I received this video in an email from the Chris Dodd campaign. This is AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein speaking out against retroactive immunity for telecom companies.

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Olbermann: Uncle Sam is Watching You. Keith discusses NSA spying with Jonathan Turley.

This statement has been on my mind the past week…..

“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” ~Sinclair Lewis~

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In 2003, Room 641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a “special job” by the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T technician. It was fed by fiber-optic cables that siphoned copies of e-mails and other online traffic from one of the largest Internet hubs in the United States, the former employee says in court filings.

What occurred in the room is now at the center of a pivotal legal battle in a federal appeals court over the Bush administration’s controversial spying program, including the monitoring that came to be publicly known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Tomorrow, a three-judge panel will hear arguments on whether the case, which may provide the clearest indication yet of how the spying program has worked, can go forward. So far, evidence in the case suggests a massive effort by the NSA to tap into the backbone of the Internet to retrieve millions of e-mails and other communications, which the government could sift and analyze for suspicious patterns or other signs of terrorist activity, according to court records, plaintiffs’ attorneys and technology experts.

Continue reading at the Washington Post

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Let me get this straight. They vote to approve a program they know nothing about, and then they subpoena information about it? Is that right?

Though Congress is on vacation, majority Democrats are keeping alive various fights with the White House with one common thread: Congress’ access to administration documents and testimony to which President Bush has claimed executive privilege.

Smack in the middle of the August break, the White House faces a new deadline for producing subpoenaed information about the legal justification for the president’s secretive eavesdropping program.

And aides in both chambers are considering a selection of ways to deal with Bush’s refusal to let current and former advisers testify publicly about their roles in the firings of federal prosecutors. Contempt proceedings could begin in the House as early as September.

Still other officials are considering ways to, in the words of one Republican, “end the tenure of Attorney General Gonzales.” That would be Alberto Gonzales, longtime presidential friend and embattled head of the Justice Department whose congressional testimony has drawn quiet, if any, defense from White House allies on Capitol Hill.

More at Forbes

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In open court and legal filings it’s referred to simply as “the Document.”
Federal officials claim its contents are so sensitive to national security that it is stored in a bombproof safe in Washington and viewed only by prosecutors with top secret security clearances and a few select federal judges.

The Document, described by those who have seen it as a National Security Administration log of calls intercepted between an Islamic charity and its American lawyers, is at the heart of what legal experts say may be the strongest case against the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program. The federal appeals court in San Francisco plans to hear arguments in the case Aug. 15.

The charity’s lawyer scoffs at the often surreal lengths the government has taken to keep the Document under wraps.

“Believe me,” Oakland attorney Jon Eisenberg said, “if this appeared on the front pages of newspapers, national security would not be jeopardized.”

Eisenberg represents the now-defunct U.S. arm of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a prominent Saudi charity that was shut down by authorities in that kingdom after the U.S. Treasury Department declared it a terrorist organization that was allegedly funding al-Qaeda.

More at USA Today

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The extraordinary secrecy surrounding the spying operations revealed in Alberto Gonzales‘ Senate testimony is not aimed at al-Qaeda, but at the American people.

The dispute over whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales committed perjury when he parsed words about George W. Bush’s warrantless surveillance program misses a larger point: the extraordinary secrecy surrounding these spying operations is not aimed at al-Qaeda, but at the American people.

There has never been a reasonable explanation for why a fuller discussion of these operations would help al-Qaeda, although that claim often is used by the Bush administration to challenge the patriotism of its critics or to avoid tough questions.

On July 27, for instance, White House press secretary Tony Snow fended off reporters who asked about apparent contradictions in Gonzales’s testimony by saying:

“This gets us back into the situation that I understand is unsatisfactory because there are lots of questions raised and the vast majority of those we’re not going to be in a position to answer, simply because they do involve matters of classification that we cannot and will not discuss publicly.”

Discussion closed.

Please do read the rest at Alternet

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Ok, doesn’t ANYONE in congress know about the programs they speak of? If not, isn’t that a crime in itself?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration’s top intelligence official has acknowledged that a controversial domestic surveillance program was only one part of a much broader spying effort, The Washington Post reported in its Wednesday edition.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell wrote in a letter that other aspects of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program remain classified, the Post said.

“That is the only aspect of the NSA activities that can be discussed publicly because it is the only aspect of those various activities whose existence has been officially acknowledged,” McConnell wrote, according to the Post.

Bush acknowledged the existence of a program that monitored domestic phone calls and e-mails without court oversight in December 2005. The administration has not confirmed other secret spying efforts reported by news outlets, such as one that searched millions of telephone records.

Continue reading at Boston.com

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By David Swanson
from Truthout.org

A former member of US military intelligence has decided to reveal what she knows about warrantless spying on Americans and about the fixing of intelligence in the leadup to the invasion of Iraq.

