Spying

A Crack in the Stone Wall
The New York Times | Editorial

It was one of the more outrageous moments in the story of the Bush administration's illegal domestic wiretapping. Almost a year ago, Congressional Democrats called for a review of the Justice Department's role in the program. But the department investigators assigned to do the job were unable to proceed because the White House, at President Bush's personal direction, refused to give them the necessary security clearance.

Published on Thursday, November 30, 2006 by the Inter Press Service
by Aaron Glantz

SAN FRANCSICO - A coalition of U.S. peace groups are pressing ahead with plans for what they hope will be a massive march on Washington Jan. 27, even though newly released documents show the antiwar community is under Pentagon surveillance.

By Eric Lichtblau, New York Times

Washington - When President Bush went on national television one Saturday morning last December to acknowledge the existence of a secret wiretapping program outside the courts, the fallout was fierce and immediate.

Mr. Bush's opponents accused him of breaking the law, with a few even calling for his impeachment. His backers demanded that he be given express legal authority to do what he had done. Law professors talked, civil rights groups sued and a federal judge in Detroit declared the wiretapping program unconstitutional.

By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, In These Times

Though Maine resident Doug Cowie just celebrated his 75th birthday in October, it was only this past January that he retired from the Maine Public Utility Commission (PUC) where he worked for 18 years. It would be easy to think of Cowie as an innocuous grandfatherly type - particularly after his response when I told him some of his e-mails ended up in my spam folder: "Your what folder?", but he is one of a growing number of Americans who are acting, in lieu of Congress, as the only check and balance on the Bush administration's domestic spying program.

By Laurie Kellman, Associated Press

Washington - Legislation aimed at President Bush's once-secret program for wiretapping US-foreign phone calls and computer traffic of suspected terrorists without warrants shows all the signs of not moving ahead, notwithstanding President Bush's request this week that a lame-duck Congress give it to him.

Senate Democrats, emboldened by Election Day wins that put them in control of Congress as of January, say they would rather wait until next year to look at the issue. "I can't say that we won't do it, but there's no guarantee that we're going spend a lot of time on controversial measures," Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois said Thursday.

Published on Saturday, November 11, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
by Ray McGovern

Full disclosure: I am in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s debt for TV notoriety on May 4, when my impromptu questioning of him elicited denials easily shown to be false. I have known Robert Gates, whom the president has picked to succeed Rumsfeld, for 36 years, starting when Gates was a journeyman analyst in CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy branch which I headed.

As the occupation of Iraq chews up a more and more of our troops, President George W. Bush has jettisoned “stay the course” in favor of “necessary adjustments.” This week he showed how quickly he can adjust to the mid-term election results when he jettisoned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, barely a week after telling reporters Rumsfeld was doing a “fantastic job” and that he wanted him to stay on for the next two years.

It had been clear for weeks that the election would be a referendum on the war in Iraq and that Republican losses would be substantial. And Rumsfeld and Bush saw a mutual need to avoid the acute political embarrassment that would inevitably attend Rumsfeld’s grilling by congressional committees chaired by Democrats. Besides, who better to try to blame for the “long, hard slog” in Iraq than the fellow who not only coined the expression but made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 08 November 2006

Robert Gates, the former director of the CIA during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, and who was tapped Tuesday by the president to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, is part of Texas's good ol' boy network. He may be best known for playing a role in arming Iraq's former dictator Saddam Hussein with American made weapons in the country's war against Iran in the 1980's.

By Reuters

Cincinnati - The U.S. government can continue to eavesdrop on Americans' overseas phone calls and e-mails until its appeal of a judge's ruling outlawing the surveillance is decided, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the government's request for a stay of U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling that would have halted at once the warrantless surveillance, which the government says it needs to ferret out terrorists.

Published on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
by Pam Martens

As the story of Hewlett-Packard’s authorized program for secret spying on private citizens continues to galvanize the media, the elephant in the room that has defied press commentary is where on earth did Hewlett-Packard get the idea that its practices could be condoned in a democratic society. Where did it get the idea to outsource covert spying operations? Where did it get the idea of hiring lawyers to provide twisted legal opinions to justify the practice? Where did it get the idea of accessing AT&T’s phone records to look for enemies. Where did it get the idea that the end justifies the means when there are secrets to protect?

