Day: December 20, 2005

President Lied to Americans in ’04, Said Warrants Were Used for Terrorists’ Wiretaps

Jon Ponder

White House transcript from the President’s remarks in Buffalo, NY, on April 20, 2004:

There are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

Crooks & Liars has audio.

Bush Tried to Kill NYT’s ‘SnoopGate’ Story

Buck Banks

Get me the editor: I tell you, if George Bush isn’t trying to plant news stories in Iraq, he’s trying to kill them here in America.

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter reveals in a Web-only commentary that Bush summoned the New York Times’ publisher and executive editor to try to convince them not to run the story about the administration’s illegal domestic spying program.

No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting,
but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.

The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that “the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.

No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.

All of Bush’s B.S. about national security is just so much hoohah. Alter sums up the truth like this:

This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason—and less out of genuine concern about national security—that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.

Dems Looking to Uncover Secret Docs Bush Uses to Justify Spying on Americans

Buck Banks

Show me the memos: My pal Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic Party, sent me an e-mail this afternoon urging me to sign the Dems’ petition to shake loose Justice Dept. memos created to cover George Bush’s lying and spying through the Freedom of Information Act. So I signed it because it just might be the first step down the path to impeachment.

Here’s what Howard wrote:

By now you have probably heard the news that George Bush is using the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance on American citizens without the consent of any court. After initially refusing to confirm the story, the President has admitted to personally overseeing this domestic spying program for years and he says he intends to continue the program.

These actions explicitly violate a law designed to protect US citizens. But the administration says that other laws somehow allow for this unprecedented use of a foreign intelligence agency to spy on Americans right here in the United States. According to reports, political appointees in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote still-classified legal opinions laying out the supposed justification for this program.

I have asked our General Counsel to draft a Freedom of Information Act request for the relevant legal opinions and memos written by that office. Since the program’s existence is no longer a secret, these memos should be released — Americans deserve to know exactly what authority this administration believes it has.

You can help pressure the administration to release these documents by signing on to our Freedom of Information Act request in the next 48 hours.
[…]

Out of 18,761 FISA Requests, Only Five Were Rejected

Jon Ponder

According to USA Today, the government made 18,761 request for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens between 1979 and 2004. Only five requests were rejected. Fewer than 100 had to be modified.

The assertion that the President Bush had to break the law because getting a FISA warrant would have been too slow or burdensome is simply false.

Presdent Bush willfully broke the law, and now he’s lying about his motives. And, just for good measure, he’s also casting blame for his own transgressions onto the poor luckless Democrats in Congress: “It’s their fault because they didn’t stop me! Maybe you should investigate them.”

Clinton-Hater Toensing Laughs – Literally – at Idea of Investigating Bush’s Allegedly Illegal Spying on U.S. Citizens

Jon Ponder

New lows in hackery: During the 1990’s, Victoria Toensing and her husband, Joe diGenova, made over 300 appearances on cable television in the service of the Republican agenda – often pimping for their friend Ken Starr and his $35 million investigation into President Clinton’s sex life.

In those days, to hear Toensing and diGenova tell it, there was no infraction on the part of the Clintons that was too small to warrant a thorough proctological examination.

So I was flabbergasted to hear Toensing this morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal laughing – literally – at the idea that a special prosecutor should be assigned to investigate whether President Bush broke the law when he ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on American citizens.

Toensing was debating James Bamford, an investigative reporter who wrote a book about the NSA titled, “The Puzzle Palace.” At the center of their debate is the 1978 law the president apparently broke – the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) – which clearly states that the government must get special permission to spy on U.S. citizens from a FISA court.

BAMFORD: This is a president who has [spied on U.S. citizens] constantly since 2001, bypassing [the FISA] law. This isn’t a one-time deal. And, again, he has a lot of options for going to the court and doing this. He didn’t go to the court and there is a legal provision in that statute that says “if you don’t go to the court, it’s five years in jail and a ten thousand dollar fine.” So the solution here is to get a special prosecutor to take a look at whether the law…
TOENSING: (Off camera) Ha!
BAMFORD: …Was violated. And I don’t know what’s funny about that. You know, we had the Republicans go to impeachment over a minor sexual discretion [sic] by a president. And here’s a president violating a law that says [there’s jailtime and a fine] if you manage to violate it.

All Toensing could say in response was to sputter about how members of Congress had been briefed on the domestic spying so they should be investigated too.

