Grab Bag on a Friday night
Entries Tagged as 'Domestic Spying'
The Errington Thompson Show 7-11-09 with Special Guest Mark Karlin (Buzzflash)
The Errington Thompson Show. My guest is Mark Karlin. We discuss the latest news: the good, the bad… and the ugly!
Life, specifically my job, has been beating me up as of late. After having been up for more than 36 hours, I foolishly thought I could take a two-hour “nap.” That didn’t work out so well for me. I was seriously late for the show. Thanks to Aaron for calling me. I’m eternally grateful to Mark Karlin of Buzzflash.com for being patient enough to wait for me to show up at the studio. Mark — thank you.
We start by talking about Mark Sanford. The embattled governor of South Carolina is part of this shadowy religious organization called The Family. Their headquarters is located in Washington DC in a building called “C Street.” Now this probably wouldn’t be a big deal, except it turns out that several congressmen live in this building while they are in Washington. First of all, I don’t understand a bunch of grown men living like they’re college students again. I’m sorry, I just don’t understand that. Secondly, Senator John Ensign happens to be an active member of this group. So when you put all this extra information together you get — grown men living like college kids, infidelity and a bizarre secretive religious organization. The whole thing just doesn’t seem to add up. Mark Karlin adds a lot of excellent information to this bizarre incident. The Family believes that these leaders were preordained by God to lead Americans.
We discussed the fact that Barack Obama went to Ghana as his first African country to visit. Clearly, Barack Obama made a good choice.
We then segue into talking about the Central Honesty Agency. I think anybody who was thinking at the time that Nancy Pelosi stated that the CIA lied to her and other members of Congress would have thought that this was a no-brainer. As usual, the Republicans jumped on this using their familiar playbook. They pulled out the play named Patriotism and tried to label Nancy Pelosi as unpatriotic and un-American. As this week has unfolded, though, it turns out that the CIA probably did lie to Congress and withheld vital information on domestic spying. The new inspector general’s report clearly states that Congress was not informed about some domestic spying. It appears that Vice President Dick Cheney led the effort to keep Congress in the dark.
I still have to wonder where Congress is. Where are the hard-hitting investigations?
We also learned recently that the force behind Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card going to the bedside of John Ashcroft, who had recently undergone surgery, was not Dick Cheney but instead was George W. Bush. I was kind of surprised by this information. Mark Karlin points out that he and others said Buzzflash.com were following the story carefully several years ago. They reported that the available information at the time suggested it was in fact Bush who ordered these two pawns to Aschcroft’s bedside.
Finally, we end with that story about the Washington Post. The Washington Post seem to be selling access to their writers and op-ed columnists. Mark Karlin mentions that this is why Buzzflash takes donations and donations only. You can donate to Buzzflash here.
This is a fun interview. I hope you enjoy it.
More Lies from John Yoo
I don’t tend to read the Wall Street Journal My excuse is that I can’t read everything. It has been brought to my attention that John Yoo has written an op-ed defending his memos.
Anonymous Liberal (a lawyer) has a long and thoughtful post which dismantles Yoo’s arguments. The following is from AL:
In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, John Yoo has an op-ed defending himself from the malpractice charges set forth in the recent Inspecter General’s report. As with the opinions themselves, the op-ed is deeply disingenuous and misstates the law repeatedly.
Not surprisingly, Yoo begins the op-ed with a collosal straw man. He points out how important it is to intercept al Qaeda communications and writes: “Evidently, none of the inspectors general of the five leading national security agencies would approve.” Of course, the issue is not whether intercepting communications is a good idea, but whether the program violated the law. Yoo was not a policy maker. He was a lawyer. His job was to state what the law was, not what it should be.
Yoo eventually gets around to addressing FISA, but quickly dismisses any notion that FISA might constrain the president:
It is absurd to think that a law like FISA should restrict live military operations against potential attacks on the United States. Congress enacted FISA during the waning days of the Cold War. As the 9/11 Commission found, FISA’s wall between domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence proved dysfunctional and contributed to our government’s failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks. . . .
In FISA, President Bush and his advisers faced an obsolete law not written with live war with an international terrorist organization in mind.
It is difficult to overstate how absurdly dishonest this argument is. The “wall” Yoo is referring to was removed by the Patriot Act, which amended FISA. The Patriot Act was signed into law by President Bush on October 26, 2001, a full week before Yoo submitted his now infamous memo authorizing the NSA program. That day, when the President Bush signed the Patriot Act into law, he said:
Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists. The existing law [FISA] was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones. As of today, we’ll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology.
