SO, how many secret domestic spy programs are there anyway, and are they legal?

[L. Coyote]

To make a point, "More than there are stars in the heavens" (at least from a metropolitan perspective).
And, yes, they are legal. The NSA is forbidden by law from spying on Americans. Other agencies are not.

THIS THREAD: Focus - all domestic espionage programs. Purpose - provide actual context of current events.

Recent news events surrounding the Gonzales testimony re: Meuller, Comey, and Ashcroft's hospital visit, seems to convey a blissful ignorance about just what is happening on the domestic spying front, including the legal spying.

Much of the current investigation begaqn with the hacker-gate interception of all the Senate Committee on the Judiciary electronic communications, and Dem Senators began asking questions way back then, albeit without the power of the majority.

The "oversight era" could not begin until the People transformed the Congress. Now the sheer mass of corruption and abuses of power are difficult to deal with while, at the same time, attempting to stop an illegal war and run the country. Nonetheless, this issue has not yet evaporated, perhaps in no small part due to how it started with Republicans spying on the Senate Judiciary Democrats, and Dems wondering what they are up to this time. Watergate started with Republicans spying on Dems too, some might recall.

================
Feb. 2004. Hacker-Gate, "Republicans stole thousands of Democratic documents.."
This alone is way worse than Watergate. In this case the criminals actually pulled off a
their "listening" program, instead of getting caught trying to bug the Dems. And, in retrospect
from several years later, the Department of Justice or the GOP Congressional leadership did NADA!!
So, do we have the proverbial crime of the cover-up to consider too?

=======================================
Dems: Stolen memo case should go to DOJ
by kos - Tue Feb 10, 2004 at 02:02:22 PM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/2/10/17222/9423

.... Senate Dems are now demanding a criminal investigation from the Department of Justice
after Republicans stole thousands of Democratic documents from a shared Justice committee server.

From the registration only Roll Call:

   Key Senate Democrats predicted Monday that the internal investigation into the 
   Judiciary Committee's leaked memos would be turned into a full-blown criminal investigation.

   Exiting a 90-minute briefing about the probe with Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Pickle, a 
   quartet of senior Judiciary Democrats declared that what they had heard led them to believe 
   a criminal inquiry, most likely with the Justice Department handling it, should occur.

   "Eventually, this has to be looked at as a criminal matter," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)...

   Leahy sat in on the Senators-only briefing with Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein 
   (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), all of whom declined to speak of the details of where Pickle 
   stands in his three-month investigation ......

Republicans, in defending the theft, refer to the matter as a "technical glitch" and deny that the stolen memos amount to criminal wrongdoing .....

================
Uncensored 'Hackergate' Report Accidentally Released; Perps' Names Revealed - March 30, 2004
Report on the Investigation Into Improper Access to the Senate Judiciary Committee's Computer System
http://www.subliminalnews.com/archives/000167.php

An uncensored version of the Senate Sergeant At Arms' report on his investigation into Republican hacking of sensitive Democrat computer servers was accidentally released to journalists on March 4. The 67-page report includes the names of the partisan cyber-thieves, other key figures on both sides of the scandal, and numerous footnotes that were redacted in the public version.

A copy of the full, uncensored report ( http://cryptome.org/judiciary-sys.htm ) is available at Cryptome.org, which highlights the previously censored sections in red text. A link to a PDF of the censored version ( http://www.calpundit.com/blogphotos/Pickle%20report.pdf ) is also provided.

It is unclear just how accidental the "accidental release" of the full report actually was. A letter issued by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said the release was due to "an administrative error" and that there "was no intention on anyone's part to release this version at this time..."

As reported by Subliminal News at the time ( http://www.subliminalnews.com/archives/000141.php ), the scandal -- now often referred to as "Hackergate" -- erupted publicly in late January, 2004, when the Boston Globe and other press outlets reported that Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee had secretly infiltrated Democrat computers for at least a year.

-----------
FULL REPORT: http://cryptome.org/judiciary-sys.htm
PDF: http://www.calpundit.com/blogphotos/Pickle%20report.pdf
Joint Statement Of Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, (R-Utah)
And Ranking Member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) .....

=======================================
Was the Senate File Pilfering Criminal?
Monday January 26, 2004 by Ed Felten
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/index.php?p=502

Some people have argued that the Senate file pilfering could not have violated the law, because the files were reportedly on a shared network drive that was not password-protected. (See, for instance, Jack Shafer’s Slate article.) Assuming those facts, were the accesses unlawful?

Here’s the relevant wording from the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. 1030):
Whoever … intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains … information from any department or agency of the United States … shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) …
…
the term ‘’exceeds authorized access'’ means to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter......

=========================================
Enough of a preamble to the scandal. This is just part of the background of the current events.

[L. Coyote]

1. ACLU: The Government Is Spying on Americans

American Civil Liberties Union : Safe and Free : Spy Files
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/index.html

The Government Is Spying on Americans
Documents obtained by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the FBI is using its Joint Terrorism Task Forces to gather extensive information about peaceful organizations. Recently, President Bush acknowledged giving explicit and secret authorization for warrantless electronic eavesdropping and physical searches by the NSA. There is proof that the Pentagon, too, is illegally gathering and sharing private and protected information.

The actions of the president, his administration, and these agencies are part of a broad pattern of disregard for the rule of law in the name of national security. The ACLU is calling for investigations and full disclosure of records to determine if oaths of office were broken or federal laws violated.

ARTICLES:

> NYCLU Releases RNC Documents That City Tried to Conceal (3/21/2007) - http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/republicannationalconvention/29249prs20070321.html
> Report Shows Widespread Pentagon Surveillance of Peace Activists (1/17/2007) - http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/28024prs20070117.html

REPORTS:

> Pentagon
Report Shows Widespread Pentagon Surveillance of Peace Activists
News reports and released documents have revealed the Pentagon is collecting information in a secret database on peace groups and law-abiding Americans who have attended anti-war protests. Read More >> http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/28024prs20070117.html

> NSA
White House Concedes Wiretapping Oversight to FISA
President Bush acknowledged authorizing the NSA to engage in warrantless electronic spying and physical searches of Americans. The ACLU is leading the challenge to stop this program. Read More >> http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/28048prs20070117.html

> FBI / JTTF
ACLU Calls for Repeal of Expanded Patriot Act Powers in Response to DoJ Report
The FBI has issued significantly more NSLs than previously disclosed. The report found serious breaches of department regulations and numerous potential violations of the law. Read More >> http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/28954prs20070309.html

Learn about the challenge to unchecked spying in your state >> http://www.aclu.org/spymap

[L. Coyote]

23. Security Voices Against President Bush's Warrantless NSA Domestic Wiretap Program

Security Voices Against President Bush's Warrantless NSA Domestic Wiretap Program
Last updated: March 9, 2006
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/24171leg20060201.html


David Kris, former Associate Deputy Attorney General dealing with national security issues for the Bush administration, 2000-2003 (“Legal Rationale for Spy Program Question,” Associated Press, 3/09/06)

“Claims that FISA simply requires too much paperwork or the bothersome marshaling of arguments seem relatively weak justifications for resorting to constitutional powers in ‘violation of the statute’”

In an email to an aid of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales concerning the white paper Gonzales sent to Congress:

“I kind of doubt it’s going to bring me around on the statutory arguments… but you never know, and in any event I can respect the analysis even if I don’t fully agree.”

(“Ex-Justice Lawyer Rips Case for Spying,” Washington Post, 3/09/06)

“In sum, I do not believe the statutory law will bear the government’s weight…. I do not think Congress can be said to have authorized the NSA surveillance.”

Christopher Pyle, a former intelligence officer (“Checking big Brother,” American Prospect, 1/20/06)

“Whatever their excuse, one thing is clear: These domestic spies are eager to add to, not subtract from, their files and lists. If a suspect shares your name, you are likely to be stopped at the airport, rejected for employment, or denied a security clearance, over and over again. Unfortunately, there is no way to correct such an erroneous file, because the files are secret. And, even if the files of one agency could be corrected, the files of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other agencies on the network would still be infected. Years later, when the network is queried, the original error will come back as a hundredfold ‘truth,’ simply because so many agencies believe it.”

“The time has come to scale back this bloated system, before intelligence analysts drown in trivia, before the reputations of decent citizens are destroyed, and before the sheer scale of the spying intimidates Americans from ever questioning their government.”

...............

[L. Coyote]

39. ACLU Warns Congress Against Rushing Spy Law Changes (7/31/2007)

ACLU Warns Congress Against Rushing Spy Law Changes
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - (7/31/2007)
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/31157prs20070731.html


Washington, DC - The American Civil Liberties Union today warned Congress to resist the Bush administration’s attempts to rush problematic spying changes through the House and Senate before the congressional recess begins next week. The administration has reinvigorated its attempts to "modernize" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and is leaning on Congress to pass legislation before lawmakers finish investigating the illegal warrantless wiretapping program.

"This isn't a quick fix, it's a complete overhaul of FISA," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU. "Congress needs to take its time before it implements another piece of anti-terrorism legislation it will regret, like the Patriot Act. The Bush administration clearly has abused the FISA powers it already has and clearly wants to go back to the good old days of warrantless wiretapping and domestic spying. After being caught trying to steal an inch, the administration now has the gall to ask for the whole mile. Congress must stop this bill in its tracks."

The administration’s proposed FISA changes would allow the government to vacuum up all international communications without a warrant and only later go back for a court order if it can sift through the mass of communications to cobble together some probable cause. This is backwards. It would also eliminate crucial oversight as the administration claims that seeking approval from FISA judges can be "burdensome." The ACLU noted that there is no paperwork exception to the Fourth Amendment and all searches must be conducted with judicial review.

"National security is at the forefront of everybody’s mind, but legislating in the dark will not make us safer," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. ....

[L. Coyote]

92. ACLU: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Myths and Facts

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Myths and Facts (7/31/2007)
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/31144res20070731.html

The administration is asking for greater authority to wiretap without warrants in a proposal being floated to House and Senate Intelligence Committees today. President Bush wants Congress to make significant changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that would allow warrantless spying on calls and communications between Americans and their friends and relatives overseas.

MYTH: We need this now.
FACT: This is not the time to hand even more power to an administration that has denied the legislative branch's constitutionally mandated oversight role and refused to hold the attorney general accountable for a series of contradictory statements. The only thing more outrageous than the administration's call for even more unfettered power is a Congress that would consider giving it.

MYTH: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act needs to be modernized.
FACT: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been updated more than 50 times since being enacted in the '70s. .................

[L. Coyote]

122. ACLU Asks FISA Court to Release Orders That Led to Protect America Act (8/8/2007)

ACLU Asks Secret Intelligence Court to Release Orders That Led to "Emergency" Wiretapping Legislation (8/8/2007)
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/31227prs20070808.html

Group Says Public Debate About Government Surveillance Should Be Fully Informed

WASHINGTON - In the first effort of its kind, the American Civil Liberties Union will today file legal papers with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) requesting that it disclose recent legal opinions discussing the scope of the government's authority to engage in secret wiretapping of Americans. ............

"Over the next six months, the public and Congress will be debating one of the most important matters of our time: under what circumstances the government should be permitted to use its profoundly intrusive surveillance powers to intercept the communications of people inside the United States," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Unless the FISA court discloses the documents leading up to the recent law and shedding light on the government's claimed surveillance authority, an informed and meaningful debate - the cornerstone of our democracy - cannot occur. A conversation about a threat to our most precious constitutional rights and liberties should not occur in a factual vacuum."

The FISC orders have played a critical role in the evolution of the government's surveillance activities over the past six years. After September 11, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to inaugurate a program of warrantless wiretapping ..............

[L. Coyote]

76. ACLU Slams FBI Plan to Pay Telecoms to Store Phone Records

ACLU Slams FBI Plan to Pay Telecoms to Store Phone Records
By Ryan Singel - July 24, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/aclu-slams-fbi-.html


An FBI proposal to pay the nations' telecoms to store phone records for years and to provide instant access to agents raises concerns about American's Constitutional rights, according to the ACLU. The $5 million per year initiative, revealed in the FBI's budget request (.pdf) for 2008, would continue ongoing payments to telecoms to reimburse them for filling emergency phone record requests from counter-terror investigators and be used to convince three telecoms to build special databases to store records for longer periods of time. AT&T and Verizon are two of the companies paid by the FBI, but the identity of the third is unknown.

The Justice Department has been pushing telecoms and ISPs to keep data longer and has pushed legislation to mandate a two-year "data retention" period for phone and internet records. While ISPs and telecoms largely decline to state how long they store information on their customers, ISPs generally destroy IP address records after several months, while phone companies retain long distance billing records for more than a year. The payment approach represents a way to achieve the same ends without convincing Congress or federal regulators to approve its proposals. The contracts also largely keep the issue out of the public eye.

Caroline Fredrickson, the director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office had harsh words for the proposal. ....

[L. Coyote]

2. The President's Domestic Surveillance Program, Key News Articles, FRONTLINE VIDEO

They can't blame Republicans spying on the Judiciary Comm. Dems on "the hunt for terrorists." Gotcha, indeed!
No wonder they needed a new name for the spying, "Terrorist" spying!

I look forward to the details of how much spying was going on and by whom, Military, NSA, FBI, NRA, CIA, DEA, Border Patrol, Homeland Security Police, and who knows what secret agencies, and then who gained access to the data for what purposes.

The current scandal focus seems to be about the unmentionable capture of ALL transmissions from the communications companies trunk lines by using a splitter. That is discussed in the FRONTLINE report, now online:

The Key News Articles - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/etc/links.html
The President's Domestic Surveillance Program

SPYING ON THE HOMEFRONT: Watch the entire 60 minute progam online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/view

MUST SEE and READ info, well-organized and comprehensive material. SEE this if you have not yet.

[L. Coyote]

16. What Was "The Program" Before Goldsmith and Comey? = among the theories

Thursday, May 17, 2007
What Was "The Program" Before Goldsmith and Comey?
Marty Lederman
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-was-program-before-goldsmith-and.html

"We're doing what?"

That's a quotation from the original Risen & Lichtblau New York Times article that broke the unlawful wiretapping story.....

What, indeed, was the nature of the "program" before Goldsmith, Comey and Ashcroft -- those notorious civil libertarian extremists -- called a halt to it, and threatened to resign if the President continued to break the law? And what was the nature and breadth of its legal justification? .....

........Was it a full-bore data-mining program of some sort, akin to the TIA program that Congress had de-funded? (John Yoo suggests as much in his new book.) Something involving the FBI as well as the NSA (hence the central role of the FBI Director in the Comey narrative)? .......

These are among the theories receiving a good deal of speculation this evening. There's a lot of great stuff to read -- this is just the tip of the iceberg: ..................

Glenn Greenwald. http://salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/16/nsa_comey /

Laura Rozen. http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006129.html

Orin Kerr. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_13-2007_05_19.shtml#1179350507

Hilzoy. http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/05/comey_more.html

Shayana Kadidal. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shayana-kadidal/what-does-comeys-testimo_b_48686.html

Paul Kiel, doing so much fine work over at the now-indispensible TPM Muckraker, including the publication of one reader's speculation. http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003232.php#more

Anonymous Liberal. http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2007/05/what-changes-were-made-to-nsa-program.html#links

In that last post, A.L. wisely goes back to the Risen & Lichtblau story that started it all, which contains some important potential clues. Important excerpts .................

[L. Coyote]

108. FRONTLINE Interview of Mark Klein, technician at AT&T inadvertently discovered Internet spying

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/interviews/klein.html

What did you do for AT&T? How long did you work there?

I worked at AT&T for 22 and a half years. My job was basically to keep the systems going. They were computer systems, network communication systems, Internet equipment, Voice over Internet equipment. I tested circuits long distance across the country. That was my job: to keep the network up .......

======================
Klein worked for more than 20 years as a technician at AT&T. Here he tells the story of how he inadvertently discovered that the whole flow of Internet traffic in several AT&T operations centers was being regularly diverted to the National Security Agency (NSA). Klein is a witness in a lawsuit filed against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which alleges AT&T illegally gave the NSA access to its networks. This is the edited transcript of an interview conducted on Jan. 9, 2007.

