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Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 13:51:09 +0000

Speaking of the liberal media: The New York Times held that story for a year. The White House was arguing (as they currently are) that revelation of domestic wire-tapping w/o warrants would be damaging to the war on terror or that it might jeopardize ongoing investigations. The WaPo (aka, online newspaper of record, thanks TimesSelect), does the same thing: news articles that depend upon sources within the administration only get published when those sources approve of them. As much as "timing" of news stories might affect political outcomes, the people doing the timing are more often at the horse's mouth, not the publishers. McCain was going to win this one, regardless of NSA snooping. Cheney doesn't have the president's ear as much as he used too. I'd like to think Sununu and his "band of brothers" would have held the line regardless of the news story as well, who knows. How dumb is Frist? Example: Kennedy suggests a 3 month extension to alllow for more debate, and it's refused.

Posted by cdubrocker on 2005-12-19 15:31:44 +0000

Bush's response to "Stretch" from Bloomberg News as to why he circumvented to courts do the domestic wiretapping: 1. The courts are too slow, and these terrorists are fast, wicked fast. 2. People's civil liberties are being protected because we are closely monitoring the wiretapping process. 3. Trust us. 4. We're going to continue doing this. 5. I have the power to do this. He implied that Congress knew this was going on. Was he lying? I don't know, but if the NYT knew about it for a year, I find it hard to believe that Congress did not know.

Posted by cdubrocker on 2005-12-19 15:55:13 +0000

Here's a post on Washington Monthly that poses a good question: Why even bother circumventing FISA?

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 16:51:06 +0000

Terry Moran of ABC pretty much let Cheney have it. Cheney kept lying saying it had Congress's apporval. Total disaster, and pretty clearly illegal. It's nice to see the Republicans take the reins on this one too, with Lindsey Graham and Richard Lugar stepping up. Congress IS doing it's job keeping Bush/Cheney in check.

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 16:57:07 +0000

Congress is getting better, that's true. They've dug a huge whole for themselves, in my opinion. I'd say they are _starting_ to _remember_ their job of oversight. Not sure about Cheney lying. The administration believed they had approval when Congress granted "war powers" for the pursuit of terrorists during the fall of 2001. Frankly, I don't see how wiretapping citizens without some sort of judicial oversight (even if the oversight is incredibly lax, RE: FISA) is a "war power". The administration doesn't have this power, and I don't trust them with it even if Congress granted it. Congress, as it has for most of past 4 years, has been asleep at the wheel.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 17:04:55 +0000

"Not sure about Cheney lying". -tgl "It's been briefed to the Congress over a dozen times." No member of Congress has agreed with this statement. None.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 17:17:53 +0000

The comments by readers are disturbing. Why do they do this: 1- No records 2- Power grab or both. Imagine if Bush/Cheney were using the taps to procure info on political enemies? Nixon, we miss you....

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 17:23:38 +0000

I didn't know he was making a specific claim like that. Maybe this is where they are splitting hairs (like on intelligence). Congress was briefed, e.g., "we're are intercepting communications from suspected terrorists" albeit not with any of the relevant particulars, e.g., "these communications being with US citizens and there has been no warrant, FISA or otherwise, approving the intercepts". Much like: "Iraq is in league with Al Qaida and desperately trying to build nuclear bombs" although "not one foreign intelligence service nor any US intelligence agency not staffed by Cheney's cronies believes this claim". I love how Cheney points to Bush's oversight of the program as proof of it's legality. Say what?! Remember when a lie was a lie? "I did not have sex with that woman." So refreshing. Forget bringing honor back to the White House (although, Bush could do worse than trying to re-restore the honor), how about bringing back straight forward lying? A majority of Americans would disagree with these policies if they are actually described in straight forward language, not couched in euphemisms and half-truths.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 17:31:40 +0000

Um, not to split hairs tgl, but "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" was not a lie. Clinton never had vaginal sex nor PERFORMED oral sex on Ms. Monica. Those were the definitions Ken "The Perv" Starr gave Clinton.

