Visit The NSA Website; Get A Cookie

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Seems like the NSA was doing more than monitoring phone calls:

The National Security Agency’s Internet site has been placing files on visitors’ computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them.

These files, known as "cookies," disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States.

"Considering the surveillance power the NSA has, cookies are not exactly a major concern," said Ari Schwartz, associate director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "But it does show a general lack of understanding about privacy rules when they are not even following the government’s very basic rules for Web privacy."

Until Tuesday, the NSA site created two cookie files that do not expire until 2035 — likely beyond the life of any computer in use today.

In the interest of full disclosure, I believe that my website also gives your computer a "cookie".  The cookie "remembers" where you are when you stop the Live Webcam slideshow in the righthand column (assuming that you stop the slideshow), so that the next time you visit the website, it is on that particular image.  That’s all it does.

And your bank account numbers.  It copies those, too.

Just kidding.

Plugging Back In

Ken AshfordRandom Musings2 Comments

There’s no point in trying to catch up with a world that keeps on spinning while you take the holidays to be with family.  However, had I been around, I would have liked to comment on a thing or two.  They are, in no particular order…

Schiavelli(1)  Vincent Schiavelli (pictured left) died.  I always liked him.  A good character actor.  Good in Ghost as the crazy ghost in the subway.  Good in Cuckoo’s Nest, too.

(2)  Emily Mark informs me that she’s Not Afraid Of Anything (mp3 – will open a new window; even on a fast connection, it will take several minutes to load and play)

(3)  Wiretapping the UN Security Council?  I guess the "we only tap terrorists" excuse isn’t going to hold much water.

(4)  I photoblogged my car trip home for the holidays.  I’ve deleted those posts now, since they were not very interesting.  Blogger Jeremy Hermanns, however, had quite a different commuting experience yesterday, and he photoblogged it as it happened: Alaska Flight 536 – Rapid De-pressurization and Panic at 30k Feet.  And apparently, Alaska Airlines people are "anonymously" pestering him about his post.

(5)  The mainstream media — Newsweek — goes to #1 lefty blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (of Daily Kos) for some handicapping on the 2006 election races.

(6)  From yesterday’s press gaggle:

Good morning. Let me update you on the President’s schedule. Yesterday, after arriving, he went out and did some cutting and clearing brush, and then was at his home on the ranch. And this morning he had his normal intelligence briefings, and he was out this morning clearing some brush and is right now — or has just recently concluded a bicycle ride and he’ll be spending the rest of the day at home with his wife and mother-in-law.

Is it just me or does Bush’s ranch have an awful lot of brush?  I mean, that’s all he does out there is "clear brush".  Frankly, I think "clearing brush" must be a euphemism for something else, but I’ll let someone with a cleaner mind determine what it really means.

(7)  Conservative blogger Captain Ed rates "The Worst Ten Americans Of All Time".  With the exception of #10 (Jimmy Carter), he’s not off the mark.  My only quibble would be the order.  His posts are here (8 through 10), here (5 through 7), here (2 through 4) and here (#1 on the list – J. Edgar Hoover)

(8)  Lizard Queen is blogging again.

(9)  John Hindrocket at conservative blog Powerline:

[T]he [Washington] Post’s reporters are part of a lavishly funded and monolithic media effort to misreport the Iraq war for the purpose of bringing down the Bush administration.

Really?  That’s funny.  WaPo endorsed the war.  Here’s an excerpt from a February 5, 2003 editorial:

[T]he United States should lead a force to remove Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and locate and destroy its chemical and biological weapons and its nuclear program. The Iraqi regime poses a threat not just to the United States but to global order.

Once again proving that Time’s 2004 Blog Of The Year is a joke.

(10)  With all due respect, Pope Benedict, they’re really not.

(11)  Did you know… that women outnumber men in colleges now, and the number of white men attending college is experiencing a rather dramatic dropoff?  It’s true.

(12)  Conservative bloggers are making much of this Rasmussen Poll:

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Americans say they are following the NSA story somewhat or very closely.