Klein's "2004 Package" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/etc/kleindoc.pdf
Before Klein retired in May 2004, he gathered a set of several hundred pages of documents that described in detail a secret surveillance room on the sixth floor of AT&T's Folsom Street facility in San Francisco. The general public has never seen the full collection of documents because they became part of the lawsuit against AT&T filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and put under court seal by a federal district judge in San Francisco. However, more than a year before that suit was filed, at the time when Klein originally decided to blow the whistle on the operation, he made this small sample of his documents available to attorneys and the press. Klein called this his "2004 package," to differentiate it from the larger package of documents put under court seal. "I am presenting this information to facilitate the dismantling of this dangerous Orwellian project," Klein writes in the introduction to the documents, which include instructions on how to implement the splitter, a floor plan and photos of the secret room.

[L. Coyote]

3. Bush admits he signed NSA wiretap order, OK'd program more than 30 times

Bush admits he signed NSA wiretap order
Adds he OK'd program more than 30 times, will continue to do so

Saturday, December 17, 2005; Posted: 8:07 p.m. EST (01:07 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/17/bush.nsa

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In acknowledging the message was true, President Bush took aim at the messenger Saturday, saying that a newspaper jeopardized national security by revealing that he authorized wiretaps on U.S. citizens ......

Bush added: "Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed ... our enemies have learned information they should not ...this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."

The NSA eavesdrops on billions of communications worldwide. ....

........ Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, said there was no law allowing the president's actions and that "it's a sad day."

"He's trying to claim somehow that the authorization for the Afghanistan attack after 9/11 permitted this, and that's just absurd," .......

[L. Coyote]

8. "Bush was very clear that 'a wiretap requires a court order...' " Caught LYING??

"Bush was very clear that 'a wiretap requires a court order...' " Caught LYING??

The Wiretap Research Page
http://www.thisiswiretap.com

Back in 2004, George W. Bush was caught on camera explaining very carefully that the government always requires a court order when "chasing down terrorists." Trying to sell the Patriot Act - which he wanted renewed but which was coming under increasing fire from all sides of the political spectrum - Bush was very clear that "a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way." By that, he meant that neither the Patriot Act nor its ostensible cause - the 9/11 terrorist attacks - changed the absolute legal requirement for the government to get a court order before ordering wiretaps against suspected terrorists.

(One interesting side note: Bush continually refers to ordering wiretaps against "terrorists" - not suspects. This is highly revealing of his mindset: anyone who is suspected of being a terrorist automatically IS a terrorist. This mindset has permeated the entire military and security apparatus: that's why countless innocent people have been jailed and tortured around the world: because all suspects are regarded as guilty ....

.............But this week, Bush has outed himself as a liar. He has admitted - even boasted - of his secret spy program that operated without any warrants or any recourse to judicial oversight whatsoever - not even the FISA program which could have given him the broadest possible scope to order wiretaps and surveillance .................

[L. Coyote]

18. Bush administration's FISA falsehoods continue unabated "... just flat-out lies..."

The administration's FISA falsehoods continue unabated
Glenn Greenwald
Monday May 21, 2007 07:40 EST
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/21/fisa_changes/index.html


Mike McConnell, the Bush administration's Director of National Intelligence, has a remarkably dishonest Op-Ed in The Washington Post this morning, in which he argues for completely unspecified "updates" and "changes" to FISA in order to expand -- yet again -- the Government's powers of eavesdropping on Americans. McConnell's entire argument for expansion of surveillance powers rests on a patent falsehood. ........

Many of these statements are highly misleading, as they strongly imply that FISA has not been amended since it was first enacted 30 years ago. But several of the statements -- such as: "the law has not been changed to reflect technological advancements" -- are just flat-out lies...........

[L. Coyote]

20. Pre-2004 VOTE: President Bush personally summoned the paper’s publisher

Obstructing Justice?? NY Times withheld info before 2004 election about Bush's impeachable offenses. Unbelievable in a "democracy."

This report also reflects how many actors/agencies were involved in the illegalities: FBI, DIA, Homeland Security, CIA, more...

========================
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006
EXCLUSIVE: National Security Agency Whistleblower Warns Domestic Spying Program Is Sign the U.S. is Decaying Into a “Police State”
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/03/1435201

== Listen to Segment == Download Show mp3 == Watch 128k stream == Watch 256k stream == Read Transcript

..... growing controversy over President Bush’s decision to order the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens inside the country without the legally required court warrants. Bush’s decision was first revealed in the New York Times in mid-December. The Times published the expose after holding the story for more than a year under pressure from the White House. The paper reportedly first uncovered the illegal order prior to the 2004 election. When the editors at the Times decided last month to go ahead with the article, President Bush personally summoned the paper’s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, and executive editor, Bill Keller, to the Oval Office in an attempt to talk them out of running the story. Since the story broke, calls for Congressional hearings and the possible impeachment of the president have intensified. Conservative legal experts have even admitted Bush may have committed an impeachable offense by ordering the NSA to break the law.

................the Washington Post is reporting that the NSA passed on records of intercepted email and phone calls to other government agencies including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. This news come on the heels of several other reports that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, military intelligence and local police departments have all been engaged in monitoring peaceful groups including Greenpeace, PETA - the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Catholic Worker, anti-war groups and even bicyclists in New York City.....

[L. Coyote]

26. Bush administration concealed the program's dimensions or existence from the public...Congress"

Analysis - Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers
By Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer - Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 18, 2005; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121701233.html


In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s.

The president's emphatic defense yesterday of warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and residents marked the third time in as many months that the White House has been obliged to defend a departure from previous restraints on domestic surveillance. In each case, the Bush administration concealed the program's dimensions or existence from the public and from most members of Congress.

Since October, news accounts have disclosed a burgeoning Pentagon campaign for "detecting, identifying and engaging" internal enemies that included a database with information on peace protesters. A debate has roiled over the FBI's use of national security letters to obtain secret access to the personal records of tens of thousands of Americans. And now come revelations of the National Security Agency's interception of telephone calls and e-mails from the United States -- without notice to the federal court that has held jurisdiction over domestic spying since 1978.

Defiant in the face of criticism, the Bush administration has portrayed each surveillance initiative as a defense of American freedom.....

[L. Coyote]

37. The Biggest Secret: Thomas Powers on Spying, Lying, and Saying No

The Biggest Secret
By MWC NEWS
Book Review
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/4265/116/

Thomas Powers on Spying, Lying, and Saying No

On the day that Ayman al-Zawahiri appeared in his nine thousandth video from -- assumedly -- the remarkably technologized wilds of the Afghan-Pakistan border region, mocking President Bush for a botched Predator-drone missile attempt on his life, another article caught my eye. In a piece in the Los Angeles Times, headlined CIA Expands Use of Drones in Terror War, Josh Meyer reported: "Despite protests from other countries, the United States is expanding a top-secret effort to kill suspected terrorists with drone-fired missiles as it pursues an increasingly decentralized Al Qaeda, U.S. officials say." These high-tech, long-distance "targeted killings" from the air -- they used to be called assassinations and Chris Dickey of Newsweek files them away under the rubric of "boys with toys" -- turn out, like acts of torture, to be staggeringly counterproductive.


.....

Thomas Powers, author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al-Qaeda, explores the meaning of the recent NSA spying scandal below in fascinating detail and the abject failure of Congress (or the American public) to rein in this administration. As he writes trenchantly, "In public life as in kindergarten, the all-important word is no." It's clear that the expansion of secret (and not so secret) "war-time" powers proved a heady, addictive experience for top officials of this administration. (Where's Nancy Reagan and her "just say no" program when we need them most?) Powers' superb essay will be running in the February 23 issue of the New York Review of Books just now heading toward the newsstands. It appears here as an on-line exclusive thanks to the kindness of that magazine's editors. Tom

The Biggest Secret
By Thomas Powers

A Review of State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration by James Risen.

1. The challenges posed to American democracy by secrecy and by unchecked presidential power are the two great themes running through the history of the Iraq war. ......

[L. Coyote]

120. Dec. 2005: Judge James Robertson Resigns from FISA Surveillance Court

Judge Resigns from Surveillance Court
Departure Comes Amid Domestic Spying Scrutiny
By KEITH GARVIN - Dec 21, 2005
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1429647

He's keeping quiet so far, but it appears a federal judge has resigned an appointed post in disagreement over President Bush's authorization of a domestic spy program.

The resignation comes as the president and the program come under more scrutiny from lawmakers and Americans alike.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson was one of 11 members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as FISA, until he sent his letter of resignation to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts today. The Washington Post reported that the letter gave no reason for the resignation but said it was in protest over the president's secret authorization of the warrantless domestic spying program.

"This was definitely a statement of protest," said Scott Silliman, a former Air Force attorney and Duke University law professor. "It is unusual because it signifies that at least one member of the court believes that the president has exceeded his legal authority."

The White House won't discuss Robertson's resignation ..............

Robertson has criticized the Bush administration's treatment of detainees at the U.S. naval prison in Guantanamo Bay ..........

====================================
Letter from Former FIS Court Judge James Robertson
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_hr/032806robertson.html

March 23, 2006

The Honorable Arlen Specter
United States Senate
711 Senate Hart Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-0001

Dear Senator Specter:

Thank you for soliciting my views on your proposal, which I support, to give approval authority over the Administration's electronic surveillance program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Seeking judicial approval for government activities that implicate Constitutional protections is, of course, the American way, but prudence in the handling of sensitive classified material suggests that only a limited number of judges should have the job. ................

FISC judges now sit individually, and not in panels or en banc. The statute should be amended to require that, for approvals of surveillance program applications, the Court sit in panels of three. .........

[L. Coyote]

4. Federal Court Strikes Down NSA Warrantless Surveillance Program (8/17/2006)

DETROIT -- In an American Civil Liberties Union case, a federal court today ruled that the Bush administration’s program to monitor the phone calls and e-mails of Americans without warrants is unconstitutional and must be stopped. This is the first ruling by a federal court to strike down the controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.

"Today’s ruling is a landmark victory against the abuse of power that has become the hallmark of the Bush administration," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Government spying on innocent Americans without any kind of warrant and without Congressional approval runs counter to the very foundations of our democracy. Now Congress needs to do its job and stop the president from violating the law." ..........

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/26489prs20060817.html

[L. Coyote]

43. Court ruling stirs fear of secret spying - July 07, 2007

Court ruling stirs fear of secret spying - July 07, 2007
Detroit judge's decision on domestic surveillance overturned; critics say it gives feds too much clout.
Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070707/POLITICS/707070388/1022


Critics of the Bush administration's tactics in its war against terror said Friday they are concerned that a decision by a federal appeals court on a domestic spying program leaves it to the administration to determine, secretly, whether to spy on Americans.

In a split decision, judges of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a decision by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit that a program of electronic surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency is unconstitutional. Under the program, the administration says it intercepted telephone and Internet communications of Americans who regularly correspond with individuals overseas who may be suspected of terrorism.

"There is no question that they continue to assert the authority that they have not only the right but the duty, in some circumstances, to carry out warrantless surveillance as they see fit," said Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "Indeed, there is no assurance that they are not doing it now."

Michael J. Steinberg, legal director for ACLU-Michigan, which brought the case, said a decision on whether to appeal the ruling as high as the U.S. Supreme Court will be made within about a month.

The Bush administration praised the ruling. ....

[L. Coyote]

44. Spy Program Still Open to Future Challenges

Spy Program Still Open to Future Challenges
Appeals Panel Dismissed Case but Didn't Examine Case's Merits
By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG and THERESA COOK - July 6, 2007
http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Politics/story?id=3352925&page=1

A federal appeals court decision Friday dismissing a lawsuit that challenged the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program is a significant victory for the White House, but it hasn't closed the door to further legal challenges to the program.

The 2-1 ruling to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, did not touch on the merits of the program nor whether the wiretapping was constitutional. The appeals court instead embraced a threshold argument made by the administration: that a group of lawyers and professors did not have legal grounds to challenge the program because they couldn't show they'd been put under surveillance.

The court also said the program's challengers couldn't get access to classified information about the program to determine whether they had been monitored. The ruling, the first for a federal appeals court, could make it more difficult for outsiders to challenge other similar programs.

The Bush administration has vigorously defended the domestic surveillance program .....

[L. Coyote]

64. Judge Allows State Anti-Spying Lawsuits Against Telecoms to Continue

Judge Allows State Anti-Spying Lawsuits Against Telecoms to Continue
By Ryan Singel - July 25, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/judge-allows-st.html


State lawsuits against telecoms that allegedly helped the federal government spy, without warrants, on Americans can proceed, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, dismissing the federal government's arguments that the states were overstepping their authority.

Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Vermont each filed suits against companies such as AT&T and Verizon to learn more about their reported cooperation in the National Security Agency's warrantless monitoring of Americans' phone and internet usage. The companies have refused to turn over the requested information to state Public Utility Commissions.

U.S. Northern California District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker declined to rule, however, on whether the suits had to be dismissed ....

Walker ruled last June that a suit against AT&T could proceed in part,despite the government's assertion of the "state secrets privilege." He found that the government's admission that the program existed meant the lawsuit could proceed. That landmark ruling is under appeal to the Ninth Circuit, whose ruling will now determine the fate of the more than 50 cases challenging the legality of the surveillance, including the challenges brought by the states.

Walker found that state regulators were within their powers to investigate if the telecoms violated state privacy laws. ....

[L. Coyote]

65. NSA Snooped on Lawyers Knowing Spying Was Illegal, Suit Charges

NSA Snooped on Lawyers Knowing Spying Was Illegal, Suit Charges
Ryan Singel - 07.10.07
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/07/haramain_appeal


The government's surveillance of two attorneys challenging the NSA's warrantless wiretapping of Americans took place partly during a period in which the top secret program operated without the approval of the Bush administration's own Justice Department, according to a newly filed court document.

The lawsuit, known as al-Haramain vs. United States, is the only one of more than 50 challenges to the program where the plaintiffs claim to have proof that they were the targets of the warrantless spying, based on a top secret document that had been briefly provided to them in a government paperwork snafu.

For that reason, the lawsuit was already seen as the most resistant to government efforts to protect the program. The allegation that some of the surveillance took place when the program wasn't authorized by the Justice Department may further complicate the government's defense.

"Part of our surveillance occurred when the Attorney General advised the president that the program was illegal," says plaintiff attorney Jon Eisenberg. "That deprives them of the defense they didn't know it was illegal."

...

In the wake of the 6th Circuit decision, the fate of civil libertarians' challenge to the spy program may rest on the a-Haramain case, according to Eisenberg. "We're the last case standing," Eisenberg says. "If we aren't permitted to show standing, no one will be."

[L. Coyote]

101. Secret Court Strikes Down Bush NSA Program, Leading to Latest Fuss About FISA

Secret Court Strikes Down Bush NSA Program, Leading to Latest Fuss About FISA
JB - Thursday, August 02, 2007
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/08/secret-court-strikes-down-bush-nsa.html


You probably didn't know it, but about three or four months ago, the secret FISA Court held illegal parts of the Bush Administration's surveillance practices. We've only learned this now as a result of the recent flurry of activity to amend FISA before the August recess.

A bit of background. In January of this year, the Bush Administration, without conceding that its program was illegal, agreed to submit its surveillance program (modified or not, we do not know) to review by the FISA court under an innovative new theory for court orders. A judge on the FISA court approved it, but when a new judge was rotated on to the court, he or she said that parts were illegal.

Key issues apparently arose from the fact that the Administration wanted to target information coming through fiber optic cables routing to telecommunications switches inside the United States. By targeting these switches, the Administration hoped to gain access to foreign communications that had been routed into the U.S. even though both parties are outside the U.S.. If that was all that was at stake, it would be fairly easy to get Congress to agree to amend FISA to allow warrantless surveillance as long as no U.S. persons located in the U.S. were involved.