But let’s not take President Bush’s word for it, here’s what John Yoo himself wrote in 2003, in another op-ed in the Wall Street Journal:
Before the Patriot Act, FISA warrants were issued upon a showing that the “primary purpose” of the surveillance was to gather foreign intelligence information. Both the Department of Justice and the special FISA court that issued the warrants interpreted this language, for reasons known only to themselves, to mean that any such information gathered by counter-intelligence services could not be shared, except under rare circumstances, with law enforcement officials. This “wall” prevented law enforcement officials and counter-intelligence officials from pooling their information–a dangerous and stupid practice given that al Qaeda has demonstrated that terrorists can easily operate outside and inside the United States. The Patriot Act changed the warrant standard from “primary purpose” to “significant purpose” in order to eliminate the wall of separation between foreign threats and domestic crimes . . .
The argument that FISA was some obsolete relic of a law that no longer applied after 9/11 is ludicrous. At the Bush administration’s behest, Congress amended FISA in numerous ways. That was the primary purpose of the Patriot Act. [Read more →]
Bush Appears To Have Spied On Everything And Everyone
I could and was going to write a very lengthy post on this new Inspector General’s Report. I think the revelations are amazing. President George W. Bush and other administration officials knew that they had a program which was illegal. This report is beginning to show us the full extent to which President Bush and others went to lie and to deceive Attorney General John Ashcroft, Deputy Attorney General James Comey and members of Congress.
Keith Olbermann did a good job of summarizing some of most egregious offenses that are outlined in this report. Please watch the video:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Think Progress has a lengthy post with outstanding links. The following is from Think Progress:
A congressionally-mandated report by Inspectors General of five separate intelligence agencies confirms that the Bush administration carried out “unprecedented,” massive surveillance activities beyond the warrantless wirteapping program that had previously been revealed. The Bush administration authorized the program without fully notifying Congress:
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., told The Associated Press she was shocked to learn of the existence of other classified programs beyond the warrantless wiretapping.
Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made a terse reference to other classified programs in an August 2007 letter to Congress. But Harman said that when she had asked Gonzales two years earlier if the government was conducting any other undisclosed intelligence activities, he denied it.
“He looked me in the eye and said ‘no,’” she said Friday.
As ThinkProgress previously reported, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s testimony before Congress implied that “other programs exist for domestic spying” outside of the NSA program. Gonzales even stated in 2007 that “other intelligence activities” existed. The new report found Gonzales’ statements to be “incomplete and confusing” and “inaccurate,” though not intentionally misleading.
Attorney General John Ashcroft had originally given authorization for the program based on a “misimpression” of what activities the NSA was actually conducting. The lack of full disclosure led to the showdown in Ashcroft’s hospital room in 2004, which almost caused a mass resignation at DoJ.
[Read more →]
Holder, the Senate and Domestic Spying
Attorney General Eric Holder testified on Capital Hill yesterday. He had a throw-down with Senator Jeff Sessions.
From TP:
This morning, Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) slammed the Justice Department’s release of Bush-era memos authorizing the use of torture on terrorist suspects, telling Holder that his “predecessor, Judge Mukasey, and Mr. Hayden,” the former Director of National Intelligence, “didn’t approve of that at all.” Holder reminded Sessions that Mukasey and Hayden were no longer in charge:
SESSIONS: Well it was disapproved by your predecessor, Judge Mukasey, and Mr. Hayden, the CIA, um, DIA [sic] director. They didn’t approve of that at all. … You were willing to release matters that the DNI and the Attorney General believe were damaging to our national security.
HOLDER: Well, one attorney general thought that. I am the Attorney General of the United States, and it is this attorney general’s view that the release of that information was appropriate, as well as the president of the United States. I respect their opinion, but I had to make the decision, holding the office that I now hold.
So, in my mind, this was a good exchange for Eric Holder. On the other hand, it seems that Attorney General Holder had a very hard time saying that violating the FISA law was a criminal act. I know why he wouldn’t say the obvious. That would mean that he would have to immediately start prosecuting Bush officials. He probably isn’t ready for that yet.
From EmptyWheel:
By far the most disturbing part of the Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing today came when Russ Feingold asked Eric Holder whether he stands by a statement he made before the American Constitution Society last year.
