Glenn Greenwald: McConnell/Mukasey: Eavesdropping outside of FISA is "illegal"

[babylonsister]

McConnell/Mukasey: Eavesdropping outside of FISA is "illegal"

(updated below - Update II)

The White House yesterday escalated its most brazen, Orwellian campaign of the last eight years -- shrilly accusing House Democrats of jeopardizing the nation's security by allowing the Protect America Act to expire even though it's the President and House Republicans who blocked any extensions of that law. As the Associated Press pointed out at the bottom of its story:

McConnell acknowledged last week that the White House's refusal to extend the wiretapping law was meant to pressure Congress to pass the Senate bill.

Ponder what it says about our press corps that the White House knows it can (a) block all attempts to extend the PAA and then (b) spend the next several weeks blaming Democrats for helping the Terrorists by allowing the PAA to expire. I know I've made that point before, but this one is so brazen, so transparent and audacious, that it just hasn't yet ceased to amaze.

In any event, the two honorable, apolitical, completely trustworthy Bush cabinet members -- DNI Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey -- yesterday released a letter addressed to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes which is basically a written adaptation of the scary 24 video produced this week by the House Republicans, breathlessly claiming that the nation "is now more vulnerable to terrorist attack and other foreign threats" because of the PAA's expiration.

The letter contains the now-standard fear-mongering claims that telecoms will stop cooperating (and even have stopped cooperating already) with government surveillance in the absence of the PAA (an absence caused single-handedly by the President) -- i.e., "we have lost intelligence information this past week," etc. But there was one passage in the letter which seems significant and worth highlighting.

more...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/23/mcconell/

[joeybee12]

1. I said it before, and I'll say it again, Thank You, DiFi...

...and I guess I'll keep on saying it for almost another year until we get a real AG.

[C_U_L8R]

2. losing intelligence

seems to be a consistent theme with this administration.

[dchill]

3. If it's "illegal"...

then the telecoms should be prosecuted. Right, Attorney General Mukasey?

[fasttense]

4. There is evidence that they were spying on American citizens even before 9/11

but since that spying didn't help to stop 9/11, is this spying of any value?

[formercia]

8. The boys have been spying on us since the Telegraph.

They're just now getting caught with their fly unzipped and are doing some fancy footwork to keep out of jail.

[L. Coyote]

5. K & R and STOP these crimes!

[Wizard777]

6. I'm still trying to figure this telecom immunity out.

How can the Senate and House debate telecom immunity without realizing that the telecoms commited crimes authorized by the President. That is a Presidential crime worthy of impeachment. I'm talking on the NIXON scale worthy of impeachment. Are they really THAT fucking stupid?

[malaise]

7. Tell the criminals in the WH to go the FISA court

K & R