By Josh Meyer
The Los Angeles Times
Monday 11 September 2006

The scope of domestic surveillance has steadily expanded since 9/11. But lawmakers and privacy experts complain of too little information on it.

Washington - As Americans consider whether they are more safe or less five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, one thing is certain: They are being monitored by their own government in ways unforeseen before terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

By Anushka Asthana and Karen DeYoung
The Washington Post
Friday 08, September 2006

President says power is needed for threat.

Atlanta - President Bush urged Congress Thursday to give him "additional authority" to continue his administration's warrantless eavesdropping program. The speech was his latest effort in several days to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by framing the election-year national security debate to political and policy advantage.

Bush asserted that his administration has filled many of the security gaps exposed by the Sept. 11 attacks but said he needs more power to adapt to changes in the threat.

By Eric Lipton, New York Times

Washington - United States and European authorities, looking for more tools to detect terrorist plots, want to expand the screening of international airline passengers by digging deep into a vast repository of airline itineraries, personal information and payment data.

A proposal by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff would allow the United States government not only to look for known terrorists on watch lists, but also to search broadly through the passenger itinerary data to identify people who may be linked to terrorists, he said in a recent interview.

By Sarah Olson, t r u t h o u t | www.truthout.org

Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, of the US District Court in Detroit, Michigan, handed the American Civil Liberties Union and their supporters a stunning victory yesterday when she ruled the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program was unconstitutional. Taylor ruled the secret program violated the First and Fourth Constitutional amendments, as well as the separation of powers principle. She also ruled the surveillance program was not sanctioned by the Authorization of the Use of Military Force, nor was it protected from judicial scrutiny by the State Secrets Act as the Department of Justice had argued.

By USA Today

For the past five years, the Bush administration has operated as if the horrific events of 9/11 not only changed fundamental aspects of national security and public safety, but also changed the very nature of government.

President Bush has unilaterally declared what parts of new laws he wishes to enforce. He has created military tribunals unauthorized by Congress. And, perhaps most ominously, he has authorized eavesdropping on phone calls to and from the USA without court orders.

By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | www.truthout.org

Who can forget the chutzpah of President George W. Bush as he bragged to Bob Woodward, "I'm commander in chief.... That's the interesting thing about being president ... I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

* * *

Wrong, Mr. President. You and Vice President Cheney seem to have missed "Constitution 101." And you seem to have laughed off admonitions against hiring lawyers eager to give an obsequious nihil obstat to whatever you want to do. You have allowed the likes of David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo to do what Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) has accused you and your advisers of doing regarding Iraq - "making it up as they go along." It's enough to make you believe Shakespeare may have been right about lawyers.

By Associated Press

A federal judge in Detroit has ruled that the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program violates the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves wiretapping conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
www.nswbc.org

Contact: Sibel Edmonds, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org

Government Begins its Witch Hunt Targeting Whistleblowers

On Wednesday, July 26, Russell Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and a member of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), was approached outside his home by two FBI agents who served him with a subpoena to testify in front of a federal grand jury. NSWBC has obtained a copy of the subpoena issued for Mr. Tice’s testimony and is releasing it to the public for the first time. The subpoena directs Mr. Tice to appear before the jury on August 2, 2006 at 1:00 p.m. in the Eastern District of Virginia. Mr. Tice “will be asked to testify and answer questions concerning possible violations of federal criminal law." [To view the subpoena click here].

By JIM IRWIN, Associated Press

DETROIT - The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed a complaint with state regulators against AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. on Wednesday, accusing the telecommunications giants of giving private details about Americans' telephone calls to the National Security Agency.

The ACLU, which has filed suit in Detroit seeking to end the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program, said it wants the Michigan Public Service Commission to determine whether the phone companies violated customers' privacy rights.

Good afternoon, mushy-headed defeatists!

(Don't mind the good-natured jab! That's just what Glenn Greenwald thinks you are if you think the good folks in the Bush "administration" aren't quaking in their boots in the wake of the Hamdan decision.)

Just thought I'd bring you up-to-date on the short life of the Hamdan decision. You may recall that two weeks ago we learned that the "administration" denied that Hamdan appliedto the NSA's spying programs, and a bit later, that they denied that Hamdan applied to torture, too.

Today, we learn that Hamdan doesn't apply even to the central holding of Hamdan.