Just 26% believe President Bush is the first to authorize a program like the one currently in the news. Forty-eight percent (48%) say he is not while 26% are not sure.

I don’t doubt the results, and to a large extent, I am among those who think we should be listening on the conversations of terrorist suspects.  But that’s not what the kerfuffle is about.  The issue is whether the President can order the government do so without a warrant and expressly against statutes written by Congress.  Rasmussen should go back and ask the same people whether or not they think the President break the law whenever he wants to.

Kaus at the Huffington Post says pretty much the same thing:

If the polling question asked was "do you think that the government should be able to listen secretly to any international phone calls to the United States that it wants to on the approval of a shift supervisor at the National Security Agency without a warrant or any court or legislative supervision whatsoever," the numbers would be very different.

By the way, many in the US intelligence agencies think Bush’s tactics hurt them (and by extension, us) in the long run.

Something else needs to be said.  Evidence obtained through these NSA wiretaps are inadmissible in court.  So how can we "bring these terrorists to justice" (to quote Bush)?

(13)  ALICUBlog provides a laugh:

SHORTER CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT 1994:

"I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you."

HAW HAW HAW! AW HAW HAW HAW HAW! Thassa good one! Yee-haaa!

SHORTER CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT 2005:

"I’m from the government, and I’m here to spy on you and perhaps indefinitely detain you without charges."

That sounds reasonable.

Fredsigned_1 (14)  The "Time To Make The Donuts" actor (pictured, right) is dead, too.

(15)  The Fighting Dem phenomenon continues to grow.

More than 30 Iraq and Persian Gulf War veterans have entered congressional races across the country as Democrats, hoping to capitalize on their military experience to topple the incumbent Republican majority […]

On Dec. 20, Fawcett and Winter joined 35 Democratic veterans running for Congress at a strategy session in Washington, D.C.

The veterans voted on a name for their emerging caucuslike campaign coalition: Veterans for a Secure America. They also agreed that their military backgrounds should be promoted as credentials for leadership across the full spectrum of public policy, said Fawcett, an Air Force veteran of the 1991 Gulf War who has taught at the Air Force Academy and now works as a consultant to Northern Command in Colorado Springs.

The group will reconvene in Washington in February to respond to President Bush’s State of the Union address in a news conference on the steps of the Capitol, Winter said. An attorney and the former president of the grassroots liberal organizing group Be The Change, Winter spent 10 peacetime years in the Marine Corps and the Navy.

Thirty-five Gulf and Iraqi War veterans running for office; and only one Republican.

(16)  Life is not going to be as funny anymore: Dave Barry to stop writing his weekly column.

(17)  The War on Christmas is over.  Treaty signed on Island of Misfit Toys (so says INDC Journal):

Yalta

The Meme Of Four

Ken AshfordPersonalLeave a Comment

Everybody’s doing it (like here and here and here), so I’ll join in:

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: Drummer with a troupe of singing waiters, short order cook, agent for playrights, attorney

Four movies you could watch over and over: Hmmmmm.  Heaven (Diane Keaton’s documentary, sort of), Dr. Strangelove, The Bandwagon,  and Run Lola Run.  Of course, if you ask me this tomorrow, I might have an entirely different answer.

Four places you’ve lived: Omaha, NE; Concord, NH; Brooklyn, NY; Pfafftown, NC

Four TV shows you love to watch: The Daily Show, The Office, The Simpsons, American Experience

Four places you’ve been on vacation: Moscow, Rome, Paris, Outer Banks

Four websites you visit daily: Memeorandum, Boing Boing, Think Progress, Legal Fiction

Four of your favorite foods: Pancakes, Chocolate Mousse, Chicken Cordon Bleu, Really Good Omelette

Four places you’d rather be: Faro (Portugal) at sunset; Front seats on Fenway’s first baseline at the World Series, New England in the autumn, With you (right now)

Four albums you can’t live without: Albums?  They still make those?

