBC: Bush pressured Ashcroft in hospital to re-authorize surveillance program.

This is news?

Apparently, they didn't know that Bush himself had been involved.

I did, why didn't they?

Domestic surveillance program began soon after 9/11, intelligence agencies say

By GottaLaff

All these various leaks and reports are inflating the narrative, and the stories are growing, the way kids blows up balloons... Huff, puff, bigger... bigger... huff.. puff... until... eventually...

Pop!

The highly controversial warrantless surveillance program initiated by President George W. Bush began within weeks of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a newly released report to Congress compiled by the inspectors general of the nation’s top intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, and the Justice Department.

The report, mandated by Congress, provides context to information that has been leaked in press accounts and buttressed by congressional testimony and in books authored by former officials involved in the surveillance effort.

The report notes that several members of Congress — including then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nancy Pelosi — were briefed on the program on October 25, 2001, and a total of 17 times before the program became public in 2005.

Among other things, the report also cites a Justice Department conclusion that “it was extraordinary and inappropriate that a single DOJ attorney, John Yoo, was relied upon to conduct the initial legal assessment of the (surveillance program).”

“The lack of oversight and review of Yoo’s work … contributed to a legal analysis of the (program) that at a minimum was factually flawed,” it says.

Ex-Senator Graham: Cheney, CIA Lied to Congress About Domestic Spying

By GottaLaff

Jason Leopold is reviving some of his reporting to show the parallels between Then and Now. One day, hopefully soon, this will explode in BushCo's faces:

In an interview with ABC's "Nightline" on Dec. 15, 2005 - after the New York Times disclosed the existence of the warrantless wiretapping program - Graham said he attended meetings in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and discussed surveillance activities, but added that neither Cheney nor then-National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden spoke about a plan to spy on Americans. (CIA Director George Tenet also took part in the meeting.)

"The issue was whether we could intercept foreign communications when they transited through U.S. communication sites," Graham said. "The assumption was that if we did that, we would do it pursuant to the law, the law that regulates the surveillance of national security issues. ...

"There was no suggestion that we were going to begin eavesdropping on United States citizens without following the full law. There was no reference made to the fact that we were going to use that as the subterfuge to begin unwarranted, illegal - and I think unconstitutional - eavesdropping on American citizens."

Graham suggested that Cheney and the intelligence officials had lied to him and other members of congressional intelligence panels.

Cheney and other Bush administration officials - aided by Republican lawmakers - responded to Graham's comments with a fierce counterattack, much like they are doing now against Pelosi. In another "Nightline" interview on Dec. 18, 2005, Cheney said Graham, as well as other members of Congress knew that the administration intended to spy on the phone calls of some Americans.

"He knew," Cheney said. "I sat in my office with Gen. Hayden, who was then the head of NSA, who's now the deputy director of the National Intelligence Directorate, and he [Graham] was briefed as long as he was chairman of the committee, or ranking member of the committee." [...]

Graham said he did attend briefings on the two other dates but he told the Washington Post "there was no discussion of anything [about spying on Americans' telephone calls] in the meeting with Cheney." [...]

The dispute then is nearly identical to the one now playing out in Congress about a similar document cited by the CIA supposedly showing top Democrats receiving briefings about the Bush administration's torture program.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

H/t: The Joshua Blog

ObamAdministration Refuses To Release Secret Wiretap Document

By GottaLaff

Showdown time:

The Obama administration insists it has no obligation to provide access to a top secret document in a wiretapping case, setting up a showdown next week with the judge who ordered it released.

Justice Department lawyers, in a response Friday with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, also argued that Judge Vaughn Walker had no cause to penalize the government over its refusal to turn over the document.

Walker on May 22 threatened to punish the administration for withholding the document, which he ordered given to lawyers suing the government over its warrantless wiretapping program.

The judge has ordered department lawyers to appear before his court Wednesday to make the case why he should not award damages to the now-defunct Oregon chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. That group is challenging the wiretapping program.

In its response, the department said that in this case "disclosure of classified information - even under protective order - would create intolerable risks to national security."

The filing said President Barack Obama has authorized access to classified information on a "need-to-know" basis and argued that the government "cannot be sanctioned for its determination that plaintiffs do not have a need to know classified information." [...]

[T]he Obama administration is also fighting the court-ordered release of prisoner-abuse photos and is reviving, in a revised form, military tribunals where suspected terrorists have limited access to information.