The Precarious Iraq Domino Theory

Trish

Good job of staying on message by Dewayne Wickham in USA Today. Wickham reminds us of last year, when Bush told Matt Lauer that the war on terror couldn’t be won, that we can only “create conditions so that … those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world, let’s put it that way.” He worries that Bush has now morphed into thinking that we can win after all, if we win in Iraq.

It sounds as though he thinks the war on terror will end when the U.S. declares victory in Iraq

…it wasn’t the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his ilk that sparked the war in Iraq. It was the Bush administration’s desire to settle old scores with Saddam. And it’s an illusion because it masks the president’s failure to pursue the man who ordered the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on this country as aggressively as he does the fight in Iraq.

Think about it.

When was the last time you heard Bush speak more than fleetingly about other fronts in the broader war? Virtually all of the troops and resources devoted to the war on terror have been sent to Iraq. If you listen closely to what Bush has been saying recently as he has stumped the country trying to reignite support for the war in Iraq, it sounds as though he thinks the war on terror will end when the U.S. declares victory in Iraq.

“These terrorists view the world as a giant battlefield — and they seek to attack us wherever they can. This has attracted al-Qaeda to Iraq, where they are attempting to frighten and intimidate America into a policy of retreat,” the president said Sunday night in an Oval Office address to the nation.

That’s the new “domino theory.” It’s born of the Bush administration’s warped war policies — a jingoism that used the war on terror as an excuse to topple Saddam’s brutal regime. Unlike the broader war on terror that Bush once said we couldn’t win, the president is certain we will prevail in Iraq.

I worry that he is obsessing on the wrong fight.

Public Relations Effort Paying Off for Prez

Buck Banks

PR works: The BBC is reporting on new polling results that indicate George Bush’s constant appearances over the past couple of weeks are paying off, despite mounting criticism over his authorization of illegal spying on U.S. residents.

The ABC News and the Washington Post poll shows Bush’s approval rating has risen to 47%, from an all-time low of 39% in November. The poll suggests the spike is a result of high voter turnout in Iraq and growing public confidence in Bush’s handling of national security and the economy.

The latest opinion poll shows his approval rating on Iraq has risen by 10% since early November to 46%. On the economy, his rating has jumped 11 points, to 47%, the Washington Post reports.

His overall approval rating has risen to 47%, from 39% in early November. Some 52% say they disapprove of how he is handling his job.

The poll found that approval over Mr Bush’s handling of the fight against terrorism had risen to 56%, from 48% last month.

It’s Over In Dover — No Intelligent Design In Biology Class

Buck Banks

Intelligent decision: A federal judge ruled today in Harrisburg, Penn., that “intelligent design” cannot be mentioned in biology classes in the Dover public school district, in what some are calling one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial.

According to the Associated Press:

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said.

Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said.

The school board policy, adopted in October 2004, was believed to have been the first of its kind in the nation.

“The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy,” Jones wrote.

The board’s attorneys had said members were seeking to improve science education by exposing students to alternatives to Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Intelligent-design proponents argue that it cannot fully explain the existence of complex life forms.

The plaintiffs challenging the policy argued that intelligent design amounts to a secular repackaging of creationism, which the courts have already ruled cannot be taught in public schools.
[…]

Bush Issues Guidelines On Sharing Terror Info

Buck Banks

Share and share alike: In the wake of a speech and press conference wherein our Commander In Chief defended his administration’s ongoing illegal spying on U.S. citizens, George Bush issued guidelines to Congress and government departments about how that ill-gotten info should be shared among government agencies.

In a letter to Congress, Bush explained that the details are part of his effort to build the “information-sharing environment,” or ISE, as required by a 2004 intelligence law.

“The ISE is intended to enable the federal government and our state, local, tribal and private-sector partners to share appropriate information relating to terrorists, their threats, plans, networks, supporters and capabilities while, at the same time, respecting the information privacy and other legal rights of all Americans,” he wrote. “Creating the ISE is a difficult and complex task that will require a sustained effort and strong partnership with the Congress.”

Bush sent the details in the form of “guidelines” and “requirements” to heads of government departments and agencies, and to lawmakers. The guidelines cover the role and scope of the authority of department chiefs and implement common technical standards and architectures to expedite intra-government information sharing.

Isn’t it a comfort to know that the information gathered through illegal spying on citizens by the government will be shared more efficiently among government agencies? At least the former Texas oilman and Kyoto Protocol hater has created one environmental intiative during his rule — building the “information-sharing environment.” Oh, it’s not that kind of environment ….