Posted by Honar the librarian on 2005-12-19 17:37:00 +0000

On a related note, doing your homework can get the feds called down on you.

Posted by Null Protocol on 2005-12-19 17:59:04 +0000

caucasian, please.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 18:04:15 +0000

Bubba was being dishonest, yep, but there's a reason he was acquitted by the Senate.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 18:06:19 +0000

Holly shit. This is huge.

Posted by Null Protocol on 2005-12-19 18:07:45 +0000

if thats how you choose to spend yr time...

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 18:12:18 +0000

Keeping facts straight. Yep. Isn't that what the boards for, so we can share collective knowledge and interests?

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 18:27:34 +0000

If you want to claim a reasonable person would not confuse "sexual relations" with "receiving oral sex" then be intellectually honest and allow Cheney to claim that "briefing Congress" can mean whatever the hell he wants it to mean. BTW, here's how I score it: * Clinton lied once, under oath, in a misguided attempt to protect his private life. * Bush, Cheney, et al. have created a web of deceit in order to sell their policies; said policies being a general affront to the Constitution of the United States and to a whole host of moral frameworks.

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 18:30:39 +0000

Well, it's allowed under the Patriot Act. Everyone feeling safer, right? I shudder to think what might happen come the end of the month. Terrorists will be requesting The Little Red Book in obscene numbers, I suspect, and the Feds won't know a thing about it.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 18:38:41 +0000

I have not claimed a reasonable person would not confuse the two. Ken Starr did. Clinton never lied under oath in the Lewinsky scandal. tgl, there is a framework of definitions. "Briefing Congress" mean every Senator (the 'court' if you will) gets a written legal document. Where are these documents?

Posted by Null Protocol on 2005-12-19 18:41:59 +0000

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 18:46:06 +0000

Civil liberties complaints aside, it's the clear uselessness of the Patriot Act that is astonishing. There were no legal barriers in place, before 2001 Sept 11, that would have prevented the FBI from learning about those terrorists. The FBI already knew about key members of the hijack crew. The only barriers were in the minds of the CIA agents. There is no provision of the Patriot Act that would have helped to prevent those attacks.

Posted by frame609 on 2005-12-19 18:51:09 +0000

But saying 'civil liberties aside' i/r/t the Patriot Act is like saying 'American League aside' when discussing the designated hitter rule.

Posted by Null Protocol on 2005-12-19 18:55:39 +0000

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 18:59:08 +0000

Wikipedia seems to be down at the moment, so I'll go along with you that everything Clinton said under oath could be construed as the truth. For that matter, Cheney never lied under oath, either. I just think you're giving leeway to Clinton that you are not giving to Cheney. Granted, you'd have to give Cheney leeway on a whole host to topics over the past 5 years; whereas Clinton was "dishonest" on just one topic. ---- Wikipedia is back, and looking at the Paula Jones deposition, Clinton says: "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. I've never had an affair with her." I'll grant that the statement might be legally construed as meaning, "I've only received oral sex from Monica Lewinsky". But, come on, if you are going to torture the language that much (no pun intended), then you'll need to give Cheney some room as well. Especially since he isn't under oath, and in the course of an interview it's easier to say "brefing congress" than "reported to the Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence".

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 19:08:13 +0000

I know, I know. However, a sizable amount of the public don't share those concerns, nor the concerns about torture. Democrats highlight the idealistic flaws of the Patriot Act, torture, and the invasion of Iraq fairly well. They tend to go silent when proponents of those measure taut the effectiveness of those policies. When, pragmatically and realistically, none of those policies result in the desired effect: better communication between intelligence agencies, actionable human intelligence about islamo-fascist terrorists, and removing the threat of anti-American violence, respectively. For example, Gonzales was on Nightline last week. Aside from continuely declining to give a legal opinion as to whether waterboarding or mock executions are torture, he claimed we needed to be able to use any technique in order retrieve information. The interviewer completely dropped the ball by not following up: "Why do you regard aggressive interrogation techniques as effective tools to garner information when the bulk of evidence suggests that testimony derived from placing a person under duress is useless?" I wish I was getting the liberal media I paid for.