InSpecter Gadget v. the telecoms

By GottaLaff

InSpecter Gadget wants to keep looking into all that wacky warrantless wiretapping:

In an extensive article for the May 14th issue of the New York Review of Books, Specter writes that he intends to introduce legislation requiring the Supreme Court to review lower court decisions on challenges to Bush's warrantless wiretapping program; keeping the courts open to suits against telecommunciations companies who participated in the program; and prohibiting courts from relying on presidential signing statements.

H/t: Eve

Feinstein Launches Probe on NSA Wiretapping

By GottaLaff

Roll Call is subscription only, so this is all I could get:

The Senate Intelligence Committee is launching an investigation into a New York Times report that the National Security Agency overstepped its authority to conduct surveillance of U.S. citizens through the use of domestic wiretaps.

And there's this from the L.A. Times:

Justice curbs NSA over surveillance

The Justice Department has reined in electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency after finding the agency had improperly accessed American phone calls and e-mails. The problems were discovered during a review of intelligence activities, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Now back to our regular wiretapping already in progress.

Court of Appeals Denies DOJ Attempt to Hide Evidence of Warrantless Wiretapping

By GottaLaff

An appeals court disagrees with the Obama Department of Justice on the subject of wiretapping:

A U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco today rejected the Obama Justice Department’s attempt to continue to conceal evidence of warrantless wiretapping. [...]

[T]he government filed an emergency appeal last week hoping to halt the release of documents showing that the National Security Agency, under President George W. Bush, had secretly wiretapped the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation [...] Al-Haramain and its lawyers, who claim they were also wiretapped, need the documents (which they’ve already seen because the government released it accidentally) to proceed with their lawsuit against government officials.

Today, they got a significant step closer. [...]

The Ninth Circuit’s refusal to consider the emergency appeal is significant because it also leaves the district court’s ruling in effect. The lower court had rejected the government’s argument that the “state secrets privilege” allows executive agencies to disregard the requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Sen. Leahy Proposes ‘Truth Commission’ for Justice Department

By GottaLaff

Remember truth? I do, vaguely. It had something to do with not telling lies, if I'm not mistaken:

Sen. Patrick Leahy, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, proposed establishing an independent “truth and reconciliation commission” to investigate several allegations of wrongdoing at the Justice Department during the Bush administration.

Inhale that for a second. I'll wait. Come on, you can do it: De-e-e-ep breath. Hold it. ... Hold it... longer... you know, as you would if you were taking a hit of... truth! What did you think I meant? Who do you think I am, Michael Phelps?

Sorry, you can exhale now. Your lungs are now truth-filled. Wasn't that refreshing? Are you high on life yet?

The Vermont Democrat said the commission should investigate the department’s once-secret warrantless wiretapping program, the politically motivated firings of some U.S. attorneys and the department’s highly controversial memos on the treatment of terrorism detainees.

Time for another hit.

Anyone got any Twinkies?

Leahy said his proposal marked a middle ground between prosecuting former officials in President George W. Bush’s administration and doing no investigations at all.

The truth commission should have subpoena power and witnesses would not face charges except if they commit perjury, he said. “Rather than vengeance, we need a fair minded pursuit of what actually happened,” he said.

Oh man, what just happened? This turned this into a totally bad trip. Whoa. Seriously. I'm so bummed. What was I thinking? Commissions are meaningless. And toothless ones are even more meaningless.

Anyone got a 750 ml bottle of Patron Silver and some limes?

40 secret Bush surveillance, executive power memos found; Could be made public

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

So much about BushCo will be discovered, leaked out, exposed as time goes on. It's only been two weeks and looky what we have here:

Details about more than three dozen secret memoranda written by Bush Administration officials now sit atop a chart created by a public interest reporting group. The memos track new details about dozens of secret Bush Administration legal positions on torture, detention and warrantless wiretapping.

Meanwhile, Obama's freshly-confirmed Attorney General Eric Holder told senators that he was open to declassifying White House legal memos if no support for their original classification could be found, signaling a likely showdown with former President George W. Bush over executive privilege. [...]

The chart lists 40 memos that remain secret, along with identifying the 12 that have been made public.

Given the chart, one can find the exact date a memo was written, its author and sometimes short details the authors have gleaned from other sources.

Here's one entry:

Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to military operations abroad or in U.S.

This memo, titled Re: Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States, concludes that the Fourth Amendment's protections against warrantless search and seizure don't apply to military operations, even when the operations take place on U.S. soil.

How we know: Cited in the Interrogation Memo (p. 8)

Recipient: Alberto R. Gonzales , Counsel to the President
Link to this entry

Go get 'em, A.G. Holder.