25 Dumbest Quotes of 2005

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

From About.com:

25) "I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can’t play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it’s called." –Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, urging President Bush to make public Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers’s White House records, Oct. 5, 2005 (Source) (Read more stupid Dean quotes)

24) "If I would do another ‘Terminator’ movie I would have Terminator travel back in time and tell Arnold not to have a special election." –California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, after all four of his ballot initiatives were roundly defeated in the special election he called, Nov 10, 2005 (Source) (Read more stupid Schwarzenegger quotes)

23) "Get some devastation in the back." –Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, to a staff photographer as he posed for a photo op while visiting tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka, Jan. 6, 2005 (Source)

22) "I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn’t work." –President Bush, after being thwarted by locked doors when he tried to exit a news conference in Beijing in the face of hostile questioning from reporters, Nov. 20, 2005 (Source) (Read more about Bush’s door gaffe)

21) "I am not going to give you a number for it because it’s not my business to do intelligent work." –Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked to estimate the number of Iraqi insurgents while testifying before Congress, Feb. 16, 2005 (Source) (Read more Rumsfeldisms)

20) "I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." –Vice President Dick Cheney, on the Iraq insurgency, June 20, 2005 (Source) (Read more stupid Cheney quotes)

19) "You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever and get home and still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well Republicans, I guess can do that. Because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives." –Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, speaking at the Campaign for America’s Future annual gathering, June 3, 2005 (Source)

18) "I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." –Bill Bennett, former Education Secretary and author of "The Book of Virtues," Sept. 28, 2005 (Source)

17) "You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." –Pat Robertson, calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Aug. 22, 2005 (Source) (Read more stupid Pat Robertson Quotes)

16) "If Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.’" –FOX News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, after San Francisco voted to ban military recruiters from city schools, Nov. 8, 2005 (Source) (Read more stupid Bill O’Reilly quotes)

15) "I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office. She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli." –Sen. Bill Frist, diagnosing Terri Schiavo’s condition during a speech on the Senate floor, March 17, 2005 [The autopsy later revealed she was blind.] (Source)

14) "You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals…many of these people, almost all of them that we see are so poor and they are so black, and this is going to raise lots of questions for people who are watching this story unfold." –CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, on New Orleans’ hurricane evacuees, Sept. 1, 2005 (Source)

13) "If you’ll look at my lovely FEMA attire you’ll really vomit. I am a fashion god… Anything specific I need to do or tweak? Do you know of anyone who dog-sits? … Can I quit now? Can I come home? … I’m trapped now, please rescue me." –Ex-FEMA Director Michael Brown, in various emails to colleagues and friends in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (Source) (Read more about Brownie’s idiotic emails)

12) "If one person criticizes [the local authorities’ relief efforts] or says one more thing, including the president of the United States, he will hear from me. One more word about it after this show airs, and I…I might likely have to punch him, literally." –Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), "This Week with George Stephanopoulous," Sept. 4, 2005 (Source)

11) "I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible?" –President Bush, in a note to to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a U.N. Security Council meeting, September 14, 2005 (Source) (Read more about Bush’s potty break)

10) "You are the best governor ever." –Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, writing to Texas Gov. George Bush in 1997 on his 51st birthday, adding that she found him "cool" and that he and his wife, Laura, were "the greatest" and telling him: "Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed." (Source)

9) "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." –George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Source (Listen to audio clip)

8) "Well, I think that’s bullsh*t and I hate that. Just let it go." –Commentator Bob Novak to James Carville, before storming off the set at CNN, Aug. 4, 2005 (Source) (Read more about Novak’s freakout)

7) "I’m proud of George. He’s learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What’s worse, it was a male horse." –First Lady Laura Bush, at the White House Correspondents dinner, April 30, 2005 (Source) (Read more of Laura Bush’s comedy routine)

6) "You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that." –President Bush, to a divorced mother of three in Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005 (Source) (Listen to audio clip)

5) "Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well." –FEMA Director Michael Brown, Sept. 1, 2005 (Source)

4) "Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job." –President Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, while touring hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, Sept. 2, 2005 (Source) (Listen to audio clip)

3) "What didn’t go right?" –President Bush, as quoted by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, after she urged him to fire FEMA Director Michael Brown "because of all that went wrong, of all that didn’t go right" in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, Sept. 6, 2005 (Source)

2) "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" –House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX), to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 9, 2005 (Source)

1) "What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." –Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 5, 2005 (Source)

Are We At War?

