Filed under: Afghanistan, Alberto Gonzales, brainwashing, Chris Matthews, Conditioning, Department of justice, DOJ, Fox News, Hardball, Iraq, Keith Olbermann, Media, Media Fear, MSNBC, nation building, neocons, occupation, Propaganda, Psyops, Scott Mcclellan, War On Terror, White House | Tags: talking points
White House caught violating anti-propaganda laws, provided ’talking points’ to Fox News
Blue Tidalwave
July 29, 2008
Last week former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan appeared on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and said the White House distributed “talking points” to friendly Fox journalists.
McClellan’s confirmation of an operation inside the White House of providing comprehensive talking points to Fox News and other Conservative talk show personalities to manipulate the media and control the message regarding the Iraq War and the “war on terror” is a violation of anti-propaganda laws. By law the government sources must be disclosed by the reporting news outlets.
Yesterday a report prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general and its internal ethics office found that a few aides to Alberto Gonzales and White House officials were actively involved in hiring decisions for non political positions at the DOJ. Being a loyal Republican was the main criteria for being hired, not education or experience.
Olbermann admits White House gave him talking points in 2004
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, Abu Ghraib, Alberto Gonzales, Alex Jones, Big Brother, big pharma, bill of rights, Boystown, brainwashing, Britain, Child Abuse, child sex slavery, Communism, Conditioning, Control Grid, CPS, Dictatorship, education, education system, Empire, Europe, european union, Fascism, franklin coverup, global elite, Hitler, house of representatives, jeff gannon, john decamp, john yoo, johnny gosch, knock and talk, left right paradigm, Mark Foley, medical industrial complex, mental health screening, middle class, Military, nanny state, Nazi, neocons, Neolibs, Oppression, orwell, paul bonacci, pedophilia, Police State, Propaganda, Psyops, rape, scandal, Sex Scandal, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, Taxpayers, Texas, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, US Constitution, Washington D.C. | Tags: Congressional Budget Office, CRB checked, Danny Davis, education begins at home act, house visits, HR 2343, HR 3289, Karen Effrem, lleana Ros-Lehtinen, Mazie Hirono, pre-k act, rape rooms, texas youth commission, u.s. state workers
U.S. government: We know parenting better than you
Proposals would give Washington unprecedented control over kids
World Net Daily
July 24, 2008
The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to debate two bills that could give the federal government unprecedented control over the way parents raise their children – even providing funds for state workers to come into homes and screen babies for emotional and developmental problems.
The Pre-K Act (HR 3289) and the Education Begins at Home Act (HR 2343) are two bills geared toward military and families who fall below state poverty lines. The measures are said to be a way to prevent child abuse, close the achievement gap in education between poor and minority infants versus middle-class children and evaluate babies younger than 5 for medical conditions.
’Education Begins at Home Act’ – HR 2343
HR 2343 is sponsored by Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and cosponsored by 55 Democrats and 11 Republicans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that implementing the Education Begins at Home Act would cost taxpayers $190 million for state home visiting plus “such sums as may be necessary” for in-hospital parent education.
While the bill may appear to be well-intentioned, Pediatrician Karen Effrem told WND government provisions in HR 2343 to evaluate children for developmental problems go too far.
“The federal definition of developmental screening for special education also includes what they call socioemotional screening, which is mental health screening,” Effrem said. “Mental health screening is very subjective no matter what age you do it. Obviously it is incredibly subjective when we are talking about very young children.”
While the program may not be mandatory for low-income and military families, there is no wording in the Education Begins at Home Act requiring parental permission for treatment or ongoing care once the family is enrolled – a point that leads some to ask where parental rights end and the government takes over. Also, critics ask how agents of the government plan to acquire private medical and financial records to offer the home visiting program.
“There’s no consent mentioned in the bill for any kind of screening – medical, health or developmental,” Effrem said. “There are privacy concerns because when home visitors come into the home they assess everything about the family: Their financial situation, social situation, parenting practices, everything. All of that is put into a database.”
Effrem said it does not specify whether parents are allowed to decline evaluations, drugs or treatment for their children once they are diagnosed with developmental or medical conditions.
“How free is someone who has been tagged as needing this program in the case of home visiting – like a military family or a poor family?” she asked. “How free are they to refuse? Even their refusal will be documented somewhere. There are plenty of instances where families have felt they can’t refuse because they would lose benefits, be accused of not being good parents or potentially have their children taken away.”
When WND asked Effrem how long state-diagnosed conditions would remain in a child’s permanent medical history, she responded:
“Forever. As far as I know, there isn’t any statute of limitations. The child’s record follows them through school and potentially college, employment and military service.” Effrem said conflicts could also arise when parents do not agree with parenting standards of government home visitors.
“Who decides how cultural tolerance is going to be manifested?” she asked. “There’s some blather in the language of the bill about having cultural awareness of the differences in parenting practices, but it seems like that never applies to Christian parents.”
’Providing Resources Early for Kids’
The Pre-K Act, or HR 3289, is sponsored by Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and cosponsored by 116 Democrats and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. Estimated to cost $500 million for each of fiscal years 2008 through 2013, the bill provides funds for state-approved education. Government workers would reach mothers and fathers in the hospital after a baby has been delivered to promote Pre-K programs.
“They give them information about Child Care Resource and Referral Network so they can get the child into a preschool or daycare that follows the state standards and get the mom working as quickly as possible,” she said. “It’s always that sort of thing: It’s a list of resources, it’s intruding on parental autonomy and authority and it’s not necessarily accurate or welcome information.”
While parents may choose to be involved in preschool programs, Effrem said the Pre-K Act poses similar concerns about government trumping parents’ rights.
“Once they are involved, they don’t have any say over curriculum,” she said. “There’s plenty of evidence of preschool curriculum that deals with issues that have nothing to do with a child’s academic development – like gender, gender identity, careers, environmentalism, multiculturalism, feminism and all of that – things that don’t amount to a hill of beans as far as a child learning how to read.”
Effrem said the Pre-K Act extends a “really messed-up K-12 system” to include even younger, more vulnerable children.
“This is an expansion of the federal government into education when there really is no constitutional provision for it to do so.”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/..cpre-k-education%e2%80%9d-bills.html
Government Permission Required For Parents To Kiss Children
http://noworldsystem.com/200..ission-required-for-parents-to-kiss-children/
Filed under: 2008 Election, 9/11, Afghanistan, Alberto Gonzales, bill of rights, CIA, Congress, Dennis Kucinich, Dick Cheney, Dictatorship, electron fraud, Empire, Fascism, gas prices, George Bush, gore vidal, gulf, Habeas Corpus, halliburton, House, Impeach, Iran, Iraq, kuwait, magna carta, Media, Nazi, neocons, Oil, Petrol, republic, supreme court, Tehran, Troops, US Constitution, us sovereignty, Valerie Plame, vote fraud, vote scam, War Crimes, War On Terror, WW3, ww4
Gore Vidal: Bush ended the U.S. as a Republic
Press TV
June 28, 2008
Gore Vidal, US novelist, historian and social critic says the Bush regime has killed all of the constitutional links that made the US a republic.
On early Friday morning Iran time, in an exclusive interview with Press TV, Vidal said that President Bush has rid the country of the Bill of Rights, habeas corpus and the entire legacy of the Magna Carta in the name of war on terror.
He also criticized the House of Representatives for not impeaching President Bush, over a wide array of subjects such as disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s covert status. Vidal did however single out Rep. Dennis Kuchinich for drawing up articles of impeachment against the president.
Vidal, long strongly critical of the Bush administration, said the administration has both an an explicit and covert expansionist agenda.
In his writings he has made the assessment that for several years, the administration and its associates, many of whom are magnets in the oil and gas industry have had clear aims to control the oil of Central Asia which is to follow on the heels of gaining effective control of the oil of the Persian Gulf–a project that took a new twist with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991.
That event inadvertently served as the basis for the neo-conservative American Project for the 21st Century document and policy guideline that has been the hallmark of the Bush-Cheney years.
Regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks, Vidal has written the American intelligence community clearly warned it was coming but the event provided political cover and pretext for the plans that the administration already had in place for invading Iraq–plans that can be traced to the waning days of the first Bush family presidency. .
Filed under: 9/11, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Alberto Gonzales, army, Australia, Child Abuse, CIA, civil liberties, Colin Powell, Detainee, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, iraq deaths, john yoo, Military, neocons, Oppression, Torture, Troops, UN, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: lindsay england, Ricardo Sanche
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7553360276446246577&hl=en
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2008/..photographer-interview.html
Young Gitmo Detainee: I’ve Been Tortured
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1224602720080313
Australia accused of helping with notorious CIA rendition flights
http://rawstory.com/news/2008.._helping_CIA_rendition_0311.html
U.S. Denied UN Torture Envoy Jail Access
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1113820080311
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, al-qaeda, Alberto Gonzales, Alex Jones, army, catastrophic event, Child Abuse, child sex slavery, Concentration Camps, Congress, daniel ellsberg, Detainee, DHS, Dictatorship, Dyncorp, enemy combatant, False Flag, Fascism, FBI, FEMA, Fema Camps, George Bush, Guantanamo, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Iraq, KBR, KBR detention center, lindsey graham, Martial Law, Mexico, Military, Naomi Wolf, Nazi, Nuke, Pentagon, PNAC, Rex 84, State Sponsored Terrorism, Torture, Troops, War On Terror, World Trade Center
Former Congressman Warns Of Martial Law Camps In America
San Francisco Chronicle article outlines Homeland Security ENDGAME
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
February 21, 2008
An article co-written by a former Congressman and carried by the San Francisco Chronicle has gained much attention recently as it shines light on a coordinated federal government program to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States.
“Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.” write Lewis Seiler and former Congressman Dan Hamburg of the watchdog group Voice of the Environment, Inc.
Voice of the Environment’s mission is to educate the public regarding the transfer of public trust assets into private, mostly corporate, hands.
The article continues:
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”
Seiler and Hamburg also warn of the alarming and numerous freedom killing pieces of legislation that have been passed recently, dovetailing with the build up of infrastructure of tyranny inside the US.
We have previously highlighted the shocking details behind this shining example of modern day corporate fascism.
The issue gained national attention two years ago when it was announced that Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.
The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps will also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency.”
Following the story, first given wide attention by Prisonplanet.com, the Alternet website put together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims after the next major terror attack in the US.
The article highlighted the disturbing comments of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who encouraged torture supporting then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to target, “Fifth Columnists” Americans who show disloyalty and sympathize with “the enemy,” whoever that enemy may be.
It is important to stress that the historical precedent mirrors exactly what the Halliburton camp deal outlines. Oliver North’s Reagan era Rex 84 plan proposed rounding up 400,000 refugees, under FEMA, in the event of “uncontrolled population movements” over the Mexican border into the United States.
The real agenda, just as it is with Halliburton’s gulags, was to use the cover of rounding up immigrants and illegal aliens as a smokescreen for targeting political dissidents. From 1967 to 1971 the FBI kept a list of persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the “ADEX” list.
According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center today holds the names of roughly 775,000 “terror suspects” with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
Discussions of federal concentration camps are no longer the rhetoric of paranoid Internet conspiracy theorists, they are mainstream news.
Halliburton, through their KBR subsidiary, is the same company that built most of the major new detention camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. KBR have been embroiled in a human sex slave trade that their representatives have lobbied to continue.
We have a company that has been handed a contract to build prison camps in America that is engaged in trafficking young girls and women. Can this horror movie get any more frightening? Sadly, yes.
A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, has recently been updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.”
The plan is clearly to swallow up disenfranchised groups like prisoners, immigrants and Muslims at first and then extend the policy to include ‘Fifth Columnists,’ otherwise known as anyone who disagrees with the government or exercises their Constitutional rights.
Respected author Peter Dale Scott speculated that the “detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.”
Daniel Ellsberg, former Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense, called the plan, “preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They’ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the ‘special registration’ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo.”
Ex-Congressman: U.S. Government Created Al-Qaeda, Involved In 9/11
Author of San Francisco Chronicle piece warning of internment camps says government bombed its own citizens
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
February 22, 2008
A former Congressman says that the U.S. government created Al-Qaeda and was involved in bombing its own citizens on 9/11, telling a national radio show that elements of the Bush administration assisted the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.
Daniel Hamburg is a former Democratic Congressman who was elected to the 1st Congressional District of California in 1992 and also subsequently ran for Governor of California, finishing in 3rd place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O3bdCpIFAo
Hamburg co-wrote a well-received recent article carried by the San Francisco Chronicle in which he outlined the program to incarcerate American citizens in internment camps, which have already been publicly built, during a time of declared national emergency.
Appearing today on the Alex Jones Show, Hamburg said he was working on an article about missing nuclear bombs in relation to the Minot nuclear warheads mishap and agreed that it was possible the story could be used as a cover for the staged detonation of a nuke to be blamed on Al-Qaeda.
“Any government that could bomb its own citizens in the major city of the country could do anything….you can’t put anything past them,” said Hamburg, clarifying that he was referring to 9/11.
“I’m in the assisted it to happen camp – I think there was a lot of help from the inside, this whole thing was not engineered from a cave in Afghanistan,” he added.
“The evidence that Al-Qaeda is actually an arm of the U.S. government is voluminous….I know that’s true,” concluded Hamburg, citing the PNAC group’s call for a new Pearl Harbor shortly before the 2001 terror attacks.
“it’s hard for people to believe that their government could be as insidious as this one is but the evidence is there,” concluded Hamburg.
Filed under: al-qaeda, Alberto Gonzales, Chicago, CNN, Daily Show, fake terror threat, False Flag, FBI, jon stewart, Media, Media Fear, Propaganda, Psyops, State Sponsored Terrorism, War On Terror
Liberty City Seven Shows Terror War Is Fraud
Lee Rogers
Rogue Government
December 14, 2007
In a stunning defeat for the federal government, seven Miami men dubbed the “Liberty City Seven” who were accused of plotting to join forces with Al-Qaida to blow up the Chicago Sears Tower in 2006 were let go. One man was acquitted and a mistrial was declared for the six others after a federal jury ended up in a deadlock. What makes this case significant, is that the FBI actually utilized a paid informant to infiltrate the group posing as a fake Al-Qaida member in order to convince the men to blow up the Chicago Sears Tower. The group itself never made contact with any real so called Al-Qaida members and never acquired any weapons or explosives. Prosecutors even acknowledged that the alleged terror cell was aspirational versus operational. The FBI actually tried to create a threat that didn’t exist and the jury’s actions confirms that there was not adequate information to convict these men. Since the public isn’t buying the phony war on terror, the federal government with help from the establishment media tries to invent phony terror threats.
The following is taken from an Associated Press article covering the event.
Prosecutors said the “Liberty City Seven” — so-named because they operated out of a warehouse in Miami’s blighted Liberty City section — swore allegiance to al-Qaida and hoped to forge an alliance to carry out bombings against America’s tallest skyscraper, the FBI’s Miami office and other federal buildings.
The group never actually made contact with al-Qaida. Instead, a paid FBI informant known as Brother Mohammed posed as an al-Qaida emissary.
The defense portrayed the seven men as hapless figures who were either manipulated and entrapped by the FBI or went along with the plot to con “Mohammed” out of $50,000.
The group never actually made contact with al-Qaida and never acquired any weapons or explosives. Prosecutors said no attack was imminent, acknowledging that the alleged terror cell was “more aspirational than operational.”
When the arrests of these men first became public, the arrests were made a national joke by
John Stewart mocking the press conference with then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales and the Feds had admitted at that time that the men had no means to carry out a terror attack yet still considered them a viable terrorist threat.
The deadlocked jury combined with admitted statements from the federal government is obvious proof that there was no terror threat from the “Liberty City Seven” and that this whole situation was provoked by the FBI. Other incidents like the Fort Dix Six raise additional questions about the federal government’s credibility on the subject of this phony war on terrorism. The war on terror isn’t real and if it was the government wouldn’t need to send FBI informants to entrap a group of crazy people hanging out in a warehouse.
Sears Tower Bomb Plot Case Falls Apart
http://news.aol.com/story/_a…14080009990001
Jon Stewart: Seven dipshits living in a warehouse prepared to take on the United States, right!
http://www.onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gm…a_once.html
Chicago bomb defendant is cleared
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7143553.stm
Filed under: Abu Zubaydah, al-qaeda, Alberto Gonzales, CIA, Congress, Detainee, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Iran, larry johnson, lindsey graham, michael hayden, neocons, obstruction of justice, rockefeller, Senate, Torture, waterboarding, White House
The White House and Congress Knew about the CIA Interrogation Videotapes
George Washington’s Blog
December 12, 2007
According to a former “senior intelligence official”, the White House knew of the existence of the CIA interrogation tapes since 2003, at the very latest, and tacitly approved the destruction of the tapes in 2005.
Indeed, former CIA agent and State Department counterterrorism official Larry Johnson said that it was “highly likely” that President Bush himself had viewed the videotapes of the 2002 interrogations that were later destroyed. Is that why the White House has instructed its spokesperson not to answer any questions on the subject?
And according to the Director of the CIA, Congress was also informed about the existence of the tapes, and — later — of the CIA’s intention to destroy them.
Indeed, Senator Rockefeller has confirmed that the Senate Intelligence Committee knew of the existence of the videotapes in 2003. And Congresswoman Harman has confirmed that the House Intelligence Committee also learned of the existence of the videotapes in 2003. Is that why Senator Rockefeller opposes any real investigation into the destruction of the tapes, saying “I don’t think there’s a need for a special counsel, and I don’t think there’s a need for a special commission”?
The obstruction of justice regarding the tapes appears to have been orchestrated by the very highest levels of the U.S. Government.
Guantanamo Legal Adviser Refuses To Say Iranians Waterboarding Americans Would Be Torture
Think Progress
December 12, 2007
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “The Legal Rights of Guantanamo Detainees” this morning, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, repeatedly refused to call the hypothetical waterboarding of an American pilot by the Iranian military torture. “I’m not equipped to answer that question,” said Hartmann.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who asked the hypothetical, pushed Hartmann on his answer, asking him directly if it would be a “violation of the Geneva Convention”:
GRAHAM: You mean you’re not equipped to give a legal opinion as to whether or not Iranian military waterboarding, secret security agents waterboarding downed airmen is a violation of the Geneva Convention?
HARTMANN: I am not prepared to answer that question, Senator.
After Hartmann twice refused to answer, Graham dismissed him in disgust, saying he had “no further questions.” Watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89cYbggdGVQ
Longer Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jbcWzSVcco
Hartmann’s non-answer is reminiscent of State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger’s refusal in October to condemn “the use of water boarding on an American national by a foreign intelligence service.”
But not every lawyer who’s worked for the Bush administration has been so hesitant to call waterboarding torture.
In 2004, after then-acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin had himself waterboarded, he concluded that the interrogation technique “could be illegal torture.” For his efforts, “Levin was forced out of the Justice Department when Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General.”
Sen. Graham, a former military judge advocate, has said before that someone doesn’t “have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates Geneva Convention Common Article Three.”