Adrienne Kinne describes an incident just prior to the invasion of Iraq in which a fax came into her office at Fort Gordon in Georgia that purported to provide information on the location of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The fax came from the Iraqi National Congress, a group opposed to Saddam Hussein and favoring an invasion. The fax contained types of information that required that it be translated and transmitted to President Bush within 15 minutes. But Kinne had been eavesdropping on two nongovernmental aid workers driving in Iraq who were panicked and trying to find safety before the bombs dropped. She focused on trying to protect them, and was reprimanded for the delay in translating the fax. She then challenged her officer in charge, Warrant Officer John Berry, on the credibility of the fax, and he told her that it was not her place or his to challenge such things. None of the other 20 or so people in the unit questioned anything, Kinne said.

Kinne dates this incident to the period just before the official invasion of Iraq, or possibly just after. She says that because the US engaged in so much bombing prior to the official invasion, she cannot recall for sure.

Prior to September 11, 2001, Kinne says, it was unacceptable to listen in on or collect information on Americans. The practice was barred by United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18. Kinne recalls an incident in 1997 in which an American’s name was mentioned, and she and her colleagues deleted every related record because they took very seriously the ban on collecting information on Americans. Kinne was serving from 1994-1998 on active duty as an Arabic linguist for military intelligence at Fort Gordon in Georgia, sending reports to and collaborating with the NSA. She served at the same station after 9/11 when she was activated as a reservist.

read more at TRUTHOUT

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The oversight is good, but really, what have all these subpoenas accomplished thus far? It will just be more of the “I don’t recall” defense.

From Politico

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a business meeting for Thursday to authorize subpoenas as part of the panel’s investigation into the NSA eavesdropping program.

Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) have repeatedly asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to turn over any legal opinions and advice the Bush administration has supporting the NSA’s warrantless eavesdropping program, which President Bush and other administration officials have called the “Terrorist Surveillance Program.”

Gonzales has repeatedly rebuffed those requests, including a May 21 letter to the attorney general from Leahy and Specter. Leahy has recently threatened to take further action to obtain access to the information.

Now, Leahy has scheduled a vote for Thursday to authorize him to subpoena the documents following consultations with Specter. Under Judiciary Committee rules, Republicans can postpone the vote on the subpoena authorizations for a week, but Democratic insiders don’t expect Leahy will have any problem gaining approval for the subpoenas at that time.

Leahy’s decision to seek subpoena authority signals a dramatic escalation of the fight between Capitol Hill and the White House over the NSA eavesdropping effort, and was spurred by recent testimony by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey that Gonzales and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card attempted to persuade ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize the program while hospitalized in early 2004. The effort led to a showdown between the White House and the Justice Dept., and Comey and other senior DOJ officials threatened to resign over the matter. Bush had to personally intervene in the dispute before it was resolved and the eavesdropping program reauthorized.

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I guess if Bush wants to grant them immunity, he already KNOWS he broke the law, and so did they.

From ZDNet:

Despite the Bush administration’s firm stance on granting immunity to telephone companies, Congress hopes to raise the issue again to find out exactly what the phone companies provided to the government, reports Ars Technica.

The Bush administration has asked for retroactive immunity for telephone companies regardless of the legality of their actions. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, intends to hold hearings in order to find out find out exactly what these companies might have done.

“Before granting immunity for any activities, it will be important to review what those activities were, what was the legal basis for those activities, and what would be the impact of a grant of immunity,” Reyes said in a statement.

Under consideration are whether the NSA’s surveillance program was legal and if the laws need to be changed to allow intelligence agencies to better track terrorist communications.

Reyes says that he “will not prejudge the outcome of these hearings,” but the fact that he has serious questions about the retroactive immunity suggests that he won-t be easily persuaded to sign off on it. That’s good news for organizations like the EFF, which is embroiled in a lawsuit with AT&T over the issue. Even if the administration doesn-t get its way in Congress, it will continue to push for the courts to throw out such cases on the grounds that they will expose state secrets. Thus far, though, the combined case against the telephone companies remains alive.

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(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

(Via Politics TV.) I had thought this story about the White House pressuring a sick man to approve their domestic spying program was bad enough when reading about it. That’s not to mention the “You mean even Ashcroft wouldn’t sign off on this?” angle. However, listening to NPR last night and hearing Comey’s voice, I started getting furious. Here’s the video.

Glenn Greenwald has two good pieces on this, “Gonzales’ yearlong effort to block Comey’s testimony” (5/15/07) and “Comey’s testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal” (5/16/07). Hilzoy has a good examination of some of the key testimony in “When Christ Told Us To Visit The Sick In Their Sickrooms, This Is Not What He Meant.”

I think at this point we can dispense with the ridiculous fiction that the Bush administration somehow didn’t know what it was doing or possesses any innocence whatsoever. They knew what they were doing was illegal, they knew going through the proper process would stymie them, so they used every trick they could and abused their power to try to get what they wanted. They’ve blocked investigations, prevented oversight and lied to Congress and the American people to try to get away with this. It’s a familiar pattern. Still, the conduct described in this testimony isn’t just illegal, it’s inhuman. The Bushies aren’t just bad public officials, they’re bad people. We still haven’t obtained the full details of the abuses leading to war (we have the broad strokes), but there’s ample evidence that the Bush administration are indeed worse than the Nixon crew and they’ve committed high crimes and misdemeanors. Democrats have an obligation not only to manage the country in this moral and managerial vacuum, they have a prosecutorial duty to continue to dig, and build an iron-clad case for impeachment. If nothing else, using the government to achieve something positive and just would make a nice change of pace, don’t you think?