In the midst of a speech that repeated “rule of law” like a Greek Chorus, after introducing this passage from his speech by saying certain steps taken by the Bush Administration “were unlawful,” Holder said, “I never thought a President would act in direct defiance of federal law by authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of American citizens.”
When Feingold asked Holder whether he stands by that statement, Holder ignored the early part of his speech where he described all of Bush’s abuses to be “unlawful,” and instead tried to claim he was narrowly saying that Bush simply “contravened” FISA. (more…)
Finally, it looks as if the NSA has been looking at everyone’s emails… not just the terrorists’. Former President Bill Clinton’s email was viewed by NSA trainees.
From NYT:
Since April, when it was disclosed that the intercepts of some private communications of Americans went beyond legal limits in late 2008 and early 2009, several Congressional committees have been investigating. Those inquiries have led to concerns in Congress about the agency’s ability to collect and read domestic e-mail messages of Americans on a widespread basis, officials said. Supporting that conclusion is the account of a former N.S.A. analyst who, in a series of interviews, described being trained in 2005 for a program in which the agency routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants. Two intelligence officials confirmed that the program was still in operation.
Both the former analyst’s account and the rising concern among some members of Congress about the N.S.A.’s recent operation are raising fresh questions about the spy agency.
Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, has been investigating the incidents and said he had become increasingly troubled by the agency’s handling of domestic communications. (more…)
Keith Olbermann has James Risen, reporter from the New York Times, on his show to chat about these latest developments.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
What’s going on – New Roundup
Monday morning news Roundup
- Department of Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano defended the somewhat “controversial” report which really found what we already knew: that right-wing extremists are targeting veterans just returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. This is a no-brainer, but somehow the folks at Fox News tried to turn this into a “war on veterans.” If you were a right-wing extremist, whom would you target? You would want to look for someone who was ultra-nationalistic. Who would that be?
- Jay Bybee needs to be impeached. He’s one of the authors of the four torture memos and now sits on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Melissa, from Shakesville, correctly calls out Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Governor Palin recently spoke at a anti-abortion group and stated that “there, just for a fleeting moment, I thought, I knew, nobody knows me here. No one would ever know. I thought, wow, it is easy. It could be easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances. No one would know.” She’s talking about possibly aborting her youngest child. Governor Palin, as usual, is full of horse hockey. Palin is trying to say that she identifies with women who go through these emotions but 73% of women who have abortions state they did it for financial reasons. Governor Palin isn’t rich but she’s not poor either.
- It has been 15 years since Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa. South Africa now enters a critical period in their development. Is South Africa really going to be different than the rest of Africa? Is their prosperity going to be widely shared or is it going to be concentrated among a selected few hands? Here’s a great article on where South Africa is now.
- President Barack Obama is keeping his word. He is doing a lot of listening at this Western hemispheric summit. There’s a lot of discussion about Cuba and the ineffective 47-year-old embargo. Venezuela’s “president” Hugo Chavez is playing the class clown as expected. Yet, I think that President Obama is convincing leaders that the United States wants to be an equal partner as we go forward.
- Representative Jane Harmon (D) seems to be in a world of trouble. It appears that one of those NSA wiretaps has caught her making some kind of deal. TPM has more.
- BTW, what happened to the guys of the Jena 6?
This is not tyranny — you just lost an election
Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has an excellent segment in which he points out a lot of the craziness, hyperbole, hyper-inflated rhetoric and lies that have been emanating from the Right. I’ve talked about this almost exclusively over the last several days. I continue to be amazed that anyone believes that Michelle Bachmann is not the most irresponsible congresswoman in America.
Thom Hartmann made an extremely interesting comment yesterday. He was verbally excoriating the Obama administration for their seeming disregard for the Fourth Amendment (“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”) Thom Hartmann, like Glenn Greenwald, saw the filing by the Justice Department (late last week) as an expansion of the Bush administration’s state secrets and, according to Glenn, “a brand new ’sovereign immunity’ claim of breathtaking scope — never before advanced, even by the Bush administration, — that the Patriot Act bars any lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance unless there is “willful disclosure” of the illegally intercepted communications.” (It seems like I’m getting hopelessly off the point but I’m not.) Thom Hartmann said that this is something that the Right should be legitimately upset about. For some reason, the talking heads on the right seem to be fixated on the Second Amendment and completely ignoring the Fourth. This is something where there are genuine facts. There is a brief but has been filed by Obama’s Justice Department. Yet, this is barely been covered on Fox News (to the best of my knowledge).