Let’s (Not) Go to the Videotape!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX_1Qsq0DTM
Related News:
Ex-CIA Larry Johnson: ‘Highly likely’ Bush saw torture tapes
http://billpressmedia.com/highlylikely.mp3
Ex-CIA agent: Waterboarding approved at top levels
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20…co/cia_videotapes
White House Was Ordered Not To Destroy Torture Evidence
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2007…eotapes_courts
CIA may have more interrogation tapes, detainee’s lawyer suggests
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/White_H…on_of_1211.html
CIA Failed To Inform Congress About Tapes
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2…ecrypt/main3611381.shtml
White House goes ‘no comment’ on CIA video case
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/W…video_c_12102007.html
Former CIA: Waterboarding Useful But Torture
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews…0938320071211
CIA Director To Testify About Destroyed Tapes
http://www.reuters.com/articl…654798320071210?sp=true
Secretly briefed, Pelosi did not object to waterboarding in 2002
http://rawstory.com/news/200…t_to_waterboarding_1209.html
Destroyed CIA torture tapes said to implicate Pakistan and Saudi Royal Family in 9/11 attacks
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ge….destroyed-inter_b_75850.html
Photos Show UK Gitmo Detainee Was Tortured
Man Held By CIA Says He Was Tortured
McCain: No Investigation Needed
Congress Looks Into C.I.A. Obstruction As Calls for Justice Inquiry Rise
‘Well-Informed’ Source Tells CBS That Tapes Were Destroyed To Prevent Prosecution
Lee Hamilton Says the CIA Obstructed the 9/11 Commission
Inquiry into CIA interrogation tapes’ destruction begins
CIA destroyed video of ‘waterboarding’ al-Qaida detainees
C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes of Interrogations
C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations
CIA admits destroying interrogation tapes
Filed under: Alberto Gonzales, Chuck Schumer, Donald Rumsfeld, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, John Bolton, mukasey, Torture, waterboarding, White House
Bush Administration Blocked Waterboarding Critic
Former DOJ Official Tested the Method Himself, in Effort to Form Torture Policy
ABC
November 2, 2007
A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration’s legal position on torture in 2004 became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcO3gRhCihc
Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques.
After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn’t die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning.
Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision. And, sources told ABC News, he believed the Bush Administration had failed to offer clear guidelines for its use.
Bush Administration Blocked Critic
The administration at the time was reeling from an August 2002 memo by Jay Bybee, then the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, which laid out possible justifications for torture. In June 2004, Levin’s predecessor at the office, Jack Goldsmith, officially withdrew the Bybee memo, finding it deeply flawed.
When Levin took over from Goldsmith, he went to work on a memo that would effectively replace the Bybee memo as the administration’s legal position on torture. It was during this time that he underwent waterboarding.
In December 2004, Levin released the new memo. He said, “Torture is abhorrent” but he went on to say in a footnote that the memo was not declaring the administration’s previous opinions illegal. The White House, with Alberto Gonzales as the White House counsel, insisted that this footnote be included in the memo.
But Levin never finished a second memo imposing tighter controls on the specific interrogation techniques. Sources said he was forced out of the Justice Department when Gonzales became attorney general.
Critics Decry Waterboarding as Torture
Critics say waterboarding should never be used.
According to retired Rear Adm. John Hutson, “There is no question this is torture — this is a technique by which an individual is strapped to a board, elevated by his feet and either dunked into water or water poured over his face over a towel or a blanket.”
The legal justification of waterboarding has come to the forefront in the debate swirling around Michael B. Mukasey’s nomination for attorney general.
While Democrats are pressing him to declare waterboarding illegal, he has refused to do so. He calls it personally “repugnant,” but he is unwilling to declare it illegal until he can see the classified information regarding the technique and its current use.
U.S. weighs plan for closing Guantanamo
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSB31892920071104
Book Traces Torture To Rumsfeld & Bush
http://www.fmnn.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=51012
Benchmarking Schumer on John Bolton and Mukasey/Addington
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002475.php
U.S. weighs plan for closing Guantanamo
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSB31892920071104
Here’s what waterboarding looks like
http://current.com/pods/controversy/PD04399
Mukasey: Waterboarding is Torture if it’s Torture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt8v_GAgOK4
Video: What Happens in Guantanamo Bay?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1403370850111668271&hl=en
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Alberto Gonzales, CIA, Congress, Detainees, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, House, Iraq, John McCain, michael hayden, Torture, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House
Bush says U.S. ‘does not torture people’
President responds to report that 2005 memo relaxed interrogation rules
MSNBC
October 5, 2007
WASHINGTON – President Bush defended his administration’s detention and interrogation policies for terrorism suspects on Friday, saying they are both successful and lawful.
“When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them,” he said during a hastily called appearance in the Oval Office. “The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.”
Bush was referring to a report on two secret memos in 2005 that authorized extreme interrogation tactics against terror suspects. “This government does not torture people,” the president said.
The two Justice Department legal opinions were disclosed in Thursday’s editions of The New York Times, which reported that the first 2005 legal opinion authorized the use of head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings, known as waterboarding, while interrogating terror suspects, and was issued shortly after then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took over the Justice Department.
That secret opinion, which explicitly allowed using the painful methods in combination, came months after a December 2004 opinion in which the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices.
A second Justice opinion was issued later in 2005, just as Congress was working on an anti-torture bill. That opinion declared that none of the CIA’s interrogation practices would violate the rules in the legislation banning “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of detainees, The Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials.
“We stick to U.S. law and international obligations,” the president said, without taking questions afterward.
‘Highly trained professionals’
White House and Justice Department press officers have said the 2005 opinions did not reverse the 2004 policy.
Bush, speaking emphatically, noted that “highly trained professionals” conduct any questioning. “And by the way,” he said, “we have gotten information from these high-value detainees that have helped protect you.”
He also said that the techniques used by the United States “have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress” — an indirect slap at the torrent of criticism that has flowed from the Democratic-controlled Congress since the memos’ disclosure.
“The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack,” Bush said. “And that’s exactly what this government is doing. And that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do.”
The 2005 opinions approved by Gonzales remain in effect despite efforts by Congress and the courts to limit interrogation practices used by the government in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The authorizations came after the withdrawal of an earlier classified Justice opinion, issued in 2002, that had allowed certain aggressive interrogation practices so long as they stopped short of producing pain equivalent to experiencing organ failure or death. That controversial memo was withdrawn in June 2004.
The dispute may come down to how the Bush administration defines torture, or whether it allowed U.S. interrogators to interpret anti-torture laws beyond legal limits. CIA spokesman George Little said the agency sought guidance from the Bush administration and Congress to make sure its program to detain and interrogate terror suspects followed U.S. law.
Democrats want memos
Senate and House Democrats have demanded to see the memos.
“Why should the public have confidence that the program is either legal or in the best interests of the United States?” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote in a letter to the acting attorney general.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., promised a congressional inquiry.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he was “personally assured by administration officials that at least one of the techniques allegedly used in the past, waterboarding, was prohibited under the new law.”
A White House spokesman, meanwhile, criticized the leak of such information to the news media and questioned the motivations of those who do so.
“It’s troubling,” Tony Fratto said Friday. “I’ve had the awful responsibility to have to work with The New York Times and other news organizations on stories that involve the release of classified information. And I can tell you that every time I’ve dealt with any of these stories, I have felt that we have chipped away at the safety and security of America with the publication of this kind of information.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kWGwOVuLBY
CIA detention program still active: official
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenew….TERROGATIONS.xml
White House Says US Does Not Torture
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2007/intell-071004-voa01.htm
The Guantanamo Guidebook (2005)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1403370850111668271&hl=en
Filed under: 2008 Election, 9/11, Alberto Gonzales, Big Brother, FBI, George Bush, Jose Padilla, larry silverstein, Michael Mukasey, Patriot Act, Rudy Giuliani, Surveillance, War On Terror, World Trade Center
Attorney General Nominee: Pro-Patriot Act, Giuliani Campaign Advisor, Contributor
Also presided over Larry Silverstein WTC litigation
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
September 17, 2007
President Bush’s nominee to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General has written op ed pieces and given speeches praising the virtues of the Patriot Act, and is also a contributor and legal advisor to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign.
A brief scan of the bio of Michael B. Mukasey reveals some issues that have conservative groups concerned.
From Wikipedia:
In May 2004, while still a member of the judiciary, Judge Mukasey delivered a speech (which he converted into a Wall Street Journal opinion piece) that defended the Patriot Act; the piece also doubted that the FBI engaged in racial profiling of Arabs and criticized the American Library Association for condemning the Patriot Act but not taking a position on librarians imprisoned in Cuba.
Mukasey’s son, Marc L. Mukasey, leads the white-collar criminal defense practice in the New York office of Bracewell & Giuliani. The Mukaseys are justice advisers to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign, with Mukasey himself also having made campaign contributions to Giuliani for president.
During his tenure on the bench, Mukasey presided over the criminal prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman and El Sayyid Nosair, whom he sentenced to life in prison for a plot to blow up the United Nations and other Manhattan landmarks uncovered during an investigation into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Mukasey also heard the trial of Jose Padilla, ruling that the U.S. citizen and alleged terrorist could be held as an enemy combatant, but was entitled to see his lawyers. Mukasey also was the judge in the litigation between developer Larry Silverstein and several insurance companies arising from the destruction of the World Trade Center, a case which ultimately ended with a federal court deciding that insurers owed a maximum of $4.6 billion, more than the $3.5 billion term of the insurance policy.
“He knows what it takes to fight this war [on terror] effectively,” Bush told the press today, referring to Mukasey’s experience in terrorism cases.
“Thirty-five years ago, our foreign adversaries saw widespread devastation as a deterrent. Today, our fanatical enemies see it as a divine fulfillment,” Mukasey said, outlining his intentions as Attorney General.