Update: No surprise, Dan Froomkin’s column today, “High Drama - and High Crimes?” is also superb.

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Nice bunch of people we have running this country…….makes me sick.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey Tuesday disclosed new information Tuesday concerning attempts by the White House to get Justice Department approval for the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program.

Comey also said he had considered resigning after disagreements about the surveillance program.

Calling it “the most difficult time in my period of life,” Comey discussed publicly for the first time a hospital visit then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card and then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made to Attorney General John Ashcroft on March 10, 2004.

Ashcroft had become sick the week before, and Comey had been designated the acting attorney general.

Comey refused to say publicly that the White House officials came to the hospital to discuss the NSA program. However, government officials previously confirmed to CNN that Comey had “vigorously opposed” aspects of the surveillance program and refused to sign off on its continued use, prompting Card and Gonzales to make the hospital visit.

Comey’s revelations came before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

In his testimony Tuesday, Comey recounted Ashcroft’s wife calling a Justice Department official that night informing her Card and Gonzales were on their way to see him. She had banned all outside phone calls and visitors, Comey said.

He immediately headed to the hospital and soon after he got there, the White House officials entered. He said Ashcroft, who had been weak from gall bladder surgery, “very strongly expressed himself” regarding his objections to a classified program, but added that his views didn’t matter because he was, temporarily, not the attorney general.

‘An effort to take advantage of a very sick man’

Comey said Card and Gonzales then left the hospital room without acknowledging him.

“I was very upset. I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself — and I said to the attorney general — in a way that demonstrated a strength that I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper,” Comey told the committee.

Comey told the committee that he and Ashcroft the week before had determined the classified program he declined to name Tuesday should not be authorized and had communicated that to the White House.

More at CNN

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Woot Woot Woot! Now this is the direction our congress needs to continue going!

From UPI

WASHINGTON, May. 11 (UPI) — The American Civil Liberties Union Friday welcomed a congressional vote to prevent what it considers illegal wiretapping by the U.S. government.
The U.S. House of Representatives late Thursday approved the proposed amendment to the House Intelligence Reauthorization Bill to prevent illegal domestic wiretapping. The amendment, by Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., would reaffirm the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as the only legal means of collecting electronic intelligence surveillance

. It was approved 245 to 178.

“Congress has signaled that it will not allow the president to continue the National Security Agency’s illegal eavesdropping,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “Passage of the Schiff/Flake amendment is Congress drawing a line in the sand. This amendment reaffirms that FISA is the law and it needs to be followed.

“While the administration claims that its proposed FISA changes would ‘modernize’ the law, in truth they would gut the judicial oversight mechanisms carefully crafted to prevent abuse, while expanding the scope of communications that can be intercepted under FISA,” the ACLU said.

“Despite many recent hearings about ‘modernization’ and ‘technology neutrality,’ the administration has not publicly provided Congress with a single example of how current FISA standards have either prevented the intelligence community from using new technologies, or proven unworkable for the agents tasked with following them,” the group said.

“We applaud Congressmen Schiff and Flake for their work to uphold the rule of law,” said Michelle Richardson, ACLU legislative consultant. “Today is the first move towards Congress growing a backbone. We hope that the Senate will follow their lead and not be swayed by the administration and Department of Justice’s unconstitutional attempts to eviscerate FISA.”

Thursday’s vote was notable for the refusal of many House Republicans to rally to the administration’s support and go on the record in opposing it.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The federal government is urging an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program, warning that disclosure of such activities could compromise national security.

“The suit’s very subject matter - including the relationship, if any, between AT&T and the government in connection with the secret intelligence activities alleged by plaintiffs - is a state secret,” the Justice Department argued in court papers.

The documents were filed late Friday and released Monday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which brought the suit. It accuses AT&T Inc. of illegally making communications on its networks available to the National Security Agency without warrants, and challenges Bush’s assertion that he could use his wartime powers to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant.

The NSA had conducted the surveillance without a court warrant until January, when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court began overseeing the program.

More at the St. Petersburg Times

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$1 BILLION in supplemental? The budget has doubled since 9/11 to $8 BILLION a year? I say take it out of the defense budget.

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency is facing significant budget shortfalls as the spy agency scrambles to respond to a mounting electricity crisis, modernize its technology, maintain current operations and add workspace, congressional and intelligence officials say.
As a result, they say, the NSA has slowed hiring, pared back upgrades in information technology, delayed equipment purchases and shut offices.

The agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, is seeking an increase of nearly $1 billion in supplemental spending for 2007 and a similar boost next year as the White House finalizes its 2008 budget, current and former intelligence officials say.

The money crunch comes despite a doubling of the NSA’s budget since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to approximately $8 billion per year.

The agency received essentially the same amount in this year’s budget as last year, according to a senior intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity because intelligence budgets are classified.

Read more at the Sun Sentinel

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