However, the federal judge apparently objected to more than this. Apparently, the court objected to a procedure in which the Administration sought a "basket warrant" for multiple targets

[L. Coyote]

113. Crew Files DoJ Complaint Against R. Leader Boehner For Alleged Illegal Leak = Fisa Ruling

CREW FILES DOJ COMPLAINT AGAINST MIN. LEADER BOEHNER FOR ALLEGED ILLEGAL LEAK OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
6 Aug 2007 // Washington, DC
http://citizensforethics.org/node/29880


Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Department of Justice asking that the Counterespionage Section of the National Security Division initiate an investigation into whether House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-OH) violated the law by leaking classified information.

In a July 31, 2007 interview with Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto, Rep. Boehner disclosed an aspect of a Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court’s decision regarding warrantless wiretapping, stating: "There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States."

By telling a reporter that a FISA court has restricted the U.S. intelligence community's surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas, Rep. Boehner appears to have transmitted information relating to the national defense in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(d).

18 U.S.C. § 793(d) provides that anyone with lawful possession of information relating to the national defense, which could be used to the injury of the United States, who willfully communicates that information to any person not entitled to receive it, is subject to up to ten years imprisonment.

Rep. Boehner apparently made his remarks to Mr. Cavuto in an effort to blame Democrats for failing to pass legislation overriding the court's decision ....

Notably, Minority Leader Boehner has previously expressed strong concerns over illegal leaks for political gain........

[L. Coyote]

5. The End of Illegal Domestic Spying? Don't Count on It

UNDER SURVEILLANCE
The End of Illegal Domestic Spying? Don't Count on It
By Joe W. Pitts | March 15, 2007
http://www.washingtonspectator.com/articles/20070315surveillance_1.cfm


Americans of all persuasions were shocked by the revelations, first reported in the New York Times in December of 2005, that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop secretly for years on the calls and e-mails of American citizens, bypassing the warrants required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment. The administration's decision, in January, to subject the NSA program to review by the special FISA court, supposedly ending the controversial warrantless surveillance, was reported as a stunning and welcome reversal.

Yet the surveillance program isn't the only thing now "warranted"; so is skepticism about the administration's change of heart. The superficial change-back to FISA control merely masks more deeply hidden examples of secrecy and deception in the concerted attack on American constitutional values. Whether manifest in the Scooter Libby verdict, the recent scandalous disclosures that National Security Letters (NSLs) have been deceptively and illegally used by the FBI to spy on unsuspecting Americans, or in these NSA programs, this attack on our constitutional core demands a vigorous response. ......

[L. Coyote]

10. What other programs are the NSA geeks runnning? = "illegal domestic data-trawling"

What other programs are the NSA geeks runnning?
By fazzaz31
http://warrenreports.tpmcafe.com/blog/fazzaz31/2007/may/18/what_other_programs_are_the_nsa_geeks_runnning

Pundits worldwide are wondering just what other programs the NSA might have running ... we need to know a little about how the NSA works ....

.... NSA is chartered by the National Security Act of 1947 ... to conduct foreign military sigint (signal intelligence) only, but may assist civilian law enforcement officials thus ....

.....Broadly speaking, NSA has two jobs: 1) intercept foreign military communications, and 2) decipher code. .... FISA was later specifically crafted to allow them to listen domestically when the origination point was either domestic or foreign, as long as there was some foreign node involved, but only with a warrant, eg, a FISA warrant.......

.........In the past, NSA was almost completely inactive domestically, which is why they recently had to build those switching rooms in AT&T's San Francisco and St Louis facilities.........the only reason for a tap in St Louis is to monitor US interstate phone and e-mail traffic, and that means illegal domestic data-trawling, no matter how they parse it.

.........LONG ARTICLE..............

[L. Coyote]

15. "... NSA warrantless wiretapping of certain attorneys representing men detained at Guantánamo..."

CCR FILES FOIA LAWSUIT AGAINST NSA AND DOJ DEMANDING INFORMATION ON WARRANTLESS SPYING OF GUANTÁNAMO ATTORNEYS
Lawsuit filed due to government’s refusal to turn over documents through FOIA requests
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=0B8U2e7vUO&Content=1034

FOIA complaint = http://ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/FOIA_NSA_complaint.pdf

....On May 17, 2007, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) demanding that the government comply with requests to turn over all records of NSA warrantless wiretapping of certain attorneys representing men detained at Guantánamo.

The lawsuit, Wilner v. NSA, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of 16 attorneys. The plaintiffs - including CCR staff attorneys Gitanjali Gutierrez and Wells Dixon as well as law professors and partners at prominent international law firms - represent detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and may have been the subjects of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program that began shortly after September 11, 2001.

(Case summary of Wilner v. NSA http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/legal/september_11th/sept11Article.asp?ObjID=DmJtlh90ID&Content=1035 )

.........We have always believed that the primary reason administration officials decided not to use the FISA statute to get warrants for the NSA program is because they wanted to target conversations even the FISA court wouldn't have approved of, such as attorneys speaking to their clients," said Shayana Kadidal, CCR managing attorney for the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative. "The government asserts - generally without a shred of evidence - that many of our clients are linked to terrorism. They've said the NSA program targets calls between Americans and foreigners linked to terrorism, and they've told Congress that they won't rule out listening to lawyers. .........

[L. Coyote]

22. The programs ... made public so far... just the tip of the iceberg...

Inside the Puzzle Palace
A Reason interview with NSA whistleblower Russell Tice
Julian Sanchez | January 13, 2006
http://www.reason.com/news/show/33016.html


In December, New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau commandeered the news cycle with the revelation that President Bush had approved a program of warrantless wiretaps of domestic-to-international communications by the super-secretive National Security Agency. Days later, they disclosed that the NSA's electronic eavesdropping may have been far more extensive than initial reports suggested, involving the harvesting of enormous volumes of telcommunications data for analysis.

.......... The programs that have been made public so far, according to Tice, are just the tip of the iceberg. .....

....I'm referring to what I need to tell Congress that no one knows yet, which is only tertiarily connected to what you know about now.

REASON: What aspect of that, within the parameters of what you're able to talk about, concerned you?

Tice: The lack of oversight, mainly—when a problem arose and I raised concerns, the total lack of concern that anyone could be held accountable for any illegality involved. And then these things are so deep black, the extremely sensitive programs that I was a specialist in, these things are so deep black that only a minute few people are cleared for these things. So even if you have a concern, it's things in many cases your own supervisor isn't cleared for. So you have literally nowhere to go. ...

Tice: In my case, there's no way the programs I want to talk to Congress about should be public ever, unless maybe in 200 years they want to declassify them. You should never learn about it; no one at the Times should ever learn about these things. But that same mechanism that allows you to have a program like this at an extremely high, sensitive classification level could also be used to mask illegality, like spying on Americans. And spying on Americans is illegal unless you go to a FISA court. It's the job of the FBI to conduct operations against Americans with the proper court warrants....

[L. Coyote]

6. Comey and the Phone Companies' Role in the NSA Program

Comey & Phone Companies' Role in the NSA Program = illegal wiretaps

Comey and the Phone Companies' Role in the NSA Program
by Shayana Kadidalhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/shayana-kadidal/comey-and-the-phone-compa_b_48928.html

On Friday, professional administration apologist Douglas Kmiec published an op-ed in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051701973.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 ) in which he criticizes former Deputy AG James Comey's testimony (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shayana-kadidal/what-does-comeys-testimo_b_48686.html ) as "staggeringly histrionic," claims the media's analogies between the threatened mass resignations (of Comey, Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller) to Watergate's Friday Night Massacre are absurd, and then (correctly) notes that the president, not the Attorney General or anyone else in DOJ, has the last word on exactly which interpretation of federal laws the rest of the executive branch will follow.

.............Professor Lederman provides is that "the signature might have been necessary to induce the requisite private actors -- telecom companies in particular -- to continue to go along with the program."............

..... the Wiretap Act contains a section, 18 USC 2511(2)(a)(ii), that allows telecom providers and other private parties (e.g. your landlord) to help the government carry out electronic surveillance if those private parties have been "provided with ... a court order" or "a certification in writing by ... the Attorney General of the United States that no warrant or court order is required by law, that all statutory requirements have been met, and that the specified assistance is required."

So, the government can go to AT&T with a court order -- a warrant -- allowing the government to put a wiretap in place, and AT&T is allowed to help them without such help subjecting AT&T to criminal or civil liability under the various wiretapping laws. ..................

[L. Coyote]

7. James B. Comey has made a remarkable amount of trouble for the White House

Loyal to Bush but Big Thorn in Republicans’ Side
By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: May 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/washington/17comey.html?ex=1337054400&en=70e5494fb76dcdd8&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

WASHINGTON, May 16 — For a loyal George W. Bush Republican, James B. Comey has made a remarkable amount of trouble for the White House.

As deputy attorney general in 2003, he appointed his old friend Patrick J. Fitzgerald as independent counsel in the C.I.A. leak case, ....

In 2004, he backed Justice Department subordinates who withdrew a legal memorandum justifying harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists.
....he publicly praised several United States attorneys who had been dismissed.....

Finally, at a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Comey gave a riveting account of how he intervened in 2004 at the hospital bedside of Attorney General John Ashcroft to prevent two top White House officials from persuading Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program.....

[L. Coyote]

12. What Does Comey's Testimony Tell Us about the NSA Program?

What Does Comey's Testimony Tell Us about the NSA Program? (15 comments )
Shayana Kadidal - 05.17.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shayana-kadidal/what-does-comeys-testimo_b_48686.html

The astonishing story of Alberto Gonzales' March 2004 bedside visit with John Ashcroft ... former Deputy Attorney General James Comey's riveting testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee ....
(The whole video is here http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/51973
and the transcript is here. http://gulcfac.typepad.com/georgetown_university_law/files/comey.transcript.pdf
The New York Times' account of the testimony is here, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/politics/01spy.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=cb8221ee6567f18f&ex=1179374400
and Dahlia Lithwick's is here, http://www.slate.com/id/2166213 /

the whole thing is worth watching/reading.) Here's my 10-cent summary: ............Comey --an outstanding career prosecutor, not a "Bushie," who'd joined the AG's staff in 2003-- had serious misgivings about the legality of the NSA program, doubts shared by other non-partisan-hack lawyers who'd come to DOJ.........Comey decided he wouldn't reauthorize it....Afterwards, Card ... orders Comey over to the White House; Comey refuses unless Solicitor General Ted Olsen is present as a witness. Olson is dragged out of a dinner party and heads to the White House with Comey. ...

.....There's been a ton of fascinating speculation (here, http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/16/nsa_comey here http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_13-2007_05_19.shtml#1179350507 , and here http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/05/can-you-even-imagine-how-bad-it-must.html ) about what this dispute was about on the merits (Comey, of course, can't speak about that). A number of commentators point out that in late 2003 a new set of DOJ and Office of Legal Council lawyers was replacing the group (Yoo, Bybee, Delahunty) that authored the torture memos and other documents setting forth a theory of uncheckable Presidential power...........

..........................

=========
READ MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/people/National+Security+Agency

[L. Coyote]

41. Mining Of Database Prompted Spy Fight

Mining Of Database Prompted Spy Fight
2004 dispute helps clarify clash between Gonzales, senators
By Scott Shane , David Johnston , New York Times News Service - 7/29/2007
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=13fcb1f0-e4c7-4b15-ba59-cec55317bcb5


Washington — A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency's secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former government officials briefed on the program.

It is not known precisely why searching in the databases, known as data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases, compiled by American companies and stored in the United States, contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans. ....

Gonzales insisted in testimony before the Senate last week that the 2004 dispute .... involved “other intelligence activities.”

... the dispute chiefly involved the NSA's use of databases, rather than eavesdropping ...

“I've had the opportunity to review the classified matters at issue here, and I believe that his testimony was misleading at best,” said Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., joining three other Democrats in calling Thursday for a perjury investigation of Gonzales. “This has gone on long enough. It is time for a special counsel to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought.” .....

[L. Coyote]

75. AT&T engineer: NSA built secret rooms in our facilities

AT&T engineer: NSA built secret rooms in our facilities
By Nate Anderson | Published: April 12, 2006
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060412-6585.html


The EFF's case against AT&T has barely begun, yet it has already brought to light some fascinating details about the methods behind the NSA's alleged wiretapping abilities. Mark Klein, a retired AT&T engineer who is now participating in the case as a witness, has released a statement to the media in which he outlines many of the allegations that are currently under seal. Chief among them is his claim that AT&T installed powerful traffic monitoring equipment in a "secret room" in their San Francisco switching office at the behest of the NSA.

"In 2002, when I was working in an AT&T office in San Francisco, the site manager told me to expect a visit from a National Security Agency agent, who was to interview a management-level technician for a special job. The agent came, and by chance I met him and directed him to the appropriate people.

"In January 2003, I, along with others, toured the AT&T central office on Folsom Street in San Francisco—actually three floors of an SBC building. There I saw a new room being built adjacent to the 4ESS switch room where the public's phone calls are routed. I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room. The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room."

According to Klein, this room contained (among other things) a Narus STA 6400 traffic analyzer into which all of AT&T's Internet and phone traffic was routed; Klein himself helped wire the splitter box that made this possible. ....

[L. Coyote]

78. Spying in the Death Star: The AT&T Whistle-Blower Tells His Story

Spying in the Death Star: The AT&T Whistle-Blower Tells His Story
Ryan Singel - 05.10.07
http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/05/kleininterview

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, sits quietly at the center of a high-profile legal storm hitting the nation's largest telecommunications companies for allegedly helping the government spy on American citizens' phone and internet communications without court approval.

In 2006, Klein stepped forward and handed sensitive AT&T documents to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that was preparing a class-action lawsuit against the telecommunications giant. That case and more than 50 similar suits have been consolidated into five master complaints that are now proceeding in a federal court in San Francisco. This summer, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear AT&T's appeal of a key ruling that rejected the government's national security concerns and allowed the suit to continue.

Those documents are under seal, but Wired News independently acquired and published a significant portion of them last year. They show that AT&T built a network-monitoring facility in a nondescript room at an internet switching hub in San Francisco, at 611 Folsom St. Diagrams in the document show that AT&T technicians split fiber-optic cables handling AT&T's WorldNet internet service -- as well as traffic to and from other major ISPs -- diverting copies of the traffic into the room, which was packed with internet-monitoring equipment.

In this rare interview, Klein supplies details of how he first learned about the secret room .....

[L. Coyote]

115. May 26, 2006 - AT&T leaks sensitive info in NSA suit

AT&T leaks sensitive info in NSA suit
AT&T lawyers publish confidential document that's not properly redacted: Simple copy-paste operation makes it readable.
By Declan McCullagh - CNET News.com - May 26, 2006
http://news.com.com/AT38T+leaks+sensitive+info+in+NSA+suit/2100-1028_3-6077353.html


Lawyers for AT&T accidentally released sensitive information while defending a lawsuit that accuses the company of facilitating a government wiretapping program .... a 25-page legal brief striped with thick black lines that were intended to obscure portions of three pages ...
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/att.not.redacted.brief.052606.pdf

.... deleted portions of the legal brief seek to offer benign reasons why AT&T would allegedly have a secret room at its downtown San Francisco switching center that would be designed to monitor Internet and telephone traffic .....

"AT&T notes that the facts recited by plaintiffs are entirely consistent with any number of legitimate Internet monitoring systems, such as those used to detect viruses and stop hackers," ....

"Although the plaintiffs ominously refer to the equipment as the 'Surveillance Configuration,' the same physical equipment could be utilized exclusively for other surveillance in full compliance with" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

... no information relating to actual operations of an NSA surveillance program was disclosed ....

[L. Coyote]

9. President Bush’s Illegal Domestic Spying Program: Overview

President Bush’s Illegal Domestic Spying Program: A Brief Overview
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=20427

Produced by People For the American Way Foundation
On December 16, The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that President Bush had signed a secret executive order authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless electronic eavesdropping on persons within the United States. The Bush administration has since confirmed the accuracy of this report.

What’s wrong with that?

It’s against the law. ..................

Where can I learn more?