Bruce Fein, a former deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, has said Mukasey is “not the right person for the job.”
“I do not believe, despite certainly substantial credentials, that he has the national stature and strength in Congress to resist White House overtures to insist that he bend the law to assist the political agenda,” said Fein, a constitutional and international lawyer with Bruce Fein & Associates and the Lichfield Group.
Other conservative groups have also voiced concern over Mukasey’s record on abortion.
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Rove’s good-bye kiss: Critics of ‘clear-eyed’ Bush will be wrong like critic of Vietnam war
White House spokesman Tony Snow stepping down
Gonzales Contradicts Prior Statements, Confirms Existence Of Other Spying Programs
Attorney General Gonzales steps down
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Keith Olbermann on Karl Rove Resigning
Payback Time: FBI Raids Home of Suspected NSA Leaker
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Lawsuit Against Wiretaps Rejected
Filed under: Alberto Gonzales, George Bush, Global Warming, Impeach, Iraq, Karl Rove, Tony Snow, Troops, Vietnam, White House
Rove’s good-bye kiss: Critics of ‘clear-eyed’ Bush will be wrong like critic of Vietnam war
Nick Juliano
Raw Story
August 31, 2007
On his last day in the White House, Karl Rove gave President Bush one last politically charged booster shot.
In an essay published by the conservative National Review, Rove predicted that the president he has loyally served for more than a decade would be judged positively by history, and he took the opportunity to bash calls for a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Rove reiterated the comparison of a troop withdrawal to the aftermath of Vietnam.
“History will see President Bush as right, and the opponents of his policy as mistaken — as George McGovern was in his time,” Rove wrote.
President Bush made headlines earlier this month when he reminded of the years of turmoil that followed America’s withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, and some historians said Bush’s analogy to the situation in Iraq was inaccurate.
Rove argued that history’s view of Bush would be more “clear-eyed” than the assessments of current administration critics.
“He will be judged as a man of moral clarity who put America on a wartime footing in the dangerous struggle against radical Islamic terrorism,” Rove wrote.
Rove praised some of the president’s most controversial policies, including his No Child Left Behind initiative, which some states have called intrusive, and his decision not to join the Kyoto agreement, which aimed to reduce global carbon emissions.
The political guru trumpeted Bush’s economic record, claiming the 2003 tax cuts led to economic growth. Bush pursued and aggressive series of tax cuts almost as soon as he was elected, and some say his economic policies have created greater inequality.
On fighting genocide in Darfur, Rove argued that Bush hadn’t “refused to act,” despite his resistance to adding US troops to the region to stop the violence.
“While most of the globe ignored Sudan and Darfur or refused to act, this president labeled the violence there genocide — and pressed world leaders to take action,” Rove wrote of the extent of the president’s involvement.
Rove has nothing but kind words for the man he has known for nearly 34 years. Without another campaign to run for the president, Rove announced earlier this month that he would be leaving his post at the White House. Friday was his last day.
White House spokesman Tony Snow stepping down
Reuters
August 31, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday announced the resignation of his press secretary Tony Snow, a former television commentator admired for his skill at sparring with reporters and who is battling cancer.
Bush picked Snow’s deputy, Dana Perino, to replace him when he leaves in two weeks. Perino, 35, will become only the second woman to hold that high-profile position in the White House.
Bush stopped in the White House press room before heading to the Pentagon to pay tribute to Snow, who is credited with livening up the daily news briefings with reporters.
“It’s been a joy to watch him spar with you,” Bush said.
Snow, 52, learned in March that the colon cancer he had fought earlier had recurred and has undergone chemotherapy.
But he said his decision to leave was for financial, not health, reasons. “I ran out of money,” said Snow, who earned much more in his former job as a Fox News commentator than at his government salary of $168,000 a year.
“We took out a loan when I came to the White House, and that loan is now gone. So I’m going to have to pay the bills,” said Snow, who is married with three children.
Snow said that his health has been fine and that tests have not indicated any growth in tumors or any new tumors.
“Right now I’m feeling great. I’ve finally put weight back on. I feel strong,” he said, adding that his thinning hair would come back.
Snow expressed admiration for the White House press corps while noting the often-adversarial relationship reporters have with press secretaries.
He joked with veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas that he someday wants to be sitting in the front row, as she does, “making life a living hell for a press secretary.”
Bush said that Perino, who has often filled in for Snow when he has been away, is someone who could “spell out the issues of the day in a way that people listening on TV can understand.”
“She can handle all of you,” he said.
But Perino, who is petite, said Snow left very big shoes to fill and joked, “I only wear a size 6.”
The only other woman to serve as White House press secretary was Dee Dee Myers, under former President Bill Clinton.
Snow said he plans to give speeches and stay involved in politics. He said he wants to raise awareness about cancer.
“I don’t know what he’s going to do, I’m not sure he does yet either,” Bush said. “One, he’ll battle cancer and win, and secondly he’ll be a solid contributor to society.”
Snow is the latest in a string of high-level White House officials to depart.
Friday was the last day at work for senior White House adviser Karl Rove. Snow described Rove’s final senior staff meeting this morning as emotional.
White House counselor Dan Bartlett, another longtime Bush adviser from Texas, left earlier this year.
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http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/280807_bird_cage.htm
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Lawsuit Against Wiretaps Rejected
Filed under: Alberto Gonzales, Big Brother, Impeach, Karl Rove, michael chertoff, NSA, Surveillance
Bird Cage Liner Changed, Illegal Spying Stays
Gonzales’ exit does little to undo the damage inflicted on the Constitution
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet Editorial
August 28, 2007
The bird cage liner has been changed but the illegal spying, warrantless wiretapping and torture embracing precedents remain following the resignation of Attorney General Alberto “Mengele” Gonzales.
The ineffective liberal left celebrates the exit of Gonzales like it’s some major victory when in fact it changes nothing and every assault on the Constitution that was crafted with his help remains on the books.
Why are the left so naive as to believe that just because a token figurehead is toppled this somehow makes amends for the fact that the infrastructure of a totalitarian state has been implemented over the last six years?
“Unfortunately, Gonzales’s incompetence will live on in a string of dubious legal arguments largely rubber-stamped by a pliant Congress and maintained through claims of executive privilege and state secrecy,” writes Burke Hansen of the Register.
“Ultimately, it will be up to the courts to undo the damage done, as Gonzalez spent so much time walking all over the fundamental rights of Americans he’s practically left footprints on the Bill of Rights. Thanks to his stewardship, American citizens can now be classed as enemy combatants, spied on without warrants, imprisoned indefinitely without charges or redress to the courts, and subjected to “enhanced interrogation” techniques.”
Where is the pressure for Democrats to repeal the Military Commissions Act, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act and innumerable other police state measures that were passed with their willing consent?
Only when we get the unconstitutional laws that Gonzales was responsible for pushing through stricken can we even begin to make progress.
The left likes to label itself as a “progressive community” yet they are seemingly content to wait and do nothing until Hillary Clinton gets in office so that she may enjoy the smorgasbord of tyranny that the Bush administration has laid out for her since 2001.
“Let’s be clear,” writes Dave Lindorff, “Alberto Gonzales is resigning as attorney general not because he’s become an embarrassment to the Bush administration-which has repeatedly shown itself to be beyond embarrassment-but because he is no longer useful. Exposed as a serial liar and an administration hack, he can no longer be relied upon by the Bush administration to carry forward its criminal agenda of subverting the Constitution, the electoral process and the Bill of Rights, because his every step is being watched by the public and the Congress.”
The fact is that Gonzales was merely a disposable battery for the rampaging robot of mechanized tyranny that symbolizes the Bush administration. He has now run out, been ejected and will be replaced by another while the destruction wrought by the machine itself remains untouched – until we realize that the overarching agenda and not its minions should be the real focus.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Resigns
Washington Post
August 27, 2007
Embattled Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has resigned from his post, according to an administration official, ending a controversial cabinet tenure that included clashes with Congress over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and the nature of efforts to spy on U.S. citizens.
The official said Gonzales submitted a letter on Friday saying he had decided to step down, but the announcement was withheld until he met with President Bush at the president’s Crawford ranch. His resignation will be announced at a press conference scheduled at 10:30.
Gonzales’ decision was first reported by the New York Times on its Web site.
Gonzales’ resignation marks the loss of another Bush loyalist at a time when his support in public opinion polls has been lagging. Though Bush had voiced continued support for Gonzales, a longtime ally from Texas, the attorney general’s support in Congress had withered after a series of run-ins that prompted some lawmakers to allege he had committed perjury.
His testimony on issues like a federal wiretap program required follow-up explanations and was contradicted by documents or the statements of other federal officials. At hearings on the U.S. attorney firings, Gonzales frequently said he could not remember details about key events — frustrating members of Congress who felt he was trying to minimize his role in politically motivated dismissals.
The departure leaves Bush with a key cabinet opening nearing the end of his second term. As controversy around Gonzales mounted, so has speculation about possible replacements. Among the names mentioned by lawmakers and their aides in recent weeks: Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff; former deputy attorney general James Comey and former deputy attorney Larry Thompson.
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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/24/gonzales-contradiction-spying/
Attorney General Gonzales steps down
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Lawsuit Against Wiretaps Rejected
Filed under: 4th amendment, Alberto Gonzales, Big Brother, George Bush, Surveillance, White House
Concern Over Wider Spying Under New Law
The New York Times
August 19, 2007
Washington – Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include – without court approval – certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.
Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.
They also emphasized that there would be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance.
The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought.
It also offers a case study in how changing a few words in a complex piece of legislation has the potential to fundamentally alter the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a landmark national security law. The new legislation is set to expire in less than six months; two weeks after it was signed into law, there is still heated debate over how much power Congress gave to the president.