Posted by Miriam on 2005-12-19 19:11:22 +0000

Wow, and I thought Communism was just a Red Herring!

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 19:18:34 +0000

Could not disagree more. I believe if you read the Starr/Clinton deposition, Clinton asks for a defention of "sexual realtions" and that is what Ken Starr gave him. Blame Starr for the language. No, Cheney was not under oath. But "brefing [sic] congress" and "reported to the Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence" mean very different things. Cheney knows this (he is President of the Senate), and is lying.

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 19:19:04 +0000

Yes, it's a Red Herring. Which is another point I should have commented on. If the Patriot Act means were going to send out two FBI agents everytime a kid with a passport requests the Peking version of The Little Red Book, we are making a colossal mistake in allocating resources for prosecuting the war on terror.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-19 19:20:21 +0000

Posted by Miriam on 2005-12-19 19:25:19 +0000

I'm with you! Instead of wasting resources on folks who check out books and the baseball player/steriod-use controversy, why not get us out of Iraq, rebuild the Gulf Coast, or help the poor/elderly?! Oh, right. We live in America.

Posted by Null Protocol on 2005-12-19 19:31:29 +0000

You Must Cut down the tallest tree in the forest ....with....a......HERRING!!!

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-19 19:40:08 +0000

How about: Cheney lies more frequently and more egregiously than Clinton?