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/Torture1 Comment

Kevin Drum makes an interesting point:

Of course, their argument is not that the president has the inherent power to authorize domestic surveillance anytime he wants, only that he has that power during wartime. And as near as I can tell, that’s the elephant in the room that no one is really very anxious to discuss: What is "wartime"? Is George Bush really a "wartime president," as he’s so fond of calling himself? Conservatives take it for granted that he is, while liberals tend to avoid the subject entirely for fear of being thought unserious about the War on Terror. But it’s something that ought be brought up and discussed openly.

Consider a different war, for example. It’s safe to say that whatever Bush’s NSA program actually involves, no one would have batted an eyelash if FDR had approved a similar program during World War II. Experience suggests that during a period of genuine, all-out war, few people complain when a president pushes the boundaries of the law based on military necessity. But aside from World War II, what else counts as wartime?

If you count only serious hot wars, the United States has been at war for over 20 of the 65 years since 1940. That’s a lot of "wartime."

However, if you count the Cold War, as conservatives generally think we should, the tally shoots up to about 50 years of war. That means the United States has been almost continuously at war during the past 65 years — and given the nature of the War on Terror, we’ll continue to be at war for the next several decades.

If this is how we define "wartime," it means that in the century from 1940 to 2040 the president will have had emergency wartime powers for virtually the entire time. But does that make sense? Is anyone really comfortable with the idea that three decades from now the president of the United States will have had wartime executive powers for nearly a continuous century?

Somehow we need to come to grips with this. There’s "wartime" and then there’s "wartime," and not all armed conflicts vest the president with emergency powers. George Bush may have the best intentions in the world — and in this case he probably did have the best intentions in the world — but that still doesn’t mean he has the kind of plenary power Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt exercised during their wars.

He’s right.  Certainly, we are engaged in armed conflict, but when are we not?  Were we in wartime when we invaded Grenada?  How about Kosovo?  How about the "war on drugs"? 

Calling something a war does not make it a war, and even the Bush Administration has acknowledged, sometimes overtly, that what we are doing now is rebuilding a nation in Iraq.  And the armed conflicts we engage in there are merely incidental to that.

But even if you consider that we are "in wartime" with respect to Iraq, that has nothing to do with the NSA wiretaps, which pertain to al Qaeda.  For example, if there was a warrantless tap of a phone conversation between a suspected AQ cell in the Phillipines and an American citizen, what does that have to do with the "War" in Iraq?  What does that have to do with Congress’ authorization to use military force in Afghanistan or Iraq?

Nothing.

So I ask again, are we engaged in an actual WAR on terrorism, or is it just a convenient rhetorical label, as was Johnson’s WAR on poverty or Reagan’s WAR on drugs?

Standing On Principle

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

A U.S. Judge with the FICA court (you know, the one that the government is supposed to go with warrants for wiretaps) resigns, apparently in protest:

A federal judge on a court that oversees intelligence cases has resigned to protest President George W. Bush’s authorization of a domestic spying program, The Washington Post said.

US District Judge James Robertson resigned late Monday from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) on which he served for 11 years and which he belives may have been tainted by Bush’s 2002 authorization, two associates familiar with his decision told the daily.

The resignation is the latest fallout of Bush’s weekend public admission that he authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) — the country’s super-secret electronic surveillance arm — to eavesdrop on international telephone calls and electronic mail of US citizens suspected of having links with terrorist organizations including Al-Qaeda.

A Psychiatrist’s Guide To Christmas Carols

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

Stop me if you heard this one.

No.  Don’t bother.  I’m gonna post it anyway.  This could be my last post for a while, except for my attempts to mobile-photoblog my car trip home for Christmas.