The Congressional Research Service report (available at http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa /) is a great place to start. Or read People For the American Way’s “Illegal NSA Spying Program Myths and Facts” guide (available at http://media.pfaw.org/NSA_myths_and_facts_2-3-2006.pdf ).

[L. Coyote]

17. DEC. 16, 2005 NY TIMES breaks story: Bush Lets NSA Spy in USA Without Warrants

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?ei=5090&en=e32072d786623ac1&ex=1292389200&pagewanted=print


WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years ........

..........The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted...........

.........officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped...........

Mr. Bush's executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States - including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners - is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the N.S.A. operation.

The National Security Agency, which is based at Fort Meade, Md., is the nation's largest and most secretive intelligence agency, so intent on remaining out of public view that it has long been nicknamed "No Such Agency." .........

[L. Coyote]

109. NEWSWEEK Aug. 13, 2007 issue: Looking For a Leaker

Looking For a Leaker
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20121795/site/newsweek/

Aug. 13, 2007 issue - The controversy over President Bush's warrantless surveillance program took another surprise turn last week when a team of FBI agents, armed with a classified search warrant, raided the suburban Washington home of a former Justice Department lawyer. The lawyer, Thomas M. Tamm, previously worked in Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR)—the supersecret unit that oversees surveillance of terrorist and espionage targets. The agents seized Tamm's desktop computer, two of his children's laptops and a cache of personal files. Tamm and his lawyer, Paul Kemp, declined any comment. So did the FBI. But two legal sources who asked not to be identified talking about an ongoing case told NEWSWEEK the raid was related to a Justice criminal probe into who leaked details of the warrantless eavesdropping program to the news media. The raid appears to be the first significant development in the probe since The New York Times reported in December 2005 that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents without court warrants. (At the time, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said of the leak: "This is really hurting national security; this has really hurt our country.") ......

James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology said the raid was "amazing" and shows the administration's misplaced priorities: using FBI agents to track down leakers instead of processing intel warrants to close the gaps .........

[L. Coyote]

48. McConnell Admits Spy Program Is Part Of Broader Effort = August 01, 2007

McConnell Admits Spy Program Is Part Of Broader Effort - August 01, 2007
http://thegate.nationaljournal.com/2007/08/mcconnell_admits_spy_program_i.php


President Bush's critics have long insisted there is more to the administration's NSA spying program than anyone admitted, and new revelations from the country's top intelligence official now confirms some of those suspicions.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said yesterday that the scope of the NSA's surveillance activities extended beyond the warrantless phone taps and e-mail monitoring that Bush described in December 2005 .... McConnell wrote that the executive order Bush gave after the 9/11 attacks covered "a number of... intelligence activities" -- not just the wiretap program.

"This 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 said. .....

[L. Coyote]

50. Director Of National Intelligence Defends Gonzales, Says NSA Spy Program Part Of Bigger Effort

Intel Chief Hints At Bigger Spy Program
Director Of National Intelligence Defends Alberto Gonzales, Says NSA Spy Program Part Of Bigger Effort
WASHINGTON, Aug. 1, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/01/politics/main3121870.shtml

(CBS/AP) President Bush's spy chief sought to defend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against charges of lying to Congress in a technically worded statement Tuesday hinging on when the government's terror surveillance program got its name. He hinted — as Gonzales has — that there's more to the program than has been made public. ......

In a carefully worded letter than never mentions Gonzales, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell noted that the administration first acknowledged its controversial surveillance activities and used the phrase "terrorist surveillance program" in early 2006. At the time, Mr. Bush said he had ordered the National Security Agency to intercept communications of terror suspects even when one person is inside the United States. Breaking with long-held precedents, no court approval was necessary.

In his letter to Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., McConnell makes clear Mr. Bush has publicly talked about only one slice of the program. ......

[L. Coyote]

54. RAW STORY: intelligence chief acknowledges 'series' of other 'secret surveillance activities'

Bush Administration's intelligence chief acknowledges 'series' of other 'secret surveillance activities'
John Byrne - August 1, 2007
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Bush_Administration_acknowledges_series_of_other_0801.html

President Bush authorized a "series of secret surveillance activities" by executive order after Sept. 11, 2001 ....

The disclosure marks the first time "that the administration has publicly acknowledged that Bush's order included undisclosed activities ...

McConnell's letter sought to defend Attorney General Gonzales from Senate Democrats' allegations of perjury. Gonzales told Congress that no legal objections were raised about the "Terrorist Surveillance Program," and then later shifted course, saying his remark was about "other intelligence activities."

These other activities were apparently those that McConnell acknowledges but does not disclose.

"But in doing so, McConnell's letter also underscored that the full scope of the NSA's surveillance program under Bush's order has not been revealed," notes Post reporter Dan Eggen. ....

[L. Coyote]

51. Spy chief backs up Gonzales testimony

Spy chief backs up Gonzales testimony
August 1, 2007
BY LAURIE KELLMAN and LARA JAKES JORDAN - ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070801/NEWS07/708010350/1001/NEWS


WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush's spy chief sought to defend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against charges of lying to Congress in a statement Tuesday that hinges on when the government's terrorist surveillance program got its name......

The reason presented for Gonzales' claim: The terrorist surveillance program wasn't given that name by the administration until 2006, long after his effort to get then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to endorse it.

"I understand that the phrase 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' was not used prior to 2006 to refer to the activities authorized by the president," Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell wrote in a letter to Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa........

[tom_paine]

11. K & R

[damntexdem]

13. Now pay attention as the Bushistas shift the shells around; and ...

if you can pick the one with the pea under it, you win our testimony under oath!

Oh, sorry, none of you suckers ever win.

But the Congress has yet to figure out how not to be a bunch of suckers.

[FiveGoodMen]

14. And even if they are currently legal, are they a good idea?

[L. Coyote]

19. NSA Whistleblower Alleges Illegal Spying = NSA AND Defense!!

Noteworthy herein is Tice's mention of both NSA and Defense. So Defense was also doing illegal spying????
Rumsfeld could be a target?? And Bush has not addressed how Defense spying was authorized. Maybe it was not.

========================================
NSA Whistleblower Alleges Illegal Spying
Former Employee Admits to Being a Source for The New York Times
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1491889
By BRIAN ROSS
Jan. 10, 2006

Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security Agency, is now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet.

For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows as he helped the United States spy on other people's conversations around the world.

"I specialized in what's called special access programs," Tice said of his job. "We called them 'black world' programs and operations."

But now, Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret "black world" operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated the law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged wrongdoing in these programs run by the Defense Department and the NSA .........

Tice ... says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used.......

[L. Coyote]

30. Whistleblower says NSA violations bigger "violated millions of Americans..."

Whistleblower says NSA violations bigger
Feb. 14, 2006 at 5:34 PM
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060214-053955-9494r


A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights.

Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.

Tice said he believes it violates the Constitution's protection against unlawful search and seizures but has no way of sharing the information without breaking classification laws. He is not even allowed to tell the congressional intelligence committees - members or their staff - because they lack high enough clearance.

Neither could he brief the inspector general of the NSA because that office is not cleared to hear the information, he said. ....

[bdamomma]

21. kick, there are more than one surveillance program.

there is so much sh$t that this regime is doing and we are walking around not knowing, this really just sucks.

[L. Coyote]

24. DIA SPYING: NGIA collecting data, 133 U.S. cities, ID everyone, nationality, political affiliations

Look out when legal scholars go to work uncovering facts.
Laura K. Donohue, JD, PhD, is a Fellow at CISAC and at the Center for Constitutional Law at Stanford Law School

"... National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is collecting data from 133 U.S. cities; intelligence sources told the Los Angeles Times that, when collection is completed, the agency would be able to identify occupants in each house, their nationality and even their political affiliation..."

--------------
May 30, 2006 - Originally in Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2006
Battlefield: U.S. - Pentagon spies are treating the homeland like a war zone
By Laura K. Donohue
http://cisac.stanford.edu/news/domestic_spying_turns_homeland_into_battlefield_warns_cisac_scholar_20060530

Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee will begin questioning Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, about the National Security Agency's collection of U.S. citizens' telephone records.

... the Senate and the American public may be missing a broader and more disturbing development. For the first time since the Civil War, the United States has been designated a military theater of operations. The Department of Defense... is taking an unprecedented role in domestic spying.

... it circumvents three decades of efforts by Congress to restrict government surveillance of Americans ... it represents a profound shift in the role of the military operating inside the United States... erosion of the principle, embedded in the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, that the U.S. military not be used for domestic law enforcement.

When the administration declared the United States to be a theater of military operations in 2002, it created a U.S. Northern Command, which set up intelligence centers in Colorado and Texas to analyze the domestic threat. ....

The Defense Intelligence Agency, created in 1961 to provide foreign military intelligence, now uses "Verity K2" software to scan U.S. intelligence files and the Internet "to identify foreign terrorists or Americans connected to foreign terrorism activity," and "Inxight Smart Discovery" software to help identify patterns in databases. CIFA has reportedly contracted with Computer Sciences Corp. to buy identity-masking software, which could allow it to create fake websites and monitor legitimate U.S. sites without leaving clues that it had been there. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is collecting data from 133 U.S. cities; intelligence sources told the Los Angeles Times that, when collection is completed, the agency would be able to identify occupants in each house, their nationality and even their political affiliation.......

[L. Coyote]

27. NGA (NGIA) 'geospatial intelligence' exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial intel

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, formerly the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), is a combat support agency of the Department of Defense (DoD), supporting the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and other national-level policymakers in the areas of imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information. NGA is a member of the national Intelligence Community and the single entity upon which the U.S. Government relies to coherently manage the disciplines of imagery and mapping.


Congressional Record: November 6, 2003 (House)
Sec. 921. Redesignation of National Imagery and Mapping Agency as
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

(a) Redesignation.--The National Imagery and Mapping Agency
of the Department of Defense is hereby redesignated as the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
(b) Definition of Geospatial Intelligence.--Section 467 of
title 10, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end
the following new paragraph:
"(5) The term `geospatial intelligence' means the
exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial
information to describe, assess, and visually depict physical
features and geographically referenced activities on the
earth. Geospatial intelligence consists of imagery, imagery
intelligence, and geospatial information."

[L. Coyote]

28. NGA (NGIA) has responsibility for Spy Drones, unmanned planes

This article deals with non-NGA drones. Drones have flown over the USA for some time.

==========================
Drone aircraft may prowl U.S. skies
Can unmanned aerial vehicles doing domestic surveillance safely share the skies with airplanes?
By Declan McCullagh - Staff Writer, CNET News.com - March 29, 2006
http://news.com.com/Drone+aircraft+may+prowl+U.S.+skies/2100-11746_3-6055658.html

Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists.

Now UAVs may be landing in the United States.

A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring.

"We need additional technology to supplement manned aircraft surveillance and current ground assets to ensure more effective monitoring of United States territory," Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner at Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection Bureau, told the House Transportation subcommittee.

Kostelnik was talking about patrolling U.S. borders and ports from altitudes around 12,000 feet, an automated operation that's currently under way in Arizona. But that's only the beginning of the potential of surveillance from the sky.......

[L. Coyote]

31. WIRED: U.S. Makes Spy Images Inside U.S.

U.S. Makes Spy Images Inside U.S.
Associated Press Email 09.26.04
BETHESDA, Maryland
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/09/65091

In the name of homeland security, America's spy imagery agency is keeping a close eye, close to home. It's watching America ... some of the country's most sophisticated aerial imaging equipment -- have focused on observing what's going on in the United States.

Their work brushes up against the fine line between protecting the public and performing illegal government spying on Americans....... The agency is especially watchful of big events or targets that might attract terrorists -- political conventions, for example .....

..... Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington: "As a general matter, when there are systems of public surveillance, there needs to be public oversight."

..... the agency's new Americas Office has been called on to assemble visual information on more than 130 urban areas ... agency officials may cooperate with private groups, such as hotel security offices, to get access to video footage of lobbies and hallways. That footage can then be connected with other types of maps ... detail varies widely, depending on the threat and what the FBI or another agency needs.

"In most cases, it's not intrusive," said the NGA's associate general counsel...

[donkeyotay]

69. Isn't this the bottom line of their secret, secret, secret?

The military has designated the US as a war theater, and some of us are considered the enemy.

These misguided military forays into domestic surveillance harken back to Vietnam War-era abuses. This time, they are the result of a much broader intelligence-gathering effort by the military on U.S. soil. President Bush said last week, "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." But a 2004 survey by the General Accounting Office found 199 data-mining operations that collect information ranging from credit-card statements to medical records. The Defense Department had five programs on intelligence and counterterrorism.

Thanks for this thread, L. Coyote. It's really hard to keep track of all the puzzle pieces.

[L. Coyote]

72. NY TIMES: Military Expands Intelligence Role in U.S.

January 14, 2007
Military Expands Intelligence Role in U.S.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MARK MAZZETTI
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/washington/14spy.html?ei=5088&en=8a893fe46c8a8c1c&ex=1326430800&pagewanted=print


WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.

The C.I.A. has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.

Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions receiving the letters usually have turned over documents voluntarily, allowing investigators to examine the financial assets and transactions of American military personnel and civilians, officials say.

The F.B.I., the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, provoking criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who see them as unjustified intrusions into Americans’ private lives.

But it was not previously known, even to some senior counterterrorism officials, that the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have been using their own “noncompulsory” versions of the letters. .....

The military and the C.I.A. have long been restricted in their domestic intelligence operations, and both are barred from conducting traditional domestic law enforcement work. ....

[L. Coyote]

25. The Intelligence Community (IC) of the United States Government

Some of the official ones we know about:

Members of the IC - http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Intelligence_Community

DoD Members

* Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) - provides timely and objective military intelligence
to warfighters, policymakers, and force planners.

* National Security Agency (NSA) - collects and processes foreign signals intelligence
information for our Nation's leaders and warfighters, and protects critical US information
security systems from compromise.

* National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) - coordinates collection and analysis of information
from airplane and satellite reconnaissance by the military services and the CIA.

* National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGIA) - provides timely, relevant, and accurate
geospatial intelligence in support of national security.

* Army Intelligence and Security Command - organized on January 1, 1977 as a combination of the
US Army Security Agency (USASA), the US Army Intelligence Agency (USAINTA), and a number of
different intelligence production agencies, most of which had been under the Assistant Chief
of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) for direct control. <2>

* Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) - the oldest of America's intelliegence agencies, the ONI "no longer
has only a Navy focus. It provides national products to national consumers and focus on all
aspects of maritime intelligence ........

* Marine Corps Intelligence Agency - intelligence division of the USMC, works closely with ONI.

* Air Intelligence Agency - created in 1948 as the The United States Air Force Security Service,
the USAFSS evolved into the Air Force Intelligence Comman in 1991 and the AIA in 1993. ....

* Counterintelligence Field Activity: "Formed in 2002, CIFA was established to oversee Defense
Department counterintelligence investigations and training and to assess potential terrorist
threats at home and abroad. It has gathered domestic and international data, including criminal,
financial, credit and other records, as well as background information about foreign workers
and scientists employed by the Defense Department and other U.S. agencies."

[L. Coyote]

29. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004

Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States ....
"GlobalSecurity.org is the leading source for reliable intelligence news and intelligence information, directed by John Pike"
http://www.globalsecurity.org/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/webinator/search/?query=Muqtada&pr=default&order=r&cmd=context&id=42b60eac180

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 established the position of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to serve as head of the Intelligence Community and act as the principal adviser to the President on intelligence matters related to national security. The creation of the DNI separates the responsibilities of leading the Intelligence Community from heading the CIA,.... the legislation gives the DNI new authorities and responsibilities that the DCI did not possess under prior law.

.....

U.S. INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES

The intelligence resources of the United States--including manpower and funding--are grouped primarily into three categories: the National Intelligence Program, the Joint Military Intelligence Program, and Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities.