Posted by Null Protocol on 2005-12-20 13:16:14 +0000

From Opinionjournal.com: Thank You for Wiretapping Why the Founders made presidents dominant on national security. Tuesday, December 20, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold wants to be President, and that's fair enough. By all means go for it in 2008. The same applies to Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who's always on the Sunday shows fretting about the latest criticism of the Bush Administration's prosecution of the war on terror. But until you run nationwide and win, Senators, please stop stripping the Presidency of its Constitutional authority to defend America. That is the real issue raised by the Beltway furor over last week's leak of National Security Agency wiretaps on international phone calls involving al Qaeda suspects. The usual assortment of Senators and media potentates is howling that the wiretaps are "illegal," done "in total secret," and threaten to bring us a long, dark night of fascism. "I believe it does violate the law," averred Mr. Feingold on CNN Sunday. The truth is closer to the opposite. What we really have here is a perfect illustration of why America's Founders gave the executive branch the largest measure of Constitutional authority on national security. They recognized that a committee of 535 talking heads couldn't be trusted with such grave responsibility. There is no evidence that these wiretaps violate the law. But there is lots of evidence that the Senators are "illegally" usurping Presidential power--and endangering the country in the process. The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But no Administration then or since has ever conceded that that Act trumped a President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it. FISA established a process by which certain wiretaps in the context of the Cold War could be approved, not a limit on what wiretaps could ever be allowed. The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis], held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." And further that "we take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power." On Sunday Mr. Graham opined that "I don't know of any legal basis to go around" FISA--which suggests that next time he should do his homework before he implies on national TV that a President is acting like a dictator. (Mr. Graham made his admission of ignorance on CBS's "Face the Nation," where he was representing the Republican point of view. Democrat Joe Biden was certain that laws had been broken, while the two journalists asking questions clearly had no idea what they were talking about. So much for enlightening television.) The mere Constitution aside, the evidence is also abundant that the Administration was scrupulous in limiting the FISA exceptions. They applied only to calls involving al Qaeda suspects or those with terrorist ties. Far from being "secret," key Members of Congress were informed about them at least 12 times, President Bush said yesterday. The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about them. Inside the executive branch, the process allowing the wiretaps was routinely reviewed by Justice Department lawyers, by the Attorney General personally, and with the President himself reauthorizing the process every 45 days. In short, the implication that this is some LBJ-J. Edgar Hoover operation designed to skirt the law to spy on domestic political enemies is nothing less than a political smear. All the more so because there are sound and essential security reasons for allowing such wiretaps. The FISA process was designed for wiretaps on suspected foreign agents operating in this country during the Cold War. In that context, we had the luxury of time to go to the FISA court for a warrant to spy on, say, the economic counselor at the Soviet embassy. In the war on terror, the communications between terrorists in Frankfurt and agents in Florida are harder to track, and when we gather a lead the response often has to be immediate. As we learned on 9/11, acting with dispatch can be a matter of life and death. The information gathered in these wiretaps is not for criminal prosecution but solely to detect and deter future attacks. This is precisely the kind of contingency for which Presidential power and responsibility is designed. What the critics in Congress seem to be proposing--to the extent they've even thought much about it--is the establishment of a new intelligence "wall" that would allow the NSA only to tap phones overseas while the FBI would tap them here. Terrorists aren't about to honor such a distinction. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," before 9/11 "our intelligence agencies looked out; our law enforcement agencies looked in. And people could--terrorists could--exploit the seam between them." The wiretaps are designed to close the seam. As for power without responsibility, nobody beats Congress. Mr. Bush has publicly acknowledged and defended his decisions. But the Members of Congress who were informed about this all along are now either silent or claim they didn't get the full story. This is why these columns have long opposed requiring the disclosure of classified operations to the Congressional Intelligence Committees. Congress wants to be aware of everything the executive branch does, but without being accountable for anything at all. If Democrats want to continue this game of intelligence and wiretap "gotcha," the White House should release the names of every Congressman who received such a briefing. Which brings us to this national security leak, which Mr. Bush yesterday called "a shameful act." We won't second-guess the New York Times decision to publish. But everyone should note the irony that both the Times and Washington Post claimed to be outraged by, and demanded a special counsel to investigate, the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, which did zero national security damage. By contrast, the Times' NSA leak last week, and an earlier leak in the Washington Post on "secret" prisons for al Qaeda detainees in Europe, are likely to do genuine harm by alerting terrorists to our defenses. If more reporters from these newspapers now face the choice of revealing their sources or ending up in jail, those two papers will share the Plame blame. The NSA wiretap uproar is one of those episodes, alas far too common, that make us wonder if Washington is still a serious place. Too many in the media and on Capitol Hill have forgotten that terrorism in the age of WMD poses an existential threat to our free society. We're glad Mr. Bush and his team are forcefully defending their entirely legal and necessary authority to wiretap enemies seeking to kill innocent Americans.

Posted by tgl on 2005-12-20 13:39:41 +0000

[snark]Anytime you want to express your own opinion that you've synthesized from various sources, go ahead. [/snark] What security clearance does the WSJ have that they are certain that the Plame outing has done "no damage"? At the very least it's removed a trained professional from the WMD intelligence apparatus. Sounds like damage, or are we as unconcerned with that as the number language experts discharged from the military because of their sexual orientation? Oh No! The terrorists know we are wiretapping! My God! What a cunning plan we've got! Too bad it's blown, those terrorists would never have expected we'd be wiretapping them. I'm not against the wiretapping per se, I'm against the President granting himself oversight privileges that the Founders definitely left in the hands of Congress and the Court. FISA provides that oversight, with almost no barrier to information collection. Nothing stopped the NSA from wiretapping immediately, provided the FISA court was notified within 72 hours. So constraining...

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-12-20 16:41:28 +0000

"There is no evidence that these wiretaps violate the law." chortle inducing... Didn't the President AND Vice say they wiretapped Americans without a court? How does the Opinion Journal feel about Stalin?

Posted by tgl on 2007-05-30 10:46:24 +0000

The CIA makes it clear Plame was covert. The WSJ Opinion Journal must have super secret special knowledge to support the claim that the leak "did zero national security damage"... or maybe they're just talking out their asses.