So, we have a legitimate issue which the Right should be completely outraged over and they’re not. On the other hand, we have an issue that is completely made up (Obama is going to take your gun) and the Right are completely losing their minds.
Watch the video:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Baracknophobia – Obey | ||||
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New Memos are Mind-numbing
To expand on an item that I mentioned last night: These new memos are truly remarkable. In the post-9/11 confusion, John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Special Counsel, and Robert Delahunty, a special counsel, wrote extraordinary memos. Basically, as they saw it, the president had the power to do anything and ignore everyone. They saw a “legal” way to do anything. There is much, much more to this story. Keith talked about it last night. Watch:
From NYT:
“The law has recognized that force (including deadly force) may be legitimately used in self-defense,” Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty wrote to Mr. Gonzales. Therefore any objections based on the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches are swept away, they said, since any possible privacy offense resulting from such a search is a lesser matter than any injury from deadly force.
The Oct. 23 memorandum also said that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” It added that “the current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”
Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty said that in addition, the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally bars the military from domestic law enforcement operations, would pose no obstacle to the use of troops in a domestic fight against terrorism suspects. They reasoned that the troops would be acting in a national security function, not as law enforcers.
In another of the opinions, Mr. Yoo argued in a memorandum dated Sept. 25, 2001, that judicial precedents approving deadly force in self-defense could be extended to allow for eavesdropping without warrants. (more… )
More on NSA spying
Thanks to Stu for the heads up.
RS has several stories on the NSA. First -
On Wednesday night, when former NSA analyst Russell Tice told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann that the Bush administration’s National Security Agency spied on everyone in the United States, specifically targeting journalists, the Countdown host was so flabbergasted that Tice was invited back for a second interview.
On Thursday, he returned to the airwaves with expanded allegations against the NSA, claiming the agency collected Americans’ credit card records, and adding that he believes the massive, warrantless data vacuum to be the remnants of the Total Information Awareness program, shut down by Congress in 2003.
Asked for comment by Olbermann’s staff, the agency responded, “NSA considers the constitutional rights of US citizens to be sacrosanct. The intelligence community faces immense challenges in protecting our nation. No matter the challenges, NSA remains dedicated to performing its mission under the rule of law.”
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Next, Senator Rockefeller of the Senate Intelligence Committee stated that he thinks that he was spied on.
NSA spying on reporters? (update)
Countdown with Keith Olbermann reveals what liberals have suspected for over 3 years. The Bush administration have been listening in on more than just overseas calls to terrorists. Russell Tice, former NSA employee, reveals that the NSA has collected data on reporters working for all of the major news organizations. This is Enemy of the State stuff.
Watch the video (update below the video):
Update from TP (I would like to thank TP for posting something that was more complete than what I posted):
Last night on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” former analyst for the National Security Agency Russell Tice revealed that the NSA had “monitored all communications” of Americans and specifically targeted journalists:
TICE: The National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications — faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications. And it didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made any foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications. […] But an organization that was collected on were U.S. news organizations and reporters and journalists.
OLBERMANN: To what purpose? I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every e-mail sent by all the reporters at the “New York Times?” Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York? Is it like that?
TICE: If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything. Yes. It would be everything.
Tice, a major whistleblower who helped reveal President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program to the New York Times in 2005, also told Olbermann that the agency sought specifically “to be deceptive” to prevent congressional committees from learning more about the program, calling it “a shell game”:
TICE: The agency would tailor some of their briefings to try to be deceptive for — whether it be, you know, a congressional committee or someone they really didn’t want to know exactly what was going on. So there would be a lot of bells and whistles in a briefing, and quite often, you know, the meat of the briefing was deceptive.
In October, two other whistleblowers told ABC News that the NSA “routinely” listened in on Americans’ phone calls and agents would often share “salacious or tantalizing” intercepted calls with each other. All this despite Bush’s frequent protestations that his illegal wiretaping program was “limited,” that it targeted only “a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect,” and that he ensured “that our civil liberties of our citizens are treated with respect.”
To the end, Bush and Cheney defended the program. In his final days in office, Cheney declared that “it always aggravated” him that the Times won a Pulitzer for exposing his administration’s illegal spying program.
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Keith will be interviewing Tice again tonight. Wonder what questions Keith is going to ask? Why were you fired? What questions would you ask?