The National Intelligence Program (NIP): The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 provides the DNI with the authority to develop the budget and allocate resources under the NIP. NIP resources support national intelligence priorities and are applied to intelligence activities outside the Department of Defense and a sizable portion of the intelligence activities of the military departments and defense agencies. The agencies and organizations whose resources are included as part of the NIP include the CIA, NSA, DIA, NGA, NRO, and the intelligence elements of the Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of Energy, and Department of the Treasury.

.........

The Joint Military Intelligence Program (JMIP): The JMIP encompasses military intelligence activities that support Defense-wide objectives, as opposed to a single military service. The JMIP falls under the authority of the Secretary of Defense. ......

Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities (TIARA): TIARA also falls under the authority of the Secretary of Defense and represents an aggregation of intelligence activities funded by each of the military services and the Special Operations Command to meet their specific requirements...

[L. Coyote]

32. COMMENTARY; Databases, Caging and Purging Voters, Political Abuses of Data Collection

Sen. Sam Irwin, chairman of the Watergate Hearing, wisely stated that if you
paint a really good picture of a cow, you don't have to write cow under it.

Nonetheless, a commentary is in order about potential abuses of power in relation
to collecting information on American citizens. I see many ways such info can
be abuses, by government and others. One example to illustrate the danger is
the recent past history of rigging Presidntial elections.

So many voters were purged illegally from Florida voter rols in the run-up to
the 2000 voting that any unbiased observer would conclude that Gore would have
been elected President were it not so. This was accomplished by targeting a
specific voter group, not individuals per se. The target group was a minority
known to vote very heavily for Democrats.

Republicans repeated the felonious civil rights violations in 2004 by purging
voters in Ohio, especially in locations like inner-city Cleveland with a history
of voting near 90% Democratic. These instances show how targeting minority
populations altered election results.

Imagine now possible abuses with the potential to target specific individuals.

Where is the oversight? Who can we trust? If the Department of Justice is a
political extension of the Republican National Committee, can we even expect
laws and regulations to be respected. How do we prevent the information from
crossing the political or corporate barriers?

And now, we have statistical info that 0.0015% of Homeland security cases are
related to terrorism. What is really going on? We, the targets, know. STOP.

====================
My one hour lunch break is almost over. Back to work. LATER!

[L. Coyote]

33. CBS NEWS July 28, 2007: Bush Asks Congress To Expand Surveillance

Here we go again.

===========
Bush Asks Congress To Expand Surveillance
Seeks To "Modernize" Wiretapping To Match New Technologies; Critics Warn Of Unchecked Privacy Invasion
WASHINGTON, July 28, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/28/politics/main3107310.shtml

(CBS/AP) In the midst of a festering public scandal surrounding the administration's secret wiretapping program and the attorney general's efforts to have it extended, President George W. Bush is calling on Congress to expand the law governing the issuance of warrants to intelligence agencies for surveillance.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, provides a legal foundation that allows information about terrorists' communications to be collected without violating civil liberties.

President George W. Bush wants Congress to rewrite the law to incorporate new advances in technology which, he says, are not covered by the FISA.

"This law is badly out-of-date," Mr. Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. .....

[L. Coyote]

36. Spying and politics = Editorial chicagotribune.com

Editorial
Spying and politics
July 14, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0714edit2jul14,1,4485350.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed


You may have thought that the whole complicated legal and political brouhaha surrounding the Bush administration's secret domestic eavesdropping was largely resolved. It sure seemed that way.

In January, the administration ceded ground to critics. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales declared the Justice Department had reached a deal for court oversight of the program, which allows the feds to intercept communications between people in the U.S. and individuals abroad who are suspected of terrorism links without first getting a warrant.

But case closed? Hardly.

The administration says that oversight by a special court has limited the intelligence that agencies can collect. It has proposed new eavesdropping powers, and it has stonewalled demands from Congress for more information on the existing program.

"We are actually missing a significant portion of what we should be getting," Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said in congressional testimony. McConnell asserted that the law should be revamped to respond to dramatic changes in communications technology used by intelligence targets in this country. ....

[L. Coyote]

34. The iPhone: An Aid to Domestic Spying?

By Mark Pike, Campus Progress. Posted July 25, 2007.
How your iPhone service provider has cooperated with illegal eavesdropping.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/57726/

If you didn't manage to snag an iPhone yet, it might not be the worst thing in the world. In addition to saving some money to pay off those pesky student loans, you also might be successfully avoiding wiretaps from the National Security Agency.

When Steve Jobs announced an exclusive partnership with AT&T during Macworld 2007, most Mac fanboys were too distracted by the glossy touch screens to realize that AT&T is the company most notoriously connected to domestic spying programs. .....

[L. Coyote]

35. ACLU Slams FBI Plan to Pay Telecoms to Store Phone Records

ACLU Slams FBI Plan to Pay Telecoms to Store Phone Records
By Ryan Singel - July 24, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/aclu-slams-fbi-.html


An FBI proposal to pay the nations' telecoms to store phone records for years and to provide instant access to agents raises concerns about American's Constitutional rights, according to the ACLU. The $5 million per year initiative, revealed in the FBI's budget request (.pdf) for 2008, would continue ongoing payments to telecoms to reimburse them for filling emergency phone record requests from counter-terror investigators and be used to convince three telecoms to build special databases to store records for longer periods of time. AT&T and Verizon are two of the companies paid by the FBI, but the identity of the third is unknown.

The Justice Department has been pushing telecoms and ISPs to keep data longer and has pushed legislation to mandate a two-year "data retention" period for phone and internet records. While ISPs and telecoms largely decline to state how long they store information on their customers, ISPs generally destroy IP address records after several months, while phone companies retain long distance billing records for more than a year. The payment approach represents a way to achieve the same ends without convincing Congress or federal regulators to approve its proposals. The contracts also largely keep the issue out of the public eye.

Caroline Fredrickson, the director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office had harsh words for the proposal. ....

[L. Coyote]

38. Top Secret: We're Wiretapping You

Top Secret: We're Wiretapping You
Ryan Singel - 03.05.07
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/03/72811?currentPage=all

It could be a scene from Kafka or Brazil. Imagine a government agency, in a bureaucratic foul-up, accidentally gives you a copy of a document marked "top secret." And it contains a log of some of your private phone calls.

You read it and ponder it and wonder what it all means. Then, two months later, the FBI shows up at your door, demands the document back and orders you to forget you ever saw it.

By all accounts, that's what happened to Washington D.C. attorney Wendell Belew in August 2004. And it happened at a time when no one outside a small group of high-ranking officials and workaday spooks knew the National Security Agency was listening in on Americans' phone calls without warrants. Belew didn't know what to make of the episode. But now, thanks to that government gaffe, he and a colleague have the distinction of being the only Americans who can prove they were specifically eavesdropped upon by the NSA's surveillance program.

The pair are seeking $1 million each in a closely watched lawsuit against the government, which experts say represents the greatest chance, among over 50 different lawsuits, of convincing a key judge to declare the program illegal. ......

[L. Coyote]

40. SPYS, SPYS, and more SPYS: FBI has adopted a plan to recruit 15,000 covert informants in the USA

Taking a lesson from Hitler Youth, are we??

======================
Privacy takes another hit with return of Junior G-men
By Bill Press - August 1, 2007
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.fbi01aug01,0,4650885.story


J. Edgar Hoover is grinning in his grave.

As reported by ABC's Brian Ross, the FBI has adopted a plan to recruit 15,000 covert informants in the United States to help keep America safe from terrorists, criminals, pickpockets, litterbugs, jaywalkers, people who cheat on eye exams and other public menaces.

At a cost of more than $22 million, the FBI will train its new "confidential human sources" to become the bureau's eyes and ears. Their job? Reporting to FBI officials anybody who is "suspicious."

The new program, says the FBI, is in direct response to a 2004 directive by President Bush to develop more "human intelligence capability." But it's nothing new at all. It's an instant replay of Mr. Hoover's famous Junior G-men, organized by the FBI prior to World War II.

Under Mr. Hoover's leadership, and inspired by a radio program of the same name, Junior G-men clubs sprang up all over America. Like law-and-order Boy Scouts, boys who belonged to Junior G-men wore a special uniform and badge and were deputized to roam the streets looking for suspicious characters, and report them to real G-men. ....

[L. Coyote]

42. Bush and Cheney Lied to Congress and Committed other Impeachable Offenses

Bush and Cheney Lied to Congress and Committed other Impeachable Offenses
Dan Merica
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/07/11/bush_and_cheney_lied_to_congress_and_com

Never before has there been such a compelling case for impeachment and removal from office of the president and vice-president of the United States. Bush and Cheney have committed the most serious crimes known to law and history. Nothing in the experience of the impeachment power under the US Constitution compares.

Of course, the first and foremost reason to impeach Bush and Cheney is their pack of lies to Congress and the American people depicting an "all-powerful" Saddam Hussein being an imminent threat to the US in order to justify an illegal preemptive attack on Iraq. By lying to Congress, Bush violated US laws related to fraud and false statements (Title 18, Chapter 47, Section 1001) and conspiracy to defraud the United States. The truth is that while these two liars were still in the process of whipping up their climate of fear and hate to discourage dissent to their war goals, 30,000 US troops had already secretly fought their way in and took control of 15% of an impotent Iraq..

......

The many individual members of Congress, state legislatures and city councils calling for impeachment have cited a long list of other potential impeachable offences:

• Willfully violated their oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
• Ordered the National Security Agency to violate provisions of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) <50 U.S.C. Chapter 36>, a felony, specifically authorizing the agency to spy on American citizens without warrant.

..... LONG LIST FOLLOWS ....

[L. Coyote]

45. Bush, Democrats closer to deal on spying bill

Bush, Democrats closer to deal on spying bill
Wed Aug 1, 2007 11:36am ET137
http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2007-08-01T153606Z_01_N01325927_RTRIDST_0_BUSH-CONGRESS-PICTURE.XML

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Democratic lawmakers said on Wednesday they were closer to a deal with U.S. President George W. Bush to expand the government's anti-terror powers to eavesdrop on telephone calls and e-mail from abroad.

With the U.S. Congress scheduled to leave for an August recess by this weekend, the divisive domestic spying program was one area of some agreement between Bush and Democratic and Republican congressional leaders at a White House breakfast. ....

[L. Coyote]

53. Government Presses to Turn Internet into Giant Spy Machine - By Ryan Singel

Government Presses to Turn Internet into Giant Spy Machine; AP Reports Citizen's Rights Being Protected
By Ryan Singel - August 01, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/government-pres.html

The Associated Press's Laurie Kellman leads off her Tuesday story .... "Congress and President Bush's aides worked on Monday to expand the government's surveillance authority without jeopardizing citizens' rights, aides to lawmakers and the White House said."

Did Kellman read the proposed bill? The bill (.pdf) that would change the nation's surveillance laws so that that the government would be free to spy on the contents of an Americans' phone or emails so long as the government "reasonably believes" the person is not in the country.

.....

In the age of the Internet, a significant number of those conversations, even between foreigners in the same country, now come through switches in the United States. So the Administration wants the right to build spy bases inside the nation's domestic communication infrastructure and be able to listen in on any email conversation or phone call that it suspects is overseas to overseas, regardless if any American is involved.

For another, the Administration's proposed bill would let the government order the nation's telecoms and internet providers to open their networks so that the government can build out spying complexes on their networks. The law would only require that foreign intelligence gathering be a "significant purpose" of the installation. So in essence the government could order the nation's backbone providers to let the government turn the internet into one giant monitoring device and examine internet traffic for signs of copyright infringement, domestic political dissent, pornography and parking ticket violators, so long as the NSA's computer algorithms also scan packets for the term "Al Qaeda." .....

[L. Coyote]

55. White House Seeks Warrantless Authority From Congress

A Push to Rewrite Wiretap Law
White House Seeks Warrantless Authority From Congress
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer - August 1, 2007; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/31/AR2007073101879.html?hpid=topnews


The Bush administration is pressing Congress this week for the authority to intercept, without a court order, any international phone call or e-mail between a surveillance target outside the United States and any person in the United States.

The proposal, submitted by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to congressional leaders on Friday, would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for the first time since 2006 so that a court order would no longer be needed before wiretapping anyone "reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States."

It would also give the attorney general sole authority to order the interception of communications for up to one year as long as he certifies that the surveillance is directed at a person outside the United States.

The administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have mounted a full-court press to get the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass the measure before lawmakers leave town this week for the August recess, trying to portray reluctant Democrats as weak on terrorism. ......

[L. Coyote]

66. Ruling that NSA Wiretapping is Illegal Drives Emergency Push for New Spy Powers

Court Ruling that NSA Wiretapping is Illegal Drives Emergency Push for New Spy Powers, MSNBC Reports
By Ryan Singel - August 01, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/court-ruling-th.html


The Bush Administration's hard press for emergency wiretapping powers from Congress before the August break now has an explanation: a secret court decided several months ago that at least one portion of the NSA wiretapping program is illegal, according to MSNBC. That program operated for four years without court supervision, until the Administration bowed to public pressure in January 2007 and allowed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review it.

In short, prior to the Patriot Act passage, the Administration launched a series of secret, warrantless wiretapping operations, which included snooping on Americans and wholesale data mining of innocent Americans' communications records (the latter only according to press reports). The Administration believes it can do this surveillance since it is a King in wartime and thus never asked Congress to make any of this legal in the Patriot Act for fear it would be turned down. .....

[L. Coyote]

58. Democrats Propose Compromise to Expand Government Surveillance

Democrats Propose Compromise to Expand Government Surveillance
By Ellen Nakashima and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post - August 1, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080101514.html


Congressional Democrats, under pressure from the Bush administration, today proposed a six-month compromise that would expand the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance of overseas communications in search of terrorists.

The proposal, according to House and Senate Democrats, would permit a secret court to issue a single broad order approving eavesdropping of communications involving suspects overseas and other people, who may be in the United States. That order "need not be individualized," according to a Democratic aide.

But granting the government authority to intercept calls with a broad warrant, some civil liberties advocates charge, could allow a large number of phone calls and e-mails of U.S. persons and companies to be intercepted as well.

A Democratic aide said that a bill likely would pass the House this week. .....

[L. Coyote]

46. Corporate Spying is at the Heart of Gonzales/Ashcroft Dispute

Corporate Spying is at the Heart of Gonzales/Ashcroft Dispute
Posted : Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:59:48 GMT
Author : Dr. R J Hillhouse - Category : PressRelease
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,149110.shtml

NEW YORK, July 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At the heart of the Constitutional dispute over domestic spying between current Attorney General Gonzales and former Attorney General John Ashcroft is corporate America. Almost all of the government data mining has been outsourced to corporations. Dr. R J Hillhouse who is an intelligence expert and author whose recent article in the Washington Post about corporate involvement in the CIA caused a firestorm in Washington admits, "The data mining controversy isn't about the US government spying on Americans. It's about the government using big corporations as a Constitutional workarounds to spy on Americans. It's not the government that actually sifts through our emails and phone records but companies such as SAIC and Booz Allen Hamilton and their subcontractors."

On Sunday, July 29th, 2007, the New York Times reported that the dispute between Gonzales and Ashcroft involved data mining and its threat to privacy and noted, "It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate." The reason is most likely the growing use of corporations to perform critical intelligence functions and how these corporations can be used to circumvent legal restrictions upon the government. "Outsourcing shifts the legalities or apparently that was what Gonzales was hoping," Dr. Hillhouse notes.

In most cases, corporations are contracted to provide full traffic and pattern analysis services with the US government providing the targets. However, in some instances, contractors actually prepare the target list then conduct the data mining themselves. "Not only can corporations be used to violate civil liberties where the government is prohibited, they also have the potential to spy on our email and phone records for their own corporate or client needs. The potential for abuse is tremendous, and, just like with corporate involvement in the President's Daily Brief, there are no serious mechanisms to guard against this. And some of the very same tools they are using for data mining could be adapted to monitor for misuse. Of course, abuse on the level of the Administration using corporations to conveniently ignore US law needs Congressional oversight." .....

[MadHound]

49. Then there's just your everyday, run of the mill corporate spying

Cameras everywhere, in the majority of businesses to watch customers inside and outside the building. The latest twist I've seen now is that gas stations and convienance stores are installing hidden, or not so hidden, microphones over the counter to pick up peoples' conversations. All of this information is made readily available to the police and other law enforcement agencies.