U.S. agent reported on '05 rallies against military recruitment
By Demian Bulwa, San Francisco Chronicle

A federal Department of Homeland Security agent passed along information about student protests against military recruiters at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, landing the demonstrations on a database tracking foreign terrorism, according to government documents released Tuesday.
The documents were released by the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of student groups that protested against recruiters who visited their campuses in April 2005.

By the New York Times

This is how President Bush keeps his promise to deal with Congress in good faith on issues of national security and the balance of powers: He sends the attorney general to the Senate Judiciary Committee to stonewall, obfuscate and spin fairy tales.

Testifying on Tuesday after months of refusing to show up, Alberto Gonzales dodged questions about President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping operation. He refused to say whether it was the only time that Mr. Bush had chosen to ignore the 1978 law on electronic eavesdropping. In particular, he would not say whether it was true that the government had accumulated large amounts of data on Americans’ routine telephone calls. “The programs and activities you ask about, to the extent that they exist, would be highly classified,” Mr. Gonzales intoned.

By The Bill of Rights Defense Committee

The President’s warrantless wiretapping program violates the Fourth Amendment prohibition against wiretapping Americans without a warrant, which must be obtained by showing a judge there is a valid reason for the search. Yet, instead of holding the president accountable, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has teamed up with the White House to draft S. 2453 (nicknamed the “Cheney-Specter bill”), which would legalize the illegal wiretapping program and any other current and future secret programs the administration wants to use to spy on Americans—without ever having to secure a single warrant.

By Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, ACLU

You may have read headlines calling the Cheney-Specter bill on surveillance oversight a "compromise." But make no mistake, this deal is nothing short of a complete capitulation to the Bush administration.

The bill includes legalized assaults on our civil liberties worse even than the sweeping powers ceded to the government by the Patriot Act, and would write into law what is now the administration's belief that the president can wiretap any American he wants without any check.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans' international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected.

The department's Office of Professional Responsibility announced earlier this year it could not pursue an investigation into the role of Justice lawyers in crafting the program, under which the National Security Agency intercepts some telephone calls and e-mail without court approval.

By Glen Greenwald
Yesterday's post regarding Arlen Specter's complete (and hardly unexpected) cave-in to the administration on the NSA scandal, it is now clear that the bill does not have an express amnesty provision in it (see Update II). But every other possible bad thing can and should be said about this bill. Marty Lederman has an excellent and very thorough statutory analysis of the whole travesty, explaining that Specter "introduces a bill, with Administration blessing, that gives the Administration everything it ever wanted, and much, much more."

Jack Balkin's post is also very much worth reading, in which he concludes: "Barely two weeks after Hamdan, which appeared to be the most important separation of powers decision in our generation, the Executive is about to get back everything it lost in that decision, and more."

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press

The White House has agreed to support a bill that could add a new layer of judicial oversight to the Bush administration's controversial eavesdropping program, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday.

The legislation would authorize the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's most high-profile monitoring operations, said the Pennsylvania Republican.

By Larry C Johnson

When the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times reported that SWIFT data was being used to track terrorist finances, Dennis Lormel, the former head of the FBI's terrorist financial investigative unit, helped lead the charge accusing the media of undermining our nation's security. Rule of thumb, PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES SHOULD NOT THROW ROCKS.

I don't really think Dennis is a traitor, but, if we use the standard that the Bush White House applied only to the New York Times, he probably is. Take a look at Chapter One of Ron Suskind's new thriller, The One Percent Doctrine, which features none other than Mr. Dennis Lormel. Suskind writes:

By Thom Hartmann, CommonDreams.org

Every time Democrats and progressives speak out about George W. Bush's spying on Americans without mentioning that he may also be spying on Democrats, they're playing into Karl Rove's "National Security Frame" and actually strengthening Republican electoral chances in November.
To short-circuit this, Democrats need to invoke the ghost of Richard Nixon.

By Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane, New York Times

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday that the Bush administration briefed the panel on a "significant" intelligence program only after a government whistle-blower alerted him to its existence and he pressed President Bush for details.

The chairman, Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, wrote in a May 18 letter to Mr. Bush, first disclosed publicly on Saturday by The New York Times, that the administration's failure to notify his committee of this program and others could be a "violation of law."

By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com

The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping, CNET News.com has learned.

FBI Agent Barry Smith distributed the proposal at a private meeting last Friday with industry representatives and indicated it would be introduced by Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.