What’s going on – Monday News Roundup
Monday Evening News Roundup
My five-year-old grandson learned today about Martin Luther King. He asked his mom to call me so that we could talk. You see, my grandson is white and I’m black. It has been the topic of a few conversations because not much gets by five-year-olds. As a grandfather, it is my duty to buy Legos, Transformers, a super train set and Ironman for the Xbox 360. So how do you explain racial discrimination to a five-year-old who admires his grandfather?
- Ann Coulter went on The View today and ran into a group of women who don’t cower when she gets loud and boisterous.
- Barack Obama has formally asked President George Bush to release the rest of the financial bailout money. George Bush must request this money from Congress. It’s not clear to me what happens if Congress says no. Larry Summers has sent a three-paged proposal of what the Obama administration plans to do with the money and (this is important) how to track the money to make sure that it is being spent as intended.
- There’s been a lot of speculation and handwringing among progressives over Guantánamo Bay. Barack Obama has been intentionally vague. Today, the New York Times reports that Barack Obama will issue an executive order closing Guantánamo Bay in his first week in office. I suspect that the handwringing will continue until Barack Obama decides what he’s going to do about torture, renditions and legal domestic spying.
- According to magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis, super-crook Bernard Madoff is not a security or flight risk. He therefore remains free on bail. This is the same guy who wrote $173 million in checks to friends and family. It sure seemed like he could have been trying to stash money to get out of the country. Maybe he just felt like his friends and family needed money.
- Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase all finished lower today. They helped drag the stock market down approximately 2%.
- The Washington Post has finally gotten around to saying what economists and I have been saying for over three years. From an economic standpoint, the Bush administration has done very little to help the economy. “President Bush has presided over the weakest eight-year span for the US economy in decades.”
- Hackers tried to take down Soapblox as I mentioned earlier. Jeffery Tobin has the story.
BMJ – Glenn Greenwald
I have had Glenn Greenwald on my show many times in the past couple of years. We have discussed Glenn’s three books and his views on domestic spying and unlimited detention. He does a very good job of summarizing President Bush’s legacy. This video is very good.
Bill Moyers Journal - Glenn Greenwald - part 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download BMJ - Greenwald - part 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadWhat’s Going On: Evening News Roundup
Here’s the Saturday evening news roundup:
- Chinese astronauts experienced their first spacewalks. Congratulations to China. Now, let’s see, the Soviets did their first spacewalk on March 18, 1965. American Astronaut Ed White walked on June 3, 1965.
- Zimbabwe is in the midst of a huge food crisis.
- There is evidence to suggest that Pakistani tribesmen in the northwest frontier are beginning to rise up against the Islamic extremists. I wonder if the Pakistan government or the U.S. government are supplying these tribesmen? This seems to be remarkably similar to the “Sunni Awakening.”
- At home, what happened on Thursday? Remember, around noon on Thursday it appeared there was a bailout deal. Then, a couple of hours later, there was no deal. The Washington Post has an interesting article today about these negotiations. It appears that Republican nominee John McCain played a central role in derailing the process. It is not clear whether this was intentional or not, but Republicans like Representative Paul Ryan (Wisconsin), ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, were waiting to talk to someone and McCain was that someone. After listening to House Republicans, McCain went to the Senate. He attended a Senate Republican policy luncheon. Senators Robert Bennett (Utah) and Judd Gregg (New Hampshire) explained the contours of the bailout agreement. Then McCain said, “Just like Iraq, I’m not afraid to go it alone if I need to.” Just like that, the deal had gone up in smoke. Is this an example of McCain putting his Country First?
- In 1992, Sweden underwent a huge financial crisis. Sweden did not bail out their ailing financial institutions. Instead, they bought huge stakes in the banking industry. They increased regulation. Then, as their economy began to heal, banking profits went to the government and the taxpayers. The government was then able to sell off some of its banking assets, making more profits for the taxpayers. Proposing something like this is laughable in the United States. Republicans, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and probably anarchists would all be dead-set against such a plan. This type of plan would be dead on arrival in Congress.
- The new National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan has been prepared and it is ready but will not be released to the public. The Bush administration thinks it’s in our best interest. Maybe it’s in the best interest of neoconservatives that their major failures stay hidden and under wraps before a major election.
- Remember when Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified that White House Chief of Staff Andy Card and then Chief White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales visited John Ashcroft in his hospital room trying to get re-authorization of the double secret surveillance program? There was speculation that the only way that Card and Gonzales would bother the Attorney General while he was in the hospital would be a under the direction of President Bush. Well, it appears that President Bush was directly involved.