This is all being done under the cover of "preventing crime" or some such excuse, yet the rates of shoplifting and theft have not gone down, rather they have gone up. Sure, sure, once in awhile those cameras prove useful, but in the vast majority of cases they provide no benefit at all, just another way, one that is completely free of restraint, to spy on the populace and keep them in line.

[L. Coyote]

74. BRAD BLOG: NSA Uses Private Firms for Massive Unchecked Domestic Surveillance

VIDEO - NSA Uses Private Firms for Massive Unchecked Domestic Surveillance
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2473

Thanks to a heads-up from Larisa at The Raw Story, we were able to captured this broadcast of CNBC's Tim Russert show. Russert interviewed James Risen and Robert O'Harrow, Jr. The video contains about 24 minutes of clips from CNBC's Saturday broadcast.

James Risen broke the NSA warrantless domestic spying story for the New York Times. He also has a new book out, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA And The Bush Administration. Risen is known to have sources within various intelligence agencies and has recieved information from several NSA whistleblowers. One of those whistleblowers, Russell Tice, recently testified before congress that NSA domestic surveillance programs may be much more widespread than the "limited" program that the Bush Adminstration has admitted. Tice has said that some programs could be monitoring "millions of Americans".

Robert O'Harrow, Jr. is an award-winning reporter for the Washingon Post with an expertise data mining and privacy issues. His recent book, No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society, describes "a surveillance society that's less centralized and more a joint public/private venture".

Together, Risen and O'Harrow paint a picture of an enormous partnership between U.S. intelligence agencies and private data collection firms. ......

[L. Coyote]

47. EDITORIAL WSJ: The Real Wiretapping Scandal

The Real Wiretapping Scandal
Our Terrorist Surveillance Program isn't as effective it was a few months ago. Where's the outrage?

BY DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. AND LEE A. CASEY - July 30, 2007
Messrs. Rivkin and Casey served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010401


Last Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing--at which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was insulted by senators and ridiculed by spectators--was Washington political theater at its lowest. But some significant information did manage to get through the senatorial venom directed at Mr. Gonzales. It now appears certain that the terrorist surveillance program (TSP) authorized by President Bush after 9/11 was even broader than the TSP that the New York Times first revealed in December 2005.

It is also clear that Mr. Gonzales, along with former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, tried to preserve that original program with the knowledge and approval of both Republican and Democratic members of key congressional committees. Unfortunately, they failed and the program was narrowed. Today, the continuing viability of even the slimmed-down TSP--an indispensable weapon in the war on terror--remains in serious doubt.

The administration's most immediate concern since 9/11 has understandably been whether al Qaeda sleeper agents, already inside the U.S., would carry out additional catastrophic strikes. ....

The TSP was not implemented pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) .... the administration relied on the president's inherent constitutional authority as commander in chief to monitor enemy communications in wartime, as presidents have done since Lincoln's day.

In addition, the administration correctly relied on Congress's Sept. 18, 2001, authorization for the use of military force against al Qaeda. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that this statute authorized the president to employ all the "fundamental incident\ of waging war."......
At least, that is what one would have thought. .....

Congress' obsession with the TSP's legal pedigree has become the major threat to its continued viability ... The question Judiciary Committee members should have been asking Mr. Gonzales .... whether the TSP is still functioning well ....

[L. Coyote]

52. CHENEY: The Vices of Cheney .."bill of particulars against the vice president"

The Vices of Cheney: The Burden is Upon the House Judiciary Committee
William E. Jackson Jr. - July 11, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-e-jackson-jr/the-vices-of-cheney-the-_b_55708.html

................

A bill of particulars against the vice president has been sketched by constitutional law expert and former Justice Department official in the Reagan years, Bruce Fein, in Slate of June 27: "Impeach Cheney: The Vice President has Run Utterly Amok and Must Be Stopped." He urges the House Judiciary Committee to commence an impeachment inquiry: "As Alexander Hamilton advised in the Federalist Papers, an impeachable offense is a political crime against the nation. Cheney's multiple crimes against the Constitution clearly qualify." Moreover, Fein posits that President Bush has outsourced a major share of his presidency to Vice President Cheney.

Here is his review of the record of Cheney's abuses and excesses:

.....

- The vice president "engineered the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance program targeting American citizens on American soil in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. He concocted the alarming theory that the president may flout any law that inhibits the collection of foreign intelligence, including prohibitions on breaking and entering homes, torture, or assassinations." .....

=========================
http://slate.com/id/2169292/
Impeach CheneyThe vice president has run utterly amok and must be stopped.
By Bruce Fein - June 27, 2007

[L. Coyote]

56. It's in the Constitution, Stupid! Bush Pushes To Turn FISA Into A Co-Conspirator

Bush Pushes To Turn FISA Into A Co-Conspirator
E. M. Donovan - August 1, 2007
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=33878


It astounds me that we are even discussing this. Did no one see this gradual erosion of American liberties; of our Constitution? Was it so subtle in its application that we are now addressed by a completely unchecked President ....

President Bush seeks to “modernize” FISA by what he calls “modest” and “narrow” means .... The proposed changes in FISA represent sweeping repeals of the Fourth Amendment protections FISA was enacted to oversee.

The notion that Americans would suffer civil liberty violations in being secretly monitored in the name of “foreign intelligence” is not newly conceived, it was THE purpose for FISA. FISA was enacted after it was discovered that American citizens (mostly “radicals” and political dissenters) were being unlawfully monitored and spied on. The Congress then realized these matters could not be left solely to the discretion of the executive.

Until 2005, this administration claimed publicly to have attained warrants for searches or surveillance conducted in intelligence activities. When the NSA program came to light, the President then claimed he had “inherent powers” .....

[L. Coyote]

59. Inside Track: More Surveillance, More Often "any American at any time without any process"

Inside Track: More Surveillance, More Often
by Philip Giraldi
08.01.2007
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=15082

During his July 28 radio address, President George W. Bush’s reference to the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was little more than a circular argument designed to reach a preordained conclusion. The NIE’s judgments on the state of Al-Qaeda and the threat it poses to the U.S. homeland are by no means universally accepted, though one hopes that the classified version makes some attempt to place its more dubious findings in context. Nonetheless, President Bush cited the NIE’s findings on Al-Qaeda in urging Congress to "modernize" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) structure to permit U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor more communications by terrorists, including the internet and "disposable cell phones."

Bush claimed that the NIE confirmed that Al-Qaeda was using its presence in the Middle East—read Iraq—to communicate with its supporters and plot new attacks against the United States. But there is no consensus view in intelligence circles that Al-Qaeda in Pakistan is attempting to exploit its affiliate in Iraq to carry out strikes on the U.S. homeland, as the White House asserts. The NIE does not even say that, suggesting instead that Al-Qaeda might be trying to "leverage" its namesake in Iraq in an attempt to obtain recruits and money. The NIE’s judgments about Al-Qaeda in Iraq are questionable, delegitimizing the president’s advocacy of FISA reform. ....

.... Critics of the proposed changes note that the White House will apparently seek to grant telecommunications companies—hitherto reluctant to turn over their records or permit electronic intrusion into their networks without a court order—blanket immunity from criminal prosecution or civil liability. If that is so and the attempt to change the law is successful, it will mean that the government will be empowered to obtain the communications of any American at any time without any process involved to protect individual rights.

===================
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is the Francis Walsingham Fellow for the American Conservative Defense Alliance.

[L. Coyote]

57. Behind the Surveillance Debate = Capitol Hill bid to grant Bush new authority

Behind the Surveillance Debate
A federal judge's secret ruling restricting the intelligence community's surveillance powers helped spur a Capitol Hill bid to grant Bush new authority.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20075751/site/newsweek/

Web exclusive
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 1 hour, 50 minutes ago

Aug. 1, 2007 - A secret ruling by a federal judge has restricted the U.S. intelligence community's surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas and prompted the Bush administration's current push for "emergency" legislation to expand its wiretapping powers, according to a leading congressman and a legal source who has been briefed on the matter.

The order by a judge on the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court has never been publicly acknowledged by administration officials-and the details of it (including the identity of the judge who wrote it) remain highly classified. But the judge, in an order several months ago, apparently concluded that the administration had overstepped its legal authorities in conducting warrantless eavesdropping even under the scaled-back surveillance program that the White House first agreed to permit the FISA court to review earlier this year, said one lawyer who has been briefed on the order but who asked not to be publicly identified ........

[L. Coyote]

84. White House tapping of foreigners was illegal, ruled judge

White House tapping of foreigners was illegal, ruled judge
Carol Leonnig and Ellen Nakashima in Washington
August 4, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/white-house-tapping-of-foreigners-was-illegal-ruled-judge/2007/08/03/1185648144037.html


A FEDERAL intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the Bush Administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, ....

The decision was a political and practical blow to the Administration, which had long held that all of the National Security Agency's enhanced surveillance efforts since 2001 were legal. The Administration had for years declined to subject those efforts to the jurisdiction of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and after it finally did so in January the court ruled that the Administration's legal judgment was at least partly wrong. The practical effect has been to block the agency's efforts to collect information from a large volume of foreign calls and emails that pass through US communications nodes clustered around New York and California.

Under the proposed revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Attorney-General would have sole authority to authorise the warrantless surveillance of people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" and to compel telecommunications carriers to turn over the information in real time or after it has been stored.

[L. Coyote]

85. LA TIMES: Don't rush to modify FISA

Don't rush to modify FISA
Limited changes can be made quickly, but save the heavy lifting for after Congress' recess.
August 3, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-fisa3aug03,0,2475453.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail


As it shifts into overdrive before a summer recess, Congress is debating whether to oblige the Bush administration with changes in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law that the administration ignored for five years as the National Security Agency -- without court approval -- monitored the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents suspected of ties with foreign terrorists.

Our advice: Hurry up and wait.

We don't object to prompt action to exclude from the privacy protections of FISA calls and e-mails between terrorist suspects abroad that happen to be routed through the United States. Indeed, this page endorsed the idea when it was raised in May by Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell. That technical adjustment may have been made more urgent by a decision of the secret court created by FISA to monitor electronic surveillance.

But as it hastens to make that adjustment, Congress should postpone more significant changes in FISA until it has time to scrutinize not only the administration's broader proposals but also those offered by members of Congress with a better reputation for protecting civil liberties. ....

[L. Coyote]

86. Bush urges Congress to pass wiretap bill

Bush urges Congress to pass wiretap bill
Lawmakers hustle to act before recess
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | August 3, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/08/03/bush_urges_congress_to_pass_wiretap_bill/


WASHINGTON -- Congress is rushing to expand the military's authority to wiretap phone calls and e-mails on US soil. The Bush administration, warning that terrorists may soon attack again, is pressuring lawmakers to approve the legislation before they leave town this weekend for their annual August vacations.

The proposal, the details of which remain murky, had received little public discussion before this week and has not undergone the normal committee review process. It would apparently give the National Security Agency legal approval to resume one type of the warrantless wiretapping that President Bush authorized after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The White House says the legislation is necessary to give the spy agency the ability to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists without court-approved warrants. Leaders in the Democratic-controlled Congress say they are willing to pass a version of the bill, and have spent the week in closed-door negotiations on the details.

But civil liberties groups urged Congress to slow down. Democrats have said the anticipated legislation will expire in several months, but the American Civil Liberties Union warned that such laws often end up on the books permanently. ......

[L. Coyote]

60. The Reality of Conspiracy in the USA & The Way to Progress

The Reality of Conspiracy in the USA & The Way to Progress
by Colin Donoghue - July 31, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_colin_do_070729_the_reality_of_consp.htm


The other night I was watching “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central and Colbert was interviewing the director of the ACLU, Anthony Romero. Colbert aggressively attacked Romero’s position that real patriots protect the Constitution, with statements in effect saying we shouldn’t protect the people that attacked us on September 11th, etc..... The “comedy” version made clearer the reality that 9/11 will always be the excuse and/or justification for pretty much anything Bush, Inc. does ...

Reality for many Americans today is based on falsehood; it is an illusion that they live in unknowingly. This false reality has been manufactured most drastically by two big lies that have been sold to the American people, and these lies in turn have been supported by two great hypocrisies. The first big lie is that our elections, though flawed, are still basically democratic. The second big lie is the official story of the events of 9/11/2001. The first great hypocrisy is that of the supposedly Christian faith of many in our government and positions of power. The second is the claim of patriotism by the neo-conservative movement and those that blindly follow it.

Before addressing these issues I will briefly summarize the crimes of the current American Federal Government: a war of aggression, illegal torturing, illegal detentions, illegal domestic spying. These are the well-known crimes of the Bush Administration, there are many others, and yet nothing has been done. No Impeachment proceedings, no war crime trials. Instead we have the American people and the mass media "debating" the issues, while remaining in a small sphere of reality where the official story of the “War on Terror” is always the starting point of debate. This never allows in the crucial truths that would make sense of the seemingly unexplainable, like how Bush won in 2004 ......

[RainDog]

61. hey L. Coyote

would you post a link to your thread to the new one about the deep modem posts? you have an amazing compilation of information here.

thank you for these.

[RainDog]

62. kick n/t

[L. Coyote]

63. 'Ring of Steel' coming to New York = network of thousands of surveillance cameras

August 1, 2007
'Ring of Steel' coming to New York
By Manav Tanneeru
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/08/01/nyc.surveillance/

(CNN) -- In 2005, about two weeks after 52 people in London were killed in bombings targeting the English city's mass transit system, terrorists decided to strike again......

About a day later, photographs of four suspects were broadcast on television. Their images had been captured on surveillance cameras near the sites of the attempted attacks.

The remarkable speed of that investigation was repeated in June this year when terrorists attempted to detonate two car bombs in London.....

Police officials credited the "Ring of Steel" -- a network of thousands of surveillance cameras that line London's intersections and neighborhoods -- for providing license plate numbers, suspects' image and other important clues in investigations.

New York City, ... will have a similar system in place by the decade's end if it gets the needed funding.

.... Civil liberties advocates say such systems are a threat to privacy rights and another step for a society creeping toward a constant state of surveillance.

[L. Coyote]

116. NY CITY: Judge Orders Release of Reports on 2004 Convention Surveillance

Judge Orders Release of Reports on ’04 Surveillance
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN - August 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/nyregion/07police.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin


A federal judge yesterday rejected New York City’s efforts to prevent the release of nearly 2,000 pages of raw intelligence reports and other documents detailing the Police Department’s covert surveillance of protest groups and individual activists before the Republican National Convention .... hundreds of field intelligence reports by undercover investigators who compiled dossiers on protest groups in a huge operation ....

But at the behest of the city and with the concurrence of civil liberties lawyers representing plaintiffs who were swept up in mass arrests during the convention, the judge agreed to the deletion of sensitive information in the documents to protect the identities of undercover officers and confidential informants and to safeguard police investigative methods and the privacy of individuals .... civil liberties lawyers insisted that the documents — even without the sensitive materials — were needed to show in court that the police had overstepped legal boundaries in arresting, detaining and fingerprinting hundreds of people instead of handing out summonses for minor offenses. ......

[RainDog]

67. another kick n/t

[RainDog]

68. le kick n/t

[donkeyotay]

70. Lot of good info here. Kick nt

[L. Coyote]

71. Do splice in anything useful. Enhance this Compilation Thread if you can.

[RainDog]

73. can-can! n/t :)

[defendandprotect]

77. Nixon's list of enemies/wiretapped would probably give us an idea of what's going on now -- !!!

That list must be around somewhere --
As I recall, it would be JOURNALISTS -- anyone opposing him politically --
Congress --

And Nixon was even bugging Kissinger -- !!!

[L. Coyote]

79. The Secrecy Excuse "apparent lie by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales"

The Secrecy Excuse
By Dan Froomkin - washingtonpost.com
Friday, July 27, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/27/BL2007072701308.html


An apparent lie by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could be easily cleared up, White House spokesman Tony Snow says -- but doing so would require discussing matters that must remain classified in order to protect national security.