Schizoprenia — Do You Hear What I Hear?

Multiple Personality Disorder — We Three Queens Disoriented Are

Dementia — I Think I’ll Be Home For Christmas

Narcissistic — Hark The Herald Angels Sing About Me

Manic — Deck The Hall and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and………

Paranoid — Santa Claus Is Coming To Get Me

Borderline Personality Disorder — Thoughts Of Roasting On An Open Fire

Personality Disorder — You Better Watch Out, I’m Gonna Cry, I’m Gonna Pout, Maybe I’ll Tell You Why

Obessive Complusive Disorder — Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

ADHD — Hark the herald angels sing ba-rum-pa-pum-pum in the little town of Bethlehem up on the housetop in a winter wonderland one foggy Christmas Eve hey how bout them Bears no I don’t want to switch to Sprint but thank you for shopping at K-Mart.

More Dissenters From The Right

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

I already mentioned George Will.  Here’s some more:

Former Rep. Bob Barr (from paper edition of WaPo):

The American people are going to have to say, ‘Enough of this business of justifying everything as necessary for the war on terror.’

David Keene, Executive Director of the American Conservative Union, on today’s Diane Rehm Show:

Keene: […] Having said that as a description of  their justification of it, the claim that in trying to protect  Americans and pursuing his powers as commander in chief that a  President has power that inherently trumps the rest of the Constitution is a sort of exaggerated claim of power on behalf of this President or any other President for that matter […]

Rehm: How do you see this action in using a branch of government  such as
the NSA to spy on American citizens?

Keene: I think its Presidential overreaching and I think most  Americans would certainly oppose it. Just as we have been at the forefront of the call for reform of the Patriot Act, the reauthorization.

Bruce Fein, former Associate Deputy Attorney General under Reagan, on today’s Diane Rehm Show:

Fein: It’s more power than King George III had at the time of the revolution in asserting the theory that anything the President thinks is helpful to fighting the war against terrorism he can do. That was why he claimed he can ignore the torture convention […]

Rehm: Bruce Fein, why couldn’t the National Security Agency do exactly what the President wanted if they had simply gone to this special secret court?

Fein: It could have, the secret court is inclined to ratify virtually every warrant that has ever been asked by the executive branch.

Rehm: So why didn’t the President go to the court?

Fein: Because I think the President believes that he is the only unit of government capable of running a war.

RELATED:  Alan Dershowitz, who defended the Administration’s use of torture, isn’t even buying the Bushies here.  From Crooks and Liars:

Wolf: Did the President break the law?

Alan: I think the President broke the law. I think congress should hold hearings…

Gay Kisses = Terrorist Threat

Ken AshfordSex/Morality/Family Values, War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

I recently reported that the Pentagon was spying on domestic anti-war protest groups — groups which the Pentagon believed posed a threat to national security.  NBC broke the story last week when it obtained the Pentagon’s secret database of "suspicious groups" which it had spied upon.

You may have heard about some of these groups.  Like a group of elderly Quakers in Florida.

It gets worse:

According to recent press reports, Pentagon officials have been spying on what they call "suspicious" meetings by civilian groups, including student groups opposed to the military’s "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual military personnel. The story, first reported by Lisa Myers and NBC News last week, noted that Pentagon investigators had records pertaining to April protests at the State University of New York at Albany and William Patterson College in New Jersey. A February protest at NYU was also listed, along with the law school’s LGBT advocacy group OUTlaw, which was classified as "possibly violent" by the Pentagon. A UC-Santa Cruz "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" protest, which included a gay kiss-in, was labeled as a "credible threat" of terrorism.

Unbelieveable.  I’m speechless.

Now, keep in mind that Bush is defending the NSA surveillance (which is a separate issue altogether) by assuring us that everyone being surveilled has a known connection to Al Qaeda.  Given the military intelligence at work above, where gay kiss-ins are deemed to be credible threats of terrorism, how much do you trust Bush on that assurance?