- Fifty-seven million people watched last night’s debate. It is nice to see the country engaged in possibly the most important election in the last 40 years.
- Someone on the McCain campaign team thought it would be a great idea to send Governor Sarah Palin into an Irish pub in downtown Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the city that is known for pelting Santa Claus with snowballs during an Eagles game. Although there were about 400 supporters inside the pub, there were approximately 300 protesters outside of the pub. Some of the signs read: “McSame/Failin’;” “Hey Hockey Mom — keep the puck out of PA;” “Just like Bush in lipstick.” Sweet!
- Finally, where was Governor Palin after the debate last night? Senator Joe Biden was everywhere, making Palin’s absence even more noticeable. One Republican columnist thinks it’s time for the Sarah Palin experiment to end. She has asked her to resign.
The Errington Thompson Show 7-12-08
Oh, there is plenty to talk about. Tony Snow has passed. The great cardiac surgeon Michael Debakey also died 99 years old. The FISA bill passed the Senate with about half of the Democrats voting for the bill– so disappointing. I talk with Barry Summers, a local activist, about a Parkside protest that he and several other activists are having on Tuesday, July 16 at 4:30 pm. Great show. Enjoy.
Senate Dems Roll Over for Bush
I have talked about the FISA legislation ad naseum. When people say that we need a third party that truly represents the people, this is what they mean. The Democrats have just gave President Bush everything that he could have possibly wished for. Progressives and the Fourth Amendment lost. Americans lost, but the telecoms won.
Glenn Greenwald has a long and thoughtful discussion on Congress and what the ACLU is planning.
Senate Hands Bush FISA
With money from the telecoms, the Bush administration will be getting their way today as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) legislation seems to be set for passage. Below you’ll see Rachael Maddow discussing the latest with Jonathon Turley, law professor at George Washington University.
I have talked about the FISA bill on a number of occasions (here, here and here). There is no reason for the Democrats to pass this legislation, except perhaps the fear of being labeled. Democrats need to stop with the fear and stand up for the Fourthth Amendment.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Finally, I must add that I am very disappointed in Senator Barack Obama’s “centrist” position on this bill. He is not standing up for principles. Instead, he is stooping to political maneuvering by taking a position that really will not upset either side in the debate too much. I had expected more. I expected a different type of politician. But it looks like I have the same old type of politician just packaged a little differently. I’m disappointed in Democrats in general, but specifically in Obama. There is no principle that can’t be bent or run over if there is some perception of a political advantage.
In case you missed it, Jonathan Turley mentioned the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc. v. Bush case. There is an excellent article in Salon.com about this case –
On July 3, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court in California made a ruling particularly worthy of the nation’s attention. In Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc. v. Bush, a key case in the epic battle over warrantless spying inside the United States, Judge Walker ruled, effectively, that President George W. Bush is a felon.
Judge Walker held that the president lacks the authority to disregard the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA — which means Bush’s warrantless electronic surveillance program was illegal. Whether Bush will ultimately be held accountable for violating federal law with the program remains unclear. Bush administration lawyers have fought vigorously — at times using brazen, logic-defying tactics — to prevent that from happening. The court battle will continue to play out as Congress continues to battle over recasting FISA and possibly granting immunity to telecom companies involved in the illegal surveillance. (more… )
Update: As usual, Glenn Greenwald is all over this story. He continues to write intelligently and forcefully on FISA.
Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan noted the post I wrote this weekend regarding why telecom immunity is so destructive and corrupt. But Sullivan then wrote: “In the period after 9/11 in question, I do not find these cardinal sins. Venial maybe.” Had this surveillance lawbreaking been confined to the weeks or even months after the 9/11 attack, that might be true. Even EFF’s lead counsel, Cindy Cohn, said that had the illegal spying occurred only during that time period, it’s unlikely that even they would have objected and sued.
But the reality is that the Government and the telecoms broke the law, not for weeks or months, but for years — well into 2007. They continued to do so even after the New York Times exposed what they were doing. They could have brought their spying activities into a legal framework at any time, but chose instead to spy on Americans in exactly the way our laws criminalize. Manifestly, then, national security had nothing to do with why they did it. The Bush administration chose to do so because they wanted to eavesdrop without oversight and to establish that neither Congress nor the courts can limit what the President does, and telecoms did not want to jeopardize the massive government surveillance contracts they have by refusing. (more… )
Senator Feingold on FISA