The information that Snow and the White House are intent on keeping secret, however, has to do with surveillance activities that President Bush abandoned more than three years ago after Justice Department officials concluded they were illegal......

The purpose of classification is to maintain operational secrecy for critical national security programs -- not cover up governmental misdeeds. At least that's the theory. (As I've noted before, Bush aides have repeatedly leaked or declassified secret intelligence findings that served their political agenda -- while asserting the need to keep secret the information that would tend to discredit them.) If the White House believed that disclosing information about a now-defunct program would clear Gonzales, don't you think we'd know it by now?

Gonzales is in this bind because he told Congress in February 2006 that there had "not been any serious disagreement" within the administration about the program the White House dubbed the Terrorist Surveillance Program. ....

[L. Coyote]

81. Gonzales Issue Holds Up Surveillance Law

Gonzales Issue Holds Up Surveillance Law
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
August 2, 2007 WASHINGTON (AP)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/02/national/w141257D62.DTL&type=politics


Congress struggled Thursday over giving the government more power to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists, bogged down by concerns about the man who would oversee the plan — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Democrats and Republicans alike said they wanted to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ...

Gonzales "is clearly one of the concerns that has been expressed by the Democratic leaders," House Republican leader John Boehner told reporters. .....

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said lawmakers scoff when "they say Gonzales should do the reviews because nobody believes he has any independence."

"You just can't rely on Gonzales, and the president and the Republicans know it," said Schumer, one of the attorney general's chief critics. ...

[L. Coyote]

80. WA POST: Administration Again Rebuffs Senators

Administration Again Rebuffs Senators
Rove Ordered Not to Cooperate; Gonzales Refuses to Alter Testimony
By Michael Abramowitz and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 2, 2007; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102281.html?nav=rss_politics/congress


The Bush administration pushed back against congressional Democrats on two fronts yesterday ...

Gonzales sought to clear up questions about his credibility stemming from his testimony on the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. He acknowledged that his previous testimony to the committee may have been confusing but said there was no intent to mislead and declined to change his testimony.

Gonzales confirms that there was "serious disagreement" within the Justice Department about the NSA activities that were ordered by President Bush in late 2001. But as he has testified before, Gonzales also said there was no such disagreement about the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

The letter acknowledges, however, that even that part of the NSA's activities -- later known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- prompted "intense deliberations" within the Justice Department in 2004. Gonzales acknowledged that his previous statements "may have created confusion," especially for lawmakers and others who refer to all the activities as "a single NSA 'program.' "

The two-page letter, which includes a greater degree of detail than Gonzales had previously offered on the subject, appears aimed at heading off calls by some Democrats for a perjury investigation into parts of his previous testimony.

[Blue_Tires]

82. thanks for this incredible collection of links and info

i'll bookmark it for later, but it will take a while to digest it all!:crazy:

[L. Coyote]

83. Court puts limits on surveillance abroad

Court puts limits on surveillance abroad
The ruling raises concerns that U.S. anti-terrorism efforts might be impaired at a time of heightened risk.
By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer
August 2, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spying2aug02,1,1851437.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&track=crosspromo

WASHINGTON — A special court that has routinely approved eavesdropping operations has put new restrictions on the ability of U.S. spy agencies to intercept e-mails and telephone calls of suspected terrorists overseas, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

.......

The administration and Democrats are at odds over how to address the issue, leading to concerns that it might not be resolved before Congress starts its August recess Monday.

This week, congressional leaders have alluded to the recent decision by the court, which was created in 1978 as part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a television interview Tuesday evening: "There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said Wednesday that "recent technical developments" had convinced him that "we must take some immediate but interim step to improve collection of foreign intelligence in a manner that doesn't compromise civil liberties of U.S. citizens."

Neither Rockefeller nor Boehner would elaborate ....

[L. Coyote]

87. TPM: Exclusive: Bush Nixed Dem-DNI FISA Deal = BUSH LIES

Exclusive: Bush Nixed Dem-DNI FISA Deal
By Spencer Ackerman - August 3, 2007, 5:11 PM
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003862.php

Today, while standing with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, President Bush lamented the inability of Congressional Democrats to give McConnell the tools he needed to capture the communications of terrorists: ........

There's only one problem with Bush's statement: it isn't true.

A key Democrat in the negotiations, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), says that a deal had in fact been reached with McConnell, who has been busy lobbying Congress on a FISA update all week. "We had an agreement with DNI McConnell," Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Bernards tells TPMmuckraker, "and then the White House quashed the agreement."

A bill that House Democrats put forward today does not require the National Security Agency to seek warrants for surveillance of persons inside the United States -- only that the Attorney General will issue "guidelines" as to how collecting the communications of U.S. persons should operate.

A spokesperson for McConnell, Ross Feinstein, says he is "not going to comment" on "what agreements have been or haven't been reached." He adds that .....

[L. Coyote]

91. Bush Insists Gonzales, Not FISA Court, Review Surveillance Program

Bush Insists Gonzales, Not FISA Court, Review Surveillance Program
By Big Tent Democrat - Aug 03, 2007
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/8/3/171530/2316


President Bush insists that it should be Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, not the FISA court, that should review the Administration's surveillance program.

And he will not sign a bill unless he gets his way. Bush makes the bizarre claim that having Gonzo, not the courts, review the program is necessary to keep us safe. Who in the heck believes that?:

"The president threatened to veto any bill by the Democratic-led Congress that his intelligence director deemed unable "to prevent an attack on the country. . . McConnell and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would oversee the eavesdropping process, according to the White House plan. That prompted howls of protest from Democrats who distrust the attorney general to protect privacy rights. "We need a legal framework around this program," Reid said. "No more blank check for this attorney general, no more blank checks for any attorney general." ...."

If the President seriously thinks this change is necessary, then he would accept court review, not the review of the most incompetent and discredited Attorney General since John Mitchell.

The President's attitude betrays either unseriousness on the issue, or dishonesty in his claims, or both. Probably both. He is the worst President in the history of the nation. ...............

[L. Coyote]

88. Bush Isn't Spying on al Qaeda ... He's Spying on You

Bush Isn't Spying on al Qaeda ... He's Spying on You
By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted August 4, 2007.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/58806/

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.

But al-Qaeda terrorists always have assumed that their electronic communications were vulnerable to interception .....

[L. Coyote]

89. Senate votes 60-28 to expand spy authority W/O COURT APPROVAL

Senate votes to expand spy authority
The last-minute legislation gives agencies more power to track foreign communications and removes the court approval process.
By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer
August 4, 2007

WASHINGTON — Bowing to pressure from the Bush administration, the Senate passed emergency legislation Friday that would significantly expand the authority of U.S. spy agencies to monitor overseas phone calls and e-mails.

It also would remove requirements for court approval when those communications passed through the United States.

The measure would clear away an array of legal obstacles that President Bush and top intelligence officials said were impeding the nation's ability to track the communications of Al Qaeda operatives and other terrorism suspects abroad.

The House is scheduled to vote on an identical bill today; congressional officials said they expected the measure to pass. On Friday, the House rejected a competing version offered by Democrats.

The Senate bill, approved 60-28, ......

[L. Coyote]

94. Senate Votes To Expand Warrantless Surveillance = White House Applauds; Changes Are Temporary

Senate Votes To Expand Warrantless Surveillance
White House Applauds; Changes Are Temporary
By Joby Warrick and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 4, 2007; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080302296.html

The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.

The 60 to 28 vote, which was quickly denounced by civil rights and privacy advocates, came after Democrats in the House failed to win support for more modest changes that would have required closer court supervision of government surveillance. Earlier in the day, President Bush threatened to hold Congress in session into its scheduled summer recess if it did not approve the changes he wanted.

......

Democrats "have a Pavlovian reaction: Whenever the president says the word 'terrorism,' they roll over and play dead," said Caroline Fredrickson, Washington legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, predicted that the bill's approval would lead to the monitoring of ordinary Americans by the National Security Agency, which conducts most of the government's electronic surveillance. "If this bill becomes law, Americans who communicate with a person abroad can count on one thing: The NSA may be listening," he said.

[L. Coyote]

95. Speaker Pelosi is in a very untenable position ...

Saturday, August 04, 2007
Speaker Pelosi Is In The Hot Seat Over National Security
http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/3e13e22d-4361-409e-92c9-2f5c08f26035


On Friday, President Bush, surrounded by his national security team, gave a short speech calling out Congress to stop the bickering, end the stalling, and pass this legislation. After explaining the urgency of fixing the hole in the FISA law, he stated that he was calling on Congress to remain in session and work through their August recess until they get him a bill he could sign. He went on to say that whatever legislation ended up on his desk would have to meet with the approval of the Admiral, or he would veto it. And Friday afternoon, President Bush got some help in the Senate by Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who threatened to keep the Senate from adjourning until they act. And Friday night, act they did.

Simply put, there were two bills that were voted on late Friday night in the Senate that both addressed the fixing of the FISA law. One was offered by Mitch McConnell and Missouri Senator Kit Bond, written largely to meet the requests of the Director of National Intelligence. The other was offered by West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller, and was deemed to not give what Admiral McConnell called the bare minimum of what would be required for him and his people to do their job.

.............

Speaker Pelosi is in a very untenable position. She now bears entirely the weight of improving the national security of the United States. She will try to spin it differently, but every moment she waits, trying to find a political way out of the predicament she finds herself in, she is vulnerable to being held responsible if something really bad happens here. If the McConnell-Bond bill were to pass the House, it would be signed immediately by the President, and become law that second. There is no implementation delay. As soon as the ink is dry, Admiral Mike McConnell can start changing procedures he deems vital for the protection of the country at once.

So what are Pelosi’s options? She could bring up the bill as is, with no amendments, and call for a vote. Considering the number of Democrats in the Senate who helped it pass, it's almost certain to pass the House. But if Pelosi plays games with this, or if one comma is changed in the House version, the bill would have to go to a conference committee, which can’t now happen anytime soon because the Senate has recessed. They’ve done their job. Pelosi has to pass the bill as is. We hope she sees this and does what’s better for the country than satisfying her ACLU base.

Here’s her conundrum, however. If Pelosi does push this bill through ..........

[L. Coyote]

96. House ponders wiretap bill = S. 1927, House delayed action today

House ponders wiretap bill
By CHARLES BABINGTON Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 08/04/2007 12:23:32 AM PDT
http://origin.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_6543018

WASHINGTON—The House on Saturday delayed action on a Senate-passed bill to expand the government's powers to eavesdrop, without warrants, on Americans' communications with foreigners who are not necessarily terrorist suspects.

Lawmakers in both parties said they expected the measure to pass at some point—perhaps late Saturday or early Sunday—but only after the House deals with other matters, including an energy package.

..........

The bill would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It would allow the government to intercept, without warrants, communications between a U.S. resident and a foreign party suspected of involvement in "foreign intelligence" matters. It would drop existing language requiring that the foreigner be suspected more specifically of connections to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.

The bill also would clarify that the government can intercept foreigner-to-foreigner communications that
Advertisement
pass through U.S. lines or switches. The government long has had the power to intercept purely foreign communications.

If a U.S. resident is the chief target of surveillance of his or her communications with a foreigner, the government would have to obtain a warrant from the special FISA court.

[L. Coyote]

97. Republicans accuse Democrats of moving too slowly on spy bill

Republicans accuse Democrats of moving too slowly on spy bill
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/04/congress.fisa/


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An angry group of Republican House members accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday of delaying a vote on President Bush's legislative priority -- a measure amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Earlier in the day, House Democrats rearranged the schedule to place the measure in third place, after an energy bill and funding for the Defense Department.

..........

Last night, the House rejected a Democratic version of the FISA bill, 218-207 .......

Democrats objected to provisions in the GOP bill that grant the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the authority to approve all wiretaps, even if one caller is in the United States, with minimal court oversight. The Democratic bills required the FISA court to oversee the process.

The administration initially proposed to give the authority only to the attorney general, but agreed to add the director of national intelligence after Democrats objected to putting more power in the hands of embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

.........

All the FISA bills are temporary fixes -- the Democratic bill would expire in four months, while the GOP bill gives lawmakers six months to overhaul the law.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

90. when do we get the 'spy screens' fitted in our houses?

[L. Coyote]

93. They are all in place already, as required by law

Software is mandated by law to have a means for "law enforcement" to access your computer, I believe.

The questions today are,

"Who is 'law enforcement' if Gonzo is in charge?"

and

"Is there any difference between the RNC and the DoJ?"

[Rosa Luxemburg]

99. if all the agencies are corrupt who do we have?

[L. Coyote]

98. SPINOFF: Did Bush's Secrecy Endangered America? YES! Hiding Truth, Spying, FISA, and Trust Gonzo.

DISCUSS AT: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1514312


Edited on Sat Aug-04-07 06:17 PM by L. Coyote
A. Many months ago, a FISA court secretly ruled that it was illegal for the NSA to intercept communications routed through the USA.

B. Bush did nothing, except, of course, not reveal the secret ruling about the secret spying, because he had secretly violated the law himself.

C. Many months later, the secret FISA court ruling is revealed.

D. Bush blames Dems for not getting the fix on his desk overnight, want warrantless spying as a solution, and wants Gonzo to be the decider.

Geeee-eez, who needs math? Bush should have had this fixed overnight, many months ago, instead of guarding the secret!

NOW, in a masterful magic show of distraction, Bush and the Rs changed the issue by proposing that Gonzo be the decider on authorizing warrantless surveillance of Americans. Clever as all hell as distractions go, and everyone is falling for their sleight-of-hand magic show. But, didn't the Administration know about this when the FISA court handed down the ruling? ABSOLUTELY. But, they hid their dirty secret for political gain, and, epitomizing cynicism, now, when revealed, use it as a political tool.

CONCLUSION: Bush endangered America, knowing fully well the NSA could not legally intercept Al Queda communications routed through the USA, rather than let his dirty secrets get out! Damn simple. Who needs math? (Or maybe, he was violating the law and doing the spying anyway, so no worries mates.)

Tell me if I got any of this wrong, please.

And, which of the following is the likelier Bush scenario

A. illegally spying anyway, or
B. not fixing the problem to hide past crimes?

[L. Coyote]

100. ACLU: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Myths and Facts

Post by ProSense Sat Aug-04-07 10:28 AM

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Myths and Facts
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/31144res20070731.html

Discuss at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1511770&mesg_id=1511770

[L. Coyote]

102. NY TIMES: Democrats Feel Pressure on Spy Program

Democrats Feel Pressure on Spy Program
By CARL HULSE and EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: August 5, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/washington/05nsa.html?ref=us


WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 — Under pressure from President Bush, House Democrats on Saturday grudgingly prepared to move ahead with approving changes in a terrorist surveillance program despite serious reservations about the scope of the measure.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Broader Spying Authority Advances in Congress (August 4, 2007)

With time running out before a scheduled monthlong break and the Senate already in recess, House Democrats confronted the choice of accepting the administration’s bill or letting it die. If it died, that would leave Democratic lawmakers, who have long been anxious about appearing weak on national security issues, facing an August fending off charges from Mr. Bush and Republicans that they left Americans exposed to terror threats.

There was no indication that lawmakers were responding to new intelligence warnings. Rather, Democrats were responding to administration pleas that a recent secret court ruling had created a legal obstacle in monitoring foreign communications relayed over the Internet. They also appeared worried about the political repercussions of being perceived as interfering with intelligence gathering. ...........

[L. Coyote]

103. New House FISA Bill Fails to Protect Rights of Americans

New House FISA Bill Fails to Protect Rights of Americans
Center for Democracy and Technology.
For immediate release:
August 3, 2007
http://www.cdt.org/press/20070803press.php


WASHINGTON - The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) opposes legislation introduced today by the House leadership for immediate consideration on the House floor. The bill, H.R. 3356, nominally intended to exempt from FISA court order requirements the interception of foreign-to-foreign communications, would also permit, without sufficient protections, the interception of calls into and out of the United States, thereby infringing on the rights of Americans.