“This may give the administration even more authority than people thought,” said David Kris, a former senior Justice Department lawyer in the Bush and Clinton administrations and a co-author of “National Security Investigation and Prosecutions,” a new book on surveillance law.
Several legal experts said that by redefining the meaning of “electronic surveillance,” the new law narrows the types of communications covered in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, by indirectly giving the government the power to use intelligence collection methods far beyond wiretapping that previously required court approval if conducted inside the United States.
These new powers include the collection of business records, physical searches and so-called “trap and trace” operations, analyzing specific calling patterns.
For instance, the legislation would allow the government, under certain circumstances, to demand the business records of an American in Chicago without a warrant if it asserts that the search concerns its surveillance of a person who is in Paris, experts said.
It is possible that some of the changes were the unintended consequences of the rushed legislative process just before this month’s Congressional recess, rather than a purposeful effort by the administration to enhance its ability to spy on Americans.
“We did not cover ourselves in glory,” said one Democratic aide, referring to how the bill was compiled.
But a senior intelligence official who has been involved in the discussions on behalf of the administration said that the legislation was seen solely as a way to speed access to the communications of foreign targets, not to sweep up the communications of Americans by claiming to focus on foreigners.
“I don’t think it’s a fair reading,” the official said. “The intent here was pure: if you’re targeting someone outside the country, the fact that you’re doing the collection inside the country, that shouldn’t matter.” Democratic leaders have said they plan to push for a revision of the legislation as soon as September. “It was a legislative over-reach, limited in time,” said one Congressional Democratic aide. “But Democrats feel like they can regroup.”
Some civil rights advocates said they suspected that the administration made the language of the bill intentionally vague to allow it even broader discretion over wiretapping decisions. Whether intentional or not, the end result – according to top Democratic aides and other experts on national security law – is that the legislation may grant the government the right to collect a range of information on American citizens inside the United States without warrants, as long as the administration asserts that the spying concerns the monitoring of a person believed to be overseas.
In effect, they say, the legislation significantly relaxes the restrictions on how the government can conduct spying operations aimed at foreigners at the same time that it allows authorities to sweep up information about Americans.
These new powers are considered overly broad and troubling by some Congressional Democrats who raised their concerns with administration officials in private meetings this week.
“This shows why it is so risky to change the law by changing the definition” of something as basic as the meaning of electronic surveillance, said Suzanne Spaulding, a former Congressional staff member who is now a national security legal expert. “You end up with a broad range of consequences that you might not realize.”
The senior intelligence official acknowledged that Congressional staff members had raised concerns about the law in the meetings this week, and that ambiguities in the bill’s wording may have led to some confusion. “I’m sure there will be discussions about how and whether it should be fixed,” the official said.
Vanee Vines, a spokeswoman for the office of the director of national intelligence, said the concerns raised by Congressional officials about the wide scope of the new legislation were “speculative.” But she declined to discuss specific aspects of how the legislation would be enacted. The legislation gives the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales broad discretion in enacting the new procedures and approving the way surveillance is conducted.
Bush administration officials said the new legislation, which amends FISA, was critical to fill an “intelligence gap” that had left the United States vulnerable to attack.
The legislation “restores FISA to its original and appropriate focus – protecting the privacy of Americans,” said Brian Roehrkasse, Justice Department spokesman. “The act makes clear that we do not need a court order to target for foreign intelligence collection persons located outside the United States, but it also retains FISA’s fundamental requirement of court orders when the target is in the United States.”
The measure, which President Bush signed into law on Aug. 5, was written and pushed through both the House and Senate so quickly that few in Congress had time to absorb its full impact, some Congressional aides say.
Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by President Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess as being soft on terrorism.
Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.
At the meeting, Bruce Fein, a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, along with other critics of the legislation, pressed Justice Department officials repeatedly for an assurance that the administration considered itself bound by the restrictions imposed by Congress. The Justice Department, led by Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, refused to do so, according to three participants in the meeting. That stance angered Mr. Fein and others. It sent the message, Mr. Fein said in an interview, that the new legislation, though it is already broadly worded, “is just advisory. The president can still do whatever he wants to do. They have not changed their position that the president’s Article II powers trump any ability by Congress to regulate the collection of foreign intelligence.”
Brian Walsh, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who attended the same private meeting with Justice Department officials, acknowledged that the meeting – intended by the administration to solicit recommendations on the wiretapping legislation – became quite heated at times. But he said he thought the administration’s stance on the president’s commander-in-chief powers was “a wise course.”
“They were careful not to concede any authority that they believe they have under Article II,” Mr. Walsh said. “If they think they have the constitutional authority, it wouldn’t make sense to commit to not using it.”
Asked whether the administration considered the new legislation legally binding, Ms. Vines, the national intelligence office spokeswoman, said: “We’re going to follow the law and carry it out as it’s been passed.”
Mr. Bush issued a so-called signing statement about the legislation when he signed it into law, but the statement did not assert his presidential authority to override the legislative limits.
At the Justice Department session, critics of the legislation also complained to administration officials about the diminished role of the FISA court, which is limited to determining whether the procedures set up by the executive administration for intercepting foreign intelligence are “clearly erroneous” or not.
That limitation sets a high bar to set off any court intervention, argued Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who also attended the Justice Department meeting.
“You’ve turned the court into a spectator,” Mr. Rotenberg said.
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Filed under: Alberto Gonzales, Big Brother, CIA, Dictatorship, George Bush, NSA, Police State, Surveillance, U2 plane
U.S. Turns U2 Spy Planes on America
John Byrne
Raw Story
August 9, 2007
In an article Thursday, Salon‘s Tim Shorrock explores the emergence of the NGA, born in 1996 from a partnership between the CIA, the Pentagon and the agency that maintains America’s spy satellites.
The single-seat high-altitude plane, originally designed for CIA spy missions — remembered perhaps for a 1960 mission where a plane was shot down over the Soveit Union — is a key element of the US arsenal in collecting intelligence overseas. Its high-resolution imagery is critical for examining nuclear and other weapons sites.
In a way, Shorrock suggests the visible mission of the U-2 over New Orleans is akin to the visible mission of the U-2 over the Soviet Union — a tip of the iceberg in a much larger program that most of America knows nothing about.
He notes that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ recent testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time confirmed the existence of various other domestic surveillance programs beyond those first disclosed by the New York Times, similarly intimating the domestic flyovers are more subversive than simply being used for weather catastrophes.
“In 2003, the NGA was formally inaugurated as a combat support agency of the Pentagon,” he reveals. “It is responsible for supplying overhead imagery and mapping tools to the military, the CIA and other intelligence agencies — including the National Security Agency, whose wide-reaching, extrajudicial spying inside the United States under the Bush administration has been a heated political issue since first coming to light in the media nearly two years ago.”
“The NGA’s role in Hurricane Katrina has received little attention outside of a few military and space industry publications,” he adds. “But the agency’s close working relationship with the NSA — whose powers to spy domestically were just expanded with new legislation from Congress — raises the distinct possibility that the U.S. government could be doing far more than secretly listening in on phone calls as it targets and tracks individuals inside the United States. With the additional capabilities of the NGA and the use of other cutting-edge technologies, the government could also conceivably be following the movements of those individuals minute by minute, watching a person depart from a mosque in, say, Lodi, Calif., or drive a car from Chicago to Detroit.”
In 2004, the National Security Agency (which has overseen Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program) announced they’d signed an agreement with the NGA to share resources and staff, including their sources, information infrastructure and “exploitation techniques.” The document itself is classified, though according to Salon an NGA press release explained “the pact allows ‘horizontal integration’ between the two agencies, defined as “working together from start to finish, using NGA’s ‘eyes’ and NSA ‘ears.'”
This collaboration was perhaps most visible when the US bombed a safe house of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq.
“Eventually, it all comes down to physical location,” NGA director Robert Murrett told reporters at the time. When the NSA and NGA pooled resources, he added, “the multiplier effect is dramatic.”
Still, the U-2 isn’t designed for tracking individuals, even if the Bush Administration wanted to.
Director of GlobalSecurity.org John Pike told Salon, “NGA imagery is not what you would use to track people.”
But NGA imagery could be combined with that of other surveillance networks. London, for instance, has installed a fleet of spy cameras on city streets, and similar cameras have been deployed in Washington, D.C. and New York, though DC police say they haven’t helped fight crime.
“U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies now have at their disposal facial recognition software that can identify one person among thousands in a large crowd,” Shorrock notes. “Combine that with the awesome eavesdropping power of the NSA and the ability of the NGA to capture live imagery from satellites and UAVs, and the result could be an ability to track any individual, in real time, as he or she moves around.”
Read Salon’s full article here.
Related News:
Leahy Sets Deadline for White House on Wiretapping Docs
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Leahy_sets_final_deadline_for_WH_0808.html
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Bush Confirms He Will Seek More Dictatorial Power
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Cheney Says He Is A ‘Unique Creature,’ Refuses To Say He Is Part Of Executive Branch
A Push to Rewrite Wiretap Law
Democrats Scrambling to Expand Eavesdropping
Ex-VP Mondale Accuses Cheney of Power Grab
Bush Takes Over Federal Science
Will Bush cancel the 2008 election?