Richard Nixon Speaks Up

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Bush_nixon_narrowweb__200x284From the veils of time, that is.  See if you can notice any similarities between Nixon’s views on executive power and the view of the Bush Administration:

FROST: So what in a sense, you’re saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.

NIXON: Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.

FROST: By definition.

***

FROST: But when you said, as you said when we were talking about the Huston Plan, you know, "If the president orders it, that makes it legal", as it were: Is the president in that sense?is there anything in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that suggests the president is that far of a sovereign, that far above the law?

NIXON: No, there isn’t. There’s nothing specific that the Constitution contemplates in that respect. I haven’t read every word, every jot and every title, but I do know this: That it has been, however, argued that as far as a president is concerned, that in war time, a president does have certain extraordinary powers which would make acts that would otherwise be unlawful, lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the nation and the Constitution, which is essential for the rights we’re all talking about.

Read more at The Talent Show.

Ironically, the very statutes in the news now, such as FISA, were enacted in response to the extreme powergrabs conducted by Nixon.

The “I” Word

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Here’s a nice quote.

I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed.

That’s not from some hippy liberal.  That’s from Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative think tank known as the American Enterprise Institute, speaking about Bush’s foray into unconstitutional and illegal wiretapping.

Congress Speaks Out

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Bush, and AG Alberto Gonzales, have argued that the NSA surveillance was tacitly sanctioned by Congress when it passed the Authorization Of Military Force act in the days following 9/11, an act which permitted Bush to use "all necessary force" to go after terrorists.

Um, not so much.  When the AOMF was being debated in Congress, here’s what some Congresspersons – Democratic and Republican – were saying:

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK):

Some people say that is a broad change in authorization to the Commander in Chief of this country. It is not. It is a very limited concept of giving him the authority to pursue those who have brought this terrible destruction to our country and to pursue those who have harbored them or assisted them and conspired with them in any way. [Congressional Record, 9/14/01]

Rep. James McGovern (D-MA):

The body of this resolution is appropriately limited to those entities involved in the attacks that occurred on September 11th…It reiterates the existing constitutional powers of the President to take action to defend the United States, but provides no new or additional grant of powers to the President. [Congressional Record, 9/14/01]

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE):

In extending this broad authority to cover those ‘planning, authorizing, committing, or aiding the attacks’ it should go without saying, however, that the resolution is directed only at using force abroad to combat acts of international terrorism. [Congressional Record, 9/14/01]

Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ):

The resolution is not a blank check. We do this with our eyes open and in fervent prayer, especially the prayer that President Bush and his national security team will be lavished with wisdom from God above to use only that force which is truly necessary and only that force which is truly appropriate. [Congressional Record, 9/14/01]

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX):

The tension that we face tonight is to provide the President with enough authority to eradicate wrongdoing without wronging the carefully crafted systems of checks and balances so essential to our democracy. … As we vote for this important resolution with the lives of so many at stake in this important endeavor against terrorism, we cannot let the executive branch become the exclusive branch. [Congressional Record, 9/14/01]

Bush has also claimed that Congress was briefed on the NSA program, and therefore it tacitly endorsed that program.  As many have pointed out, only a handful of Senators were briefed, which doesn’t count as "congressional approval" under even the wildest imagination.

Moreover, Sen. Jay Rockefeller was one of those who became aware of the program (after it had started) back on June 17, 2003.  After learning about it, but being unable to talk about it — even to his staff — he handwrote a sealed letter to the White House.  He also kept a copy, just in case the Administration tried to argue that Congress approved of the surveillance.

Today he released that letter with the following statement:

For the last few days, I have witnessed the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General repeatedly misrepresent the facts. The limited members who were told of the program were prohibited by the Administration from sharing any information about it with our colleagues, including other members of the Intelligence Committees.

The record needs to be set clear that the Administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove the NSA program.

In the letter, Rockefeller warned of “profound oversight issues,” and said he was “unable to evaluate, much less endorse these activities.”  It can be viewed (in PDF format) here.