Simply put, H.R. 3356 would render FISA an ineffective tool when it comes to protecting the privacy of international communications involving people in the U.S. The bill effectively allows the government to spy on Americans when the government targets someone overseas with whom a person in the U.S. is communicating. Americans today have many legitimate business and family reasons to talk to people overseas, but the House bill deprives them of their privacy when they do so.

CDT was prepared to support FISA revisions to exempt foreign-to-foreign communications. We were also prepared to support broad court authorizations for surveillance targeted at persons overseas, so long as there were adequate protections when that surveillance activity began to intercept communications of persons inside the U.S. An earlier bill, drafted by the House and Senate Intelligence Committee chairs, had many of the necessary checks and balances.

We were also prepared to accept a process whereby the NSA had discretion to pick its targets, but only if it the legislation clearly empowered the FISA court to require an ordinary FISA order if surveillance targeting persons abroad was resulting in the interception of a significant number of communications with persons in the United States.

However, we have concluded that the new bill, H.R.3356, does not sufficiently protect the rights of people in the U.S. The new bill does not give the FISA court adequate authority to control surveillance that affects the rights of Americans. It leaves too much discretion to the Attorney General.

The bill calls for Inspector General audits, which may shed some light on how the new intelligence surveillance authority is used.

However, what is needed is a stronger role for the FISA court when surveillance involves people in the U.S.

We are distressed that many of the Administration's statements about this issue have been misleading and have seemed intended to politicize national security and civil liberties. We applaud those members of Congress, including Rep. Jane Harman ☼ (D-CA), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Sen. Patrick Leahy ☼ (D-VT), who worked tirelessly to develop a strong bill that would enhance national security and protect the rights of Americans.

The bill includes a sunset provision, and it sunsets in 180 days. Over the time between now and the sunset, we will work diligently with all interested parties to seek effective checks and balances in any permanent FISA revisions.

[L. Coyote]

104. AP: House Approves Foreign Wiretap Bill

House Approves Foreign Wiretap Bill
By CHARLES BABINGTON
Saturday, August 4, 2007
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_6543018


WASHINGTON—The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying Saturday, "Protecting America is our most solemn obligation."

The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

The bill updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It gives the government leeway to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in United States, provided that "foreign intelligence information" is at stake.

..................

[L. Coyote]

105. WA POST: House Approves Broader Surveillance Legislation

House Approves Broader Surveillance Legislation
By Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick - Staff Writers
Saturday, August 4, 2007; 10:54 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/04/AR2007080401744.html


The Democratic-controlled House tonight approved and sent to President Bush for his signature legislation his intelligence advisers wrote to enhance their ability to intercept the electronic communications of foreigners without a court order.

The 227 to 183 House vote capped a high-pressure campaign by the White House to change the nation's wiretap law, in which the administration capitalized on Democrats' fears of being branded as weak on terrorism and on a general congressional desire to proceed with an August recess.

......

Privacy and civil liberties advocates, and many Democratic lawmakers, complained that the Bush administration's revisions to the law could breach constitutional protections against government intrusion. But the administration, aided by Republican congressional leaders, suggested that a failure to approve what intelligence officials sought could expose the country to a greater risk of terrorist attack.

Democrats facing reelection next year in conservative districts helped propel the bill to quick approval. Adding to the pressures they felt were recent intelligence reports about hreatening new al Qaeda activity in Pakistan and the disclosure by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) of a secret court ruling earlier this year that complicated the wiretapping of purely foreign communications that happen to pass through a communications node on U.S. soil.

The bill gives the National Security Agency the right to collect such communications in the future without a warrant. But it goes further than that: It also allows the interception and recording of electronic communications involving, at least in part, people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" without a court's order or oversight.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto emphasized that the bill was not meant to increase eavesdropping on Americans .....

[L. Coyote]

106. NY TIMES: House Passes Changes in Surveillance Program

House Passes Changes in Surveillance Program
By CARL HULSE and EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: August 5, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/washington/05nsa.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 — Under pressure from President Bush, the House on Saturday gave final approval to changes in a terrorist surveillance program despite serious objections from many Democrats about the scope of the executive branch’s new eavesdropping power.

Racing to complete a final rush of legislation before a scheduled monthlong break, the House voted 227 to 183 to endorse a measure the Bush administration said was needed to keep pace with communications technology in the effort to track terrorists overseas.

“The intelligence community is hampered in gathering essential information about terrorists,” said Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas.

The House Democratic leadership had severe reservations about the proposal and an overwhelming majority of Democrats opposed it. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure “does violence to the Constitution of the United States.”

But with the Senate already in recess, Democrats confronted the choice of allowing the administration’s bill to reach the floor and be approved mainly by Republicans or letting it die.

If it stalled, that would have left Democratic lawmakers, who have long been anxious about appearing weak on national security issues, facing an August spent fending off charges from Mr. Bush and Republicans that they left Americans exposed to terrorism threats.

Despite the political risks, many Democrats argued they should stand firm against the president’s initiative .....

[L. Coyote]

110. Speaker Pelosi:Amend FISA As Soon as Possible

Amend FISA As Soon as Possible
August 5th, 2007 by Karina
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=661

Speaker Pelosi said that S. 1927, the bill passed tonight by the House to temporally amend FISA for six-months, after H.R. 3356, the Improving Foreign Intelligence Surveillance to Defend Our Nation and Our Constitution Act bill failed last night, contains many provisions that are unacceptable and she does not believe that the American people will want to wait that long before corrective action is taken. In a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, Speaker Pelosi requested that the Committees report to the House “as soon as possible after Congress reconvenes,” legislation to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

... text of the letter ...

[L. Coyote]

114. FAQ: How far does the new wiretap law go?

FAQ: How far does the new wiretap law go?
http://news.com.com/FAQ+How+far+does+the+new+wiretap+law+go/2100-1029_3-6201032.html
By Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache - August 6, 2007


... Congress acceded to President George Bush's requests for expanded Internet and telephone surveillance powers. .....

To help explain what the Protect America Act of 2007 means, CNET News.com has prepared the following Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQ list.

What does the new Protect America Act actually do?

The new law effectively expands the National Security Agency's power to eavesdrop on phone calls, e-mail messages and other Internet traffic with limited court oversight. Telecommunications companies can be required to comply with government demands, and if they do so they are immune from all lawsuits.

It also says, as George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr notes, that 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants are not needed for Internet or telephone "surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States." What that means is .....

[L. Coyote]

125. When Does the Sun Set on Warrantless Surveillance? Post-Election!!

Tuesday, August 07, 2007
When Does the Sun Set on Warrantless Surveillance?
Marty Lederman
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/08/when-does-sun-set-on-warrantless.html


I happen to have been in Iceland this year right around the summer solstice, when the sun never sets. Twilight in the middle of the night was somewhat haunting, spooky even.

Well, as several of our commentors have noted, the so-called six-month sunset provision of the "Protect America Act of 2007" is a bit of a ruse, because it's not clear the sun ever sets on the unchecked electronic surveillance of the Bush Administration.

Although section 6(c) provides that the operative provisions of the Act "shall cease to have effect 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act," i.e., on February 1, 2008, there is an express exception in section 6(d), which reads as follows:

AUTHORIZATIONS IN EFFECT.—Authorizations for the acquisition of foreign intelligence information pursuant to the amendments made by this Act, and directives issued pursuant to such authorizations, shall remain in effect until their expiration. Such acquisitions shall be governed by the applicable provisions of such amendments and shall not be deemed to constitute electronic surveillance as that term is defined in section 101(f) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801(f)).

Thus, "acquisitions" authorized by Attorney General Gonzales will be permissible for one year, even if that period extends beyond the ostensible February 1, 2008 sunset date. .........

[L. Coyote]

107. VIDEO: The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, by Bill Moyers

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, by Bill Moyers
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3505348655137118430

1 hr 26 min = This is the full length 90 min. version of Bill Moyer's 1987 scathing critique of the criminal subterfuge carried out by the Executive Branch of the United States Government to carry out operations which are clearly contrary to the wishes and values of the American people. The ability to exercise this power with impunity is facilitated by the National Security Act of 1947. The thrust of the exposé is the Iran-Contra arms and drug-running operations which flooded the streets of our nation with crack cocaine. The significance of the documentary is probably greater today in 2007 than it was when it was made. We now have a situation in which these same forces have committed the most egregious terrorist attack on US soil and have declared a fraudulent so-called "War on Terror". The ruling regime in the US who have conducted the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, are now banging the war drum against Iran. We have the PATRIOT act which has stripped us of many of our basic civil rights justified by the terror of 9/11 which is their own doing.

[bonito]

111. Kick

[L. Coyote]

112. MOTHER JONES: Let the Warrantless Wiretapping Resume

Let the Warrantless Wiretapping Resume
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/08/5097_let_the_warantl.html


It's official: The Protect America Act is on it's way to the president's desk and, once it arrives, you can be sure it will be signed .... Troubling to civil libertarians and the House Democrats who voted against the legislation, is the wording in the bill, which seems just vague enough that U.S. citizens and domestic communications could still be swept up in the surveillance net, which was the whole problem with the first incarnation of the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. According to the bill, electronic intercepts involving people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" are fair game. ....

Another question that's worth asking is why the Democratic leadership—Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in particular—allowed their caucus to be rushed into action on this bill, bowing to pressure from the White House and congressional Republicans, who have been agitating for a FISA fix.

As recently as three weeks ago, it was my understanding that the Democrats were going to take up FISA in the fall, after Congress returned from the August recess. Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said as much during a hearing I attended in late July that explored the implications of the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Al Qaeda. After the committee's ranking member Pete Hoekstra spent the better part of his opening statement lambasting the Democrats for their inaction on FISA ....

In the end, however, careful consideration went out the window and Reyes and his Democratic colleagues were indeed stampeded into action on a bill that Nancy Pelosi said yesterday “does violence to the Constitution.” .... Adding to the pressures they felt ... the disclosure by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) of a secret court ruling earlier this year that complicated the wiretapping of purely foreign communications that happen to pass through a communications node on U.S. soil.

Now, the Democrats can rest easily over the August recess, knowing that they haven’t left themselves vulnerable to political attacks. The rest of us can worry about whether the NSA is using its enhanced surveillance authority to spy on Americans.

[L. Coyote]

117. NY TIMES: White House Challenges Critics on Spying

White House Challenges Critics on Spying
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/washington/07nsa.html


WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 — The White House maintained Monday that the surveillance measure signed into law by President Bush over the weekend did not give the government any sweeping new powers to eavesdrop on Americans without court warrants.

.... an assertion by Democrats, civil rights advocates and news organizations that the legislation in effect gave legal authorization to the National Security Agency’s once-secret wiretapping program. ........ Critics of the measure, which expires in six months, maintain that whether or not an American on United States soil is considered the “target” of an eavesdropping operation, the effect is the same: an end run around constitutional rights ........

The White House issued a statement that criticized as “highly misleading” a front-page article in The New York Times on Monday that described the legislation as having “broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.” .........

[L. Coyote]

118. Court's Spy Ruling Makes Defense of Gonzales Perjury Allegations Tricky

Court's Spy Ruling Makes Defense of Gonzales Perjury Allegations Tricky
By Ryan Singel - August 01, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/courts-spy-ruli.html


A letter sent to Senator Arlen Specter on Tuesday by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell confirms that there are undefined other secret surveillance programs, in addition to the warrrantless wiretapping the Administration has confirmed. But that letter, which attempts to defend the embattled Attorney General, gets very close to putting the Administration and the nation's largest telecoms in serious legal trouble.

McConnell's confirmation of the existence of other secret surveillance programs came in a letter (.pdf) to Arlen Specter, seemingly aimed, like the leaks over the weekend to the New York Times, to back Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's questionable linguistic gymnastics about opposition to the government's secret surveillance activities. Gonzales' linguistic hair-splitting has prompted members of the Senate Judiciary to call for a Justice Department investigation, while members of the House are pushing for impeachment.

Why doesn't the Administration confirm the existence of the data-mining program in order to save Attorney General Alberto Gonzales ......

In July 2006, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker allowed an anti-spying suit against AT&T to proceed, despite the government's argument that the case needed to be thrown out or national security would be endangered. That legal card, known as the states secrets privilege, is nearly universally effective. But Walker laid down a new rule: if the government has admitted the existence of a secret program, a suit against the program can't be considered a state secret. ..............

[L. Coyote]

119. New Law Gives USG Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture

Analysis: New Law Gives Government Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture - UPDATED
By Ryan Singel - August 06, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/analysis-new-la.html

A new law expanding the government's spying powers gives the Bush Administration a six-month window to install possibly permanent back doors in the nation's communication networks ....

... the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers. ....

.... the Administration never pushed for the right to tap the nation's domestic communication networks until a secret court recently struck down a key pillar of the government's secret spying program. .....

In short, the law gives the Administration the power to order the nation's communication service providers -- which range from Gmail, AOL IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create possibly permanent spying outposts for the federal government.

These outposts need only to have a "significant" purpose of spying on foreigners, would be nearly immune to challenge by lawsuit, and have no court supervision over their extent or implementation.

Abuses of the outposts will be monitored only by the Justice Department, which has already been found to have underreported abuses of other surveillance powers to Congress. ................

[L. Coyote]

121. VIDEO Democracy Now: AMY GOODMAN Reports on Protect America Act.

Part 1 Democracy NOW - Warrantless Eavesdropping - Protect America Act Report
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x45931

Part 2 Democracy NOW - FISA and the Protect America Act. Amy Goodman Reports
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x45936

Part 3 Democracy NOW - FISA and the Protect America Act "Congress ... Terrorized"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x45937

Part 4 Democracy NOW - Glenn Greewald & Marjorie Cohn = "Gonzales is a War Criminal"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x45928

[L. Coyote]

123. Kennedy On The FISA Modernization Legislation

Ted Kennedy: Kennedy On The FISA Modernization Legislation
Tue, 08/07/2007
http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48727654_ted_kennedy_ted_kennedy_kennedy_fisa_modernization_legislation


(As Prepared for Delivery)

August 3, 2007 -- "Mr./Madam President, there is general agreement on both sides of the aisle that we have a foreign intelligence surveillance problem that should be addressed. The difference between us is that on this side of the aisle we have consistently been willing to work cooperatively to solve the problem. ....

In 1976, I was the principal sponsor of the original bill that became FISA. When we first introduced the bill, we had a Democratic Congress, a Republican President, Gerald Ford, and a Republican Attorney General, Ed Levi. Attorney General Levi understood the need for Congress and the Executive Branch to work together. Members of the Judiciary Committee went down to the Justice Department at least four times to meet on the bill. There were discussions with Henry Kissinger, Don Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft and George Bush among others.

We worked responsibly and cooperatively to develop legislation to protect our civil liberties and ensure that the nation could use necessary surveillance. In the end, Attorney General Levi praised the bipartisan spirit of cooperation that characterized the negotiations and produced a good bill. That Administration recognized the importance of working with Congress. The final bill was passed by the Senate by a vote of 95 to 1.

As this history demonstrates, our nation is strongest when we work together for our national security. Unfortunately, the current Administration has chosen a very different course. ..........

[L. Coyote]

124. Sen. Leahy sets Aug. 20 deadline for testimony about eavesdropping program

Congress seeks surveillance documents
Leahy sets Aug. 20 deadline for testimony about eavesdropping program
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20192507/


Despite Congress' summer recess, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is continuing his battle against President Bush's recent executive privilege claims.

Aug 9, 2007

WASHINGTON - 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.

............

[L. Coyote]

126. EFF's Class-Action Lawsuit Against AT&T for Collaboration with USG Spying

EFF's Class-Action Lawsuit Against AT&T for Collaboration with Illegal Domestic Spying Program
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/

* FAQ
* Summary of Key News Reports
* Press Releases
* Legal Documents

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on January 31, 2006, accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications. On July 20, 2006, a federal judge denied the government's and AT&T's motions to dismiss the case, allowing the lawsuit to go forward.

The EFF lawsuit arose from news reports in December 2005 ......

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DISCUSS: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1552075