MSNBC: House OKs wider wiretap powers
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Keith Olbermann on the Executive Order
Congressman Denied Access To Federal Post-Terror Attack Plans
Bush To Congress We Can’t Be Charged
Bush Abolishes Fifth Amendment
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White House says spying broader than known: report
Bush Administration’s intelligence chief acknowledges ‘series’ of other ‘secret surveillance activities’
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Bush Calls For Easier Wiretapping Rules
Leahy Issues Subpoena For Rove
Gonzales Contradicts Prior Statements, Confirms Existence Of Other Spying Programs
FBI Wants Its Own Stasi
Gonzales: I’m Sticking Around To Fix Problems
Rove blamed for Attorney firings in Gonzales hearing; Specter raises prospect of impeachment
Lawsuit Against Wiretaps Rejected
Non Executive Entity Cheney To Assert Executive Privilege
Government agency says Bush overreaches on executive privilege
Bush Won’t Supply Subpoenaed Documents
White House Stonewalling May Force Congress to Charge President with Criminal Offenses
Washington Democrat Adds Voice to Cheney Impeachment Drive
Dems Call White House Out on Subpoenas
Bush White House Refuses to Answer to Subpoenas
CAUGHT ON TAPE: Cheney Claims VP is ‘An Important Part’ Of Executive Branch
White House/Cheney Subpoenaed
Subpoenas will be issued if the White House does not comply
CNN: Cheney No Longer Part of the Executive Branch?
Cheney Backs Off Claim That He’s “Fourth Branch of Government”
Dodd Tells Crowd in Rochester Impeaching Cheney Won’t Help
Cheney and Bush Claim Dictator Powers
Cheney role as power broker in spotlight again
NBC: Has Dick Cheney Gone Too Far?
President Bush Claims He’s Exempt from Security Oversight too
Cheney Declares VP Not Part of Executive Branch
Cheney Exempted His Office From Executive Order Protecting Classified Information
ABC News: Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don’t Apply to Him
Cheney Blasted For Declaring Himself Autonomous
Cheney Defiant on Classified Material
Hitler 1938, Cheney 2007?
George Bush’s Power Grab: Authorizes Martial Law Provisions
Jerome Corsi on C-SPAN: Bush Dictator Powers
Bush Re-Authorizes Martial Law Provisions
Bush To Be Dictator In A Catastrophic Emergency
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Filed under: Alberto Gonzales, Big Brother, Dick Cheney, Dictatorship, DOJ, FBI, George Bush, NSA, Police State, Surveillance, Valerie Plame
Payback Time: FBI Raids Home of Suspected NSA Leaker
Perrspectives
August 6, 2007
This past week, the Bush administration added insult to injury over its illegal program of NSA domestic surveillance . During the very time Congress was debating codifying President Bush’s lawbreaking by revising the FISA law many of his allies had been afraid to publicly challenge as unconstitutional, Alberto Gonzales’ DOJ was raiding the home of a former Justice official to identify the person who first brought the illicit program to light.
As Michael Isikoff details in Newsweek, a team of FBI agents raided the home of Thomas M. Tamm, a veteran prosecutor and former official of the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) within DOJ:
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.
Even as Alberto Gonzales was feebly deflecting perjury charges by apologizing for “creating confusion” with his comments about ” no serious disagreement ” in 2004 within the administration over its NSA homeland spying scheme, the Attorney General was dispatching the FBI to investigate one of those purportedly disagreeable officials. At its worst, the campaign to punish NSA whistle-blowers reflect not only the administration’s misplaced priorities, but its absolute commitment to seeking vengeance against its opponents:
The raid also came while the White House and Congress were battling over expanding NSA wiretapping authority in order to plug purported “surveillance gaps.” 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. A Justice spokesman declined to comment.
After the revelations about the NSA program by the New York Times in December 2005, On December 19th, President Bush raged about what he deemed “a shameful act” that is “helping the enemy”. Claiming he didn’t order an investigation, Bush added “the Justice Department, I presume, will proceed forward with a full investigation” At a subsequent press conference that same day, Alberto Gonzales suggested the retribution that was to come:
“As to whether or not there will be a leak investigation, as the President indicated, this is really hurting national security, this has really hurt our country, and we are concerned that a very valuable tool has been compromised. As to whether or not there will be a leak investigation, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
The disturbing irony, of course, is that the vendetta against leakers by President Bush and his allies is highly selective. In 2003, Vice President Cheney famously authorized the cherry-picked declassification of elements of the 2002 Iraq NIE as part of a campaign to smear Ambassador Joseph Wilson over his public decimation of the White House’s uranium in Niger canard. As the National Journal reported in April 2006, leak plugging stalwart and Kansas Senator Pat Roberts (then the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman) leaked details regarding Saddam Hussein’s whereabouts on March 20, 2003 even as the Iraq war was just underway. And just last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner described classified details of the supposed “intelligence gap” created by a FISA judge’s ruling, all in an effort to pressure his Democratic opponents to cave to President Bush’s demands for expanded domestic surveillance authority.
Which, as it turned out, is exactly what came to pass. So while Congressional Democrats blinked by cowardly ratifying the lawlessness of an unpopular President and his Attorney General on life support, the White House continued its policy of payback – without blinking.
(For the latest news, key documents, legal developments and other essential materials, see: ” The NSA Scandal Documents Center .”)
UPDATE 1: Several readers have already commented about PlameGate and President Bush’s supreme hypocrisy when it comes to his selective crusade against leakers. As you might recall, a nonchalant President Bush had this to say about the person(s) who outed covert CIA operative Valerie Plame on October 7, 2003 :
“I don’t know if we’re going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there’s a lot of senior officials. I don’t have any idea. I’d like to. I want to know the truth. That’s why I’ve instructed this staff of mine to cooperate fully with the investigators — full disclosure, everything we know the investigators will find out.”
Don’t expect that Vegas will start taking odds on a pardon for the NSA leaker…
UPDATE 2: Over at DailyKos, Ballerina X asks if the Thomas M. Tamm whose home was raided by the FBI last week is the same Thomas M. Tamm who commented at Media Matters on July 25th. There, Tamm identifies himself as a “former DOJ lawyer” and raises the issue of political interference inherent in Gonzales’ blocking U.S. prosecutors from pursuing Congressional contempt charges.
FBI raids DOJ attorney’s home in search for warrantless wiretap information leaker
http://rawstory.com/printstory.php?story=7101
Filed under: Alberto Gonzales, George Bush, Impeach, Karl Rove, NSA, Surveillance
Bush Orders Rove Not To Testify
BBC
August 2, 2007
US President George W Bush has ordered close adviser Karl Rove not to testify before a Senate hearing on the sacking of eight federal prosecutors.
Mr Bush used the executive privilege he has as president to exempt Mr Rove from having to appear.
The US Senate committee is investigating whether the White House arranged the sackings for improper political reasons.
The Bush administration maintains that the dismissals were justified.
“Mr Rove, as an immediate presidential adviser, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity,” White House lawyer Fred Fielding wrote in a letter to Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy, and made available to the Reuters news agency.
Mr Rove had been due to testify at a hearing on Thursday morning, along with another White House aide, deputy political director Scott Jennings.
Mr Jennings is still expected to appear but he is not expected testify about the fired prosecutors.
Contempt accusation
The row began after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fired eight federal prosecutors in 2006 – an unusual move, but not illegal.
However, the controversy over the firings has grown into a larger dispute between Congress and the White House.
Democrats, who control Congress, say the sackings were politically motivated and that Mr Rove knew of discussions about firing the attorneys nearly two years before the axe fell on them.
The president has previously offered to let Mr Rove and other aides speak privately to some members of Congress, but he has firmly rejected the demand for public testimony under oath.
Mr Rove and Mr Jennings were subpoenaed a day after the House judiciary committee issued contempt of Congress citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and ex-legal counsel Harriet Miers in the row.
The Democrats have also announced they will seek a perjury investigation to be carried out into Mr Gonzales in connection with the same case.
Opponents say he fired the attorneys for political reasons and later lied about the reason for their dismissal.
Mr Gonzales, who retains Mr Bush’s support, says he did nothing wrong and has resisted calls for his dismissal.
Related News:
A Push to Rewrite Wiretap Law
http://www.washingt….073101879_pf.html
Democrats Scrambling to Expand Eavesdropping
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/….OBa3LXYE0DA+lrsc/Cw
Bush Likely to Prevent Aides’ Testimony
http://origin.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_6515935
Gonzales Helped Cover-Up Bush DUI
Exclusive: For Alberto Gonzales, a Decade of Scandals, with a Child Molestation Cover-Up to Boot
White House says spying broader than known: report
Bush Administration’s intelligence chief acknowledges ‘series’ of other ‘secret surveillance activities’
NSA Spying Part of Broader Effort
Bush Calls For Easier Wiretapping Rules
Leahy Issues Subpoena For Rove
Gonzales Contradicts Prior Statements, Confirms Existence Of Other Spying Programs
FBI Wants Its Own Stasi
Gonzales: I’m Sticking Around To Fix Problems
Rove blamed for Attorney firings in Gonzales hearing; Specter raises prospect of impeachment
Lawsuit Against Wiretaps Rejected
Gonzales Helped Cover-Up Bush DUI
Raw Story
July 30, 2007
Alberto Gonzales’s difficult relationship with the truth has led to calls for a special prosecutor to investigate claims that the attorney general perjured himself during Senate testimony. But as the Washington Post points out Monday, Gonzales and honesty have had a shaky relationship stretching back more than a decade.
“Whether Gonzales has deliberately told untruths or is merely hampered by his memory has been the subject of intense debate among members of Congress, legal scholars and others who have watched him over the years,” report the Post’s Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein. “Some regard his verbal difficulties as a strategic ploy on behalf of a president to whom he owes his career; others see a public official overwhelmed by the magnitude of his responsibilities.”
Gonzales’s apparent willingness to dissemble in order to protect himself or President Bush stretches back to at least 1996, when he intervened to prevent then-Gov. Bush from serving jury duty in Texas, the Post notes. Not until its second-to-last paragraph, however, does the Post article remind readers that by not serving jury duty in the drunken driving case Bush was able to keep his own drunken driving conviction a secret for several more years.