Rachel Maddow- Warrantless Wiretapping Whistleblower Thomas Tamm Interview

The man is an absolute hero. Background here and here and here.

So much for that smooth transition: DOJ blocks Obama transition team from reviewing wiretap, torture documents

By GottaLaff

Via Think Progress:

According to the Blog of Legal Times, the Justice Department is blocking President-elect Obama’s agency review team’s request “to review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and National Security Agency programs.” Included in these documents are the “legal rationale of the NSA’s warrantless spying program and the CIA’s detention and interrogation policies, among other intelligence initiatives.” According to a senior Justice Department official, they are “reluctant to provide the opinions to Obama’s team without permission from the two intelligence agencies whose activities they address.” (HT: Daily Kos and Talk Left)

So much for those promises of cooperation.

US President George Bush today publicly congratulated Barack Obama on his historic victory and vowed "complete co-operation" as the first black US president moves into the White House. [...]

"I told the President-elect he can count on complete co-operation from my Administration as he makes the transition to the White House," said the outgoing President, whose second four-year term ends on January 20.

True to form.

Bush, Out of Office, Could Oppose Inquiries

By GottaLaff

Is there no end to this?

When a Congressional committee subpoenaed Harry S. Truman in 1953, nearly a year after he left office, he made a startling claim: Even though he was no longer president, the Constitution still empowered him to block subpoenas... As Congressional Democrats prepare to move forward with investigations of the Bush regime, they wonder whether that claim may be invoked again. Topics of open investigations include the harsh interrogation torture of detainees, the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, secret legal memorandums from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and the role of the former White House aides Karl Rove and Harriet E. Miers in the firing of federal prosecutors.

Obama has reservations about pursuing too many investigations.

But even if his administration rejects the calls for investigations, Mr. Obama cannot control what the courts or Congress do. Several lawsuits are seeking information about Bush policies, including an Islamic charity’s claim that it was illegally spied on by Mr. Bush’s program on wiretapping without warrants.

And Congressional Democrats say that they are determined to pursue their investigations — and that they expect career officials to disclose other issues after the Bush administration leaves. “We could spend the entire next four years investigating the Bush years,” Mr. Whitehouse said.

But if Mr. Obama decides to release information about his predecessor’s tenure, Mr. Bush could try to invoke executive privilege by filing a lawsuit, said Peter Shane, a law professor at Ohio State University.

Supreme Court much?

But the Supreme Court has never made clear how far a former president may go in trying to block Congressional demands for documents and testimony — or what happens if a president disagrees with a predecessor about making information public.

“There is no relevant precedent on the books,” Mr. Shane said.

Ladies and gentleman: The next Precedent of the United States.

Sidebar: If we started the impeachment process, we could at least prevent him from pardoning. Just a thought.

Source: Bush personally directed Alberto Gonzales to Ashcroft's hospital room

By GottaLaff

Dear Nancy,

This is why impeachment should not have been off the table.

Love, Laffy

Sources say Alberto Gonzales now claims that President Bush personally directed him to John Ashcroft's hospital room in the infamous wiretap renewal incident—and that in another instance the President asked him to fabricate fictitious notes.

Here's the link to the whole piece.

Iglesias: Ashcroft "pushed out" for not supporting warrantless wiretaps

By GottaLaff

I'm listening, as I always do, to Thom Hartmann, and out he comes with news that David Iglesias believes that former Attorney General John Ashcroft was pushed out because he refused to sign off on warrantless wiretaps. I dug around and found that Think Progress has the rest:

Now, former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias — who was fired by the administration for refusing to file bogus voter fraud charges — tells the Dallas Morning News that Ashcroft’s refusal to support the warrantless wiretapping program actually led to him being “pushed out” of the Bush administration:

IGLESIAS: The one really intriguing question I’ve had was from a book buyer a few months ago who asked whether I thought John Ashcroft had been pushed out or not after he refused to sign off on the warrantless wiretaps. That’s something that a journalist has never asked me. The honest answer is, yes, that had Ashcroft done the wrong thing, the unconstitutional thing, and signed off on it, he’d probably still be the AG. But Ashcroft served honorably. He did the right thing, and he paid the price. He was asked to move on.

Our government at work.

When Ashcroft resigned from the Bush administration in November 2004, he claimed that he was leaving because he believed the Justice Department would be “well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration.” He was succeeded by Alberto Gonzales, who potentially lied to Congress in order to defend the wiretapping program.

Dennis Kucinich, do your stuff.