“He’s a slippery fellow, and I think so intentionally,” University of Texas public affairs professor Richard L. Schott told the Post. “He’s trying to keep the president’s secrets and to be a team player, even if it means prevaricating or forgetting convenient things.”
Questions about Gonzales willingness to protect Bush in relation to the drunken driving case were first raised last year by Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. If Bush had served on the jury he would have had to reveal his own past conviction, but Gonzales convinced the defense attorney to ask that Bush be kept from the jury on the grounds that he may be called on to pardon the defendant.
The Post outlines Gonzales’s recently disputed testimony regarding the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which has led four senators to request a special prosecutor’s investigation, and his involvement in last year’s dismissal of nine US Attorneys.
Schott told the Post that Gonzales’ “almost subconscious bond of loyalty” to Bush might be behind his dissembling.
“It’s obvious that Gonzales owes Bush his career,” Schott said. “Part of his behavior comes from this gratitude and extreme loyalty to Bush.”
Testifying in April about the US Attorney firings, Gonzales said more than 60 times that he could not remember events or facts related to the dismissals, including a high-level meeting in his office when the firings were approved.
Gonzales has few friends left in the Capitol, on either side of the aisle. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (SC), Arlen Specter (PA) and Jeff Sessions (AL) all scolded Gonzales when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
“The grilling he’s enduring right now is beyond anything he had ever experienced in his life. He was ill prepared for it,” Bill Minutaglio, who has written biographies of Gonzales and Bush, told the Post. Minutaglio notes that Gonzales kept a low profile when he worked for Bush in Texas.
The attorney general is facing accusations of perjury over his testimony regarding the National Security Agencies wiretap program, referred to by administration officials as the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
Gonzales testified that there was no “serious disagreement” about the program, and he claimed that his bizarre late-night visit to then Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital bed focused on “other intelligence activities.”
Both claims were undercut last week when FBI Director Robert S. Mueller testified that the NSA program was subject to fierce debate and was discussed at Ashcroft’s bedside.
The New York Times on Sunday reported that Gonzales was referring to data-mining, not wiretapping, aspects of the program in his testimony. The “narrowly crafted” and “legalistic” answers Gonzales gave in congressional testimony were technically correct, his defenders argue, and may save him from prosecution.
Exclusive: For Alberto Gonzales, a Decade of Scandals, with a Child Molestation Cover-Up to Boot
http://www.realinsidenews.com/governmentnews007.html
Bush Calls For Easier Wiretapping Rules
American Free Press
July 29, 2007
US President George W. Bush on Saturday called for Congress to revise a US security law in order to ease restrictions on the government’s secret communications surveillance of terror suspects.
Amid furor over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s handling of the government’s secret warrantless wiretap program, Bush urged legislators to pass the update of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) proposed in April.
The changes would ease intelligence collection aimed at people plotting attacks on the United States, Bush said in his weekly radio address.
“Today we face sophisticated terrorists who use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate with each other, recruit operatives, and plan attacks on our country,” he said.
“Technologies like these were not available when FISA was passed nearly 30 years ago, and FISA has not kept up with new technological developments.
“As a result, our nation is hampered in its ability to gain the vital intelligence we need to keep the American people safe.”
Bushed urged lawmakers to work in a bipartisan manner to pass the legislation before leaving for August recess, saying: “Our national security depends on it.”
Bush made the plea as Gonzales became more mired this week in accusations that the government abused the law to monitor suspect electronic communications to and from the United States without first obtaining warrants from a special secret FISA court.
On Thursday members of Congress called for a perjury investigation of Gonzales for testimony he gave days earlier on the warrantless wiretaps, which were launched when Gonzales was White House Counsel.
The FISA reform proposed by the White House in April would loosen restrictions on tapping into emails, phone calls and other communications inside the country and possibly allow the US to freely tap into international communications routed through the United States.
It will also protect telecommunications companies who cooperate in the effort. Several major companies have been sued for helping with the wiretaps.
But Congress has resisted the reform while demanding more information on the government’s electronic spying efforts since 2001, which the White House and Gonzales have insisted were legal, but others say broke the law.
This week Gonzales and FBI director Robert Mueller offered apparently contradictory testimony on a 2004 Justice Department dispute over the program’s legality, sparking accusations that Gonzales lied to the legislators about the controversy.
Bush did not address the Gonzales controversy in his address, but on Friday White House spokesman Tony Snow said: “The president supports him and the president supports his performance.”
Leahy Issues Subpoena For Rove
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/leahy-issues-subpoena-for-rove-2007-07-26.html
Gonzales Contradicts Prior Statements, Confirms Existence Of Other Spying Programs
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/24/gonzales-contradiction-spying/
Gonzales: I’m Sticking Around To Fix Problems
Rove blamed for Attorney firings in Gonzales hearing; Specter raises prospect of impeachment
Lawsuit Against Wiretaps Rejected
Filed under: Alberto Gonzales, Big Brother, Bill Clinton, bin laden, CIA, co-intel pro, Control Grid, Darpa, Echelon, FBI, GCHQ, George Bush, Homeland Security, john ashcroft, NSA, Operation CHAOS, Operation TIPS, Patriot Act, paul wolfowitz, Pentagon, Police State, Surveillance, Total Information Awareness
FBI Wants Its Own Stasi
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
July 26, 2007
In a move startlingly similar to that of the East German government during the Cold war, the FBI wants to recruit thousands of covert informants in the US and work with the CIA to train them in an effort to expand and adopt more aggressive intelligence capabilities.
ABC’s The Blotter reports that according to a recent unclassified report to Congress, the FBI, driven by a 2004 directive from President Bush, wants to recruit more than 15,000 informants in the US, entailing a complete overhaul of its database systems at a cost of around $22 million.
The FBI expects its informants to provide secrets about possible terrorists and foreign spies, although some may also be expected to aid with criminal investigations, in the tradition of law enforcement confidential informants. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
The move comes in addition to other proposals to expand the collection and analysis of data on U.S. persons , retain years’ worth of Americans’ phone records and even increase so-called “black bag” secret entry operations, the Blotter reports.
Though the FBI has decided not to completely adopt CIA training methods on recruiting informants, which include bribery, extortion, and other patently illegal acts, the two are to work closely together on the program.
Though the reasoning is, as ever, to target terror cells in the US, the report also states that “some may also be expected to aid with criminal investigations, in the tradition of law enforcement confidential informants”.
Within the last two years it has come to light that the FBI, along with the Pentagon and the NSA has been spying on antiwar activists, rights groups and peace campaigners within the US, labeling some of them as “terrorists” and placing them within their databases.
It appears operations are now to be stepped up to include the Stasi like recruiting of informants within such groups to report what is deemed to be politically subversive behavior among American citizens.
In 2004 the ACLU revealed that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 sparked the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism,” Attorney General John Ashcroft scrapped an FBI guideline—enacted after the agency infiltrated numerous groups during the 1960s and 1970s Civil Rights Movement—that blocked its agents from spying on groups and individuals unless they were investigating a crime.
By scrapping that policy, Gen. Ashcroft was, “essentially encouraging FBI agents to do fishing expeditions to spy in mosques, in anti-war meetings … without any reasonable suspicion that a crime was being committed,” ACLU attorney Ben Wizner said.
In late 2005 lawmakers expressed concern that the FBI was aggressively pushing the powers of the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act to get access to private phone and financial records of ordinary people.
Around the same time it was revealed that the Bush administration had secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without [obtaining] court-approved warrants.
Though this was dubbed by the corporate mainstream media to be “a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices”, eavesdropping on citizens is nothing new, the only shift that has occurred is that the government can now TELL us that they’re spying on us and it will slowly be accepted.
If the mainstream media is to be believed, the National Security Agency engages in “some eavesdropping inside the country,” There are hundreds of sources that prove however that the intelligence services have been operating similar programs for decades.
The FBI itself has been targeting domestic groups since its inception, the most notorious example being Hoover’s COINTELPRO (Counter-Intelligence Program) which covertly spied on all manner of organizations and individuals from Dr. Martin Luther King to the National Lawyers Guild .
Operation CHAOS under the CIA highlights another example of domestic spying:
“In June 1970 Nixon met with Hoover [FBI], Helms [CIA], NSA Director Admiral Noel Gaylor, and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) representative Lt. Gen. Donald V. Bennett and told them he wanted a coordinated and concentrated effort against domestic dissenters,” Verne Lyon – former CIA undercover operative .
For over fifteen years, the CIA, with assistance from numerous government agencies, conducted a massive illegal domestic covert operation called Operation CHAOS. It was one of the largest and most pervasive domestic surveillance programs in the history of this country. Throughout the duration of CHAOS, the CIA spied on thousands of U.S. citizens. The CIA went to great lengths to conceal this operation from the public while every president from Eisenhower to Nixon exploited CHAOS for his own political ends.”
There are also multiple Pentagon projects in operation that involve the collection of intelligence through domestic eavesdropping. One example is the Defense Department’s Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA)
Consider this from William M. Arkin of the Washington Post :
“CIFA already has these authorities, has its own agents, and collects information on common American citizens under the guise of “sabotage” and “force protection” threats to the military. Since 9/11, functions that were previously intended to protect U.S. forces overseas from terrorism and protect U.S. secrets from spies have been combined in one super-intelligence function that constitutes the greatest threat to U.S. civil liberties since the domestic spying days of the 1970’s.”
“On May 2, 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz signed a memorandum directing the military to collect and report “non-validated threat information” relating to U.S. military forces, installations or missions. His memorandum followed from the establishment of the Domestic Threat Working Group after 9/11, the intent of which was to create a mechanism to share low-level domestic “threat information” between the military and intelligence agencies.”
Then we have the ” Total Information Awareness ” program whereby every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as “a virtual, centralized grand database.”
Shortly after the announcement of TIA, the Pentagon backtracked and told us that TIA was shutting down, but on reading the second paragraph in this article , it becomes clear that the tools are there waiting to be used. The Pentagon has since started up multiple programs all bearing exact similarities to TIA.
The Tools of TIA include “LifeLog” which is described as “a multimedia, digital record of everywhere you go and everything you see, hear, read, say and touch”. Another tool is the MATRIX database , A federally funded crime database run by multiple states at once.
Operation TIPS and similar programs were geared towards turning citizens themselves into domestic spies.
Then of course there is the joint NSA / Government Communications Head Quarters of England (GCHQ) Project Echelon . This long running operation was first exposed in the mid nineties and then again most prominently by author James Bamford in his 1999 book Body of Secrets. Bamford comments, “The cooperation between the Echelon countries is worrying. For decades, these organizations have worked closely together, monitoring communications and sharing the information gathered. Now, through Echelon, they are pooling their resources and targets, maximizing the collection and analysis of intercepted information.”
In the greatest surveillance effort ever established, the NSA global spy system captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world. Quite obviously they cannot listen to everyone anywhere ALL the time, but they have the capability to choose when to listen and who to listen to, wherever they may be.
James Bamford famously recalled how the NSA successfully intercepted satellite calls from Osama Bin Laden in the late nineties as he was talking to his mother.
“I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” – Senator Frank Church, quoted in ECHELON: America’s Secret Global Surveillance Network
Under the Clinton Administration Echelon certainly turned its attention to citizens of countries everywhere and monitored millions of calls and other communications.
Echelon expert Mike Frost, who spent 20 years as a spy for the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the agency was monitoring “everything from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs.”
Domestic spying is nothing new, there has been at least half a century of such activity in America. However, the general public will believe that government spying on them is new, and secondly, they will just accept it because they are being told in a very unsophisticated fashion, that it is keeping them safe.
On Tuesday current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales once again gave testimony concerning the ongoing investigations into the legality of “terrorist surveillance program” and seemed to confirm that numerous domestic surveillance programs are in operation.
The fact that less than 0.01% of Homeland Security cases are related to terrorism in America begs the question why does America need an army of secret police to keep tabs on its own citizens?
Domestic government surveillance is becoming accepted as the norm. The fact remains however that you cannot have a free state that relies upon a covert network of government spies and recruited informants to maintain law and order within its own borders.
Leahy Issues Subpoena For Rove
The Hill
July 26, 2007
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Thursday issued a subpoena for top White House adviser Karl Rove to compel him to testify about the firing of several U.S. attorneys.
“The evidence shows that senior White House political operatives were focused on the political impact of federal prosecutions and whether federal prosecutors were doing enough to bring partisan voter fraud and corruption cases,” Leahy said. “It is obvious that the reasons given for the firings of these prosecutors were contrived as part of a cover-up and that the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort.”
Leahy issued the subpoenas, one to Rove and one to White House aide Scott Jennings, after consulting with Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the committee’s ranking member.
“The Bush-Cheney White House continues to place great strains on our constitutional system of checks and balances,” Leahy added. “Not since the darkest days of the Nixon administration have we seen efforts to corrupt federal law enforcement for partisan political gain and such efforts to avoid accountability.”
The move is a further escalation of the constitutional battle between Congress and the White House over whether Bush administration officials must provide testimony and documents to legislative branch investigators.
Leahy said he is not taking this step lightly and only decided to proceed after “[exhausting] every avenue seeking the voluntary cooperation of Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings.”
The Judiciary Committee chairman concluded that the investigation has “reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States attorneys last year.”
In a letter to Rove, Leahy gives the White House official a week to appear before the panel and testify under oath.
“I hope that the White House takes this opportunity to reconsider its blanket claim of executive privilege, especially in light of the testimony that the President was not involved in the dismissals of these U.S. Attorneys,” Leahy said in his letter. “I am left to ask what the White House is so intent on hiding that it cannot even identify the documents, the dates, the authors and recipients that they claim are privileged.”
Rove blamed for Attorney firings in Gonzales hearing; Specter raises prospect of impeachment
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Gonzales_returns_to_Senate_Judiciary_Committee_0724.html
Gonzales Contradicts Prior Statements, Confirms Existence Of Other Spying Programs
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/24/gonzales-contradiction-spying/
Gonzales: I’m Sticking Around To Fix Problems
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Gonzales_video_defends_keeping_job_to_0721.html
Impeach Gonzales Petition
http://impeachgonzales.org/
Rove blamed for Attorney firings in Gonzales hearing; Specter raises prospect of impeachment
Michael Roston
Raw Story
July 24, 2007
Senator Patrick Leahy kicked off an oversight hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by accusing top White House adviser Karl Rove of playing a key role in the firing of 8 US Attorneys.
“The accumulated and essentially uncontroverted evidence is that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States Attorneys last year,” the committee’s chairman said. “The evidence we have been able to collect points to Karl Rove and the political operatives at the White House. .”
Leahy also described a Justice Department in a state of ‘crisis.’ He worried that most of the senior leadership in the department had resigned.
“I would joke that the last one out the door should turn off the lights, but the Department of Justice is more important than that,” he stated. “We need to shine more light on the Justice Department, not less”
The Vermont Democrat went on to criticize Gonzales for failing to be forthcoming with information about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s use of National Security Letters and said it pointed to an inability to trust Gonzales and the Bush administration.
“With a history of civil liberty abuses and cover ups, this administration has squandered our trust,” he warned.
Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking Republican on the committee, also said that Gonzales’ acceptance of responsibility was not sufficient.
“That is not enough,” he said. “The question is whether or not the Department of Justice is functioning as it must.”
Specter criticized Gonzales for failing to give a clear explanation for why the prosecutors were fired. He also slammed the White House for lacking flexibility in preparing oversight.
“Now we have a very remarkable turn of events: we now have the announcement that the administration will preclude the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from bringing a contempt citation,” he said. “The president in that manner can stymie Congressional oversight…if that is to happen, the president can run the government as he chooses.”
Specter then suggested the possibility of appointing a special prosecutor because he said the President had a conflict of interest. He went on to also offer the alternative that the Senate could try a contempt charge of its own, or consider the model of the impeachment of Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge who now serves as a Democratic Congressman from Florida.
Attorney General downplays FBI privacy violations
Gonzales focused his opening statement on questions relating to the PATRIOT Act and the government’s Terrorist Surveillance Program. He emphasized the need to modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“This situation is unacceptable — we must quickly reform FISA’s outdated legal framework and ensure that the Intelligence Community is able to gather the information it needs to protect the Nation,” Gonzales argued in his prepared opening remarks.
The Attorney General did not focus his remarks on the US Attorneys controversy, which he only discussed in his prepared testimony.
Senator Leahy then raised the 500 complaints to the Intelligence Oversight Board relating to National Security Letters used by the FBI to request wiretaps, and the subsequent lack of follow up. Gonzales defended the oversight procedures used to monitor the system and ensure that civil liberties are not violated.
“A violation of IOB may not be a violation of the PATRIOT Act,” Gonzales insisted. “We’re talking about intentional, deliberate misuse of the PATRIOT Act, not when some agent writes down the wrong phone number in a National Security Letter.”
Senator Leahy challenged him on what ‘appropriate actions’ had been taken in response to PATRIOT Act violations. The Attorney General’s answer was vague.
“We institute training…or disciplinary action against the agent,” he responded.
Specter lambastes Gonzales on executive power
Senator Specter then engaged in a testy series of exchanges with the Attorney General.
First, he brought up the visit of Gonzales as White House Counsel to the hospital bed of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004. The White House wanted Ashcroft to overrule a decision by James Comey, then serving as acting Attorney General, that an intelligence program was not legal. Gonzales insisted that the program being discussed in the hospital room meeting was not the administration’s domestic wiretapping program.
“The visit to the hospital was about other intelligence activities. It was not about the Terrorist Surveillance Program,” he said.
“Mr. Attorney General, do you expect us to believe that?” Specter quipped back.
Gonzales demurred, but then defended the effort to ask Ashcroft to overrule Comey, who was serving as head of the Justice Department while the Attorney General was recovering from surgery.
“There are no rules governing whether or not Attorney General Ashcroft can decide ‘I’m feeling well enough to make this decision,'” he insisted.
Specter answered Gonzales angrily.
“Attorney General Gonzales, he had already given up his authority as Attorney General,” the Pennsylvania Republican scolded, adding that Ashcroft was under sedation as Gonzales insisted that Ashcroft could reclaim his authority whenever he wanted.
“You’re not making any progress here,” Specter quipped.
Specter then angrily asked if the White House’s current assertions of executive privilege threatened the current form of government in the United States.
“Do you think constitutional government in the United States can survive if the president has the unilateral authority to reject congressional inquiries on grounds of executive privilege, and the president then acts to bar the Congress from getting the judicial determination as to whether that executive privilege is properly invoked?” Specter queried.
Gonzales then attempted to insist that his recusal from decision-making related to the US Attorneys investigation prevented him from answering.
The response seemed to make Specter angrier.
“I’m not asking you a question about something your recused of. I’m asking you a question about Constitutional Law,” he fired back.
Specter then went on, “I’m not going to pursue that question because I see that it’s hopeless.”
Gonzales Contradicts Prior Statements, Confirms Existence Of Other Spying Programs
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/24/gonzales-contradiction-spying/
Gonzales: I’m Sticking Around To Fix Problems
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Gonzales_video_defends_keeping_job_to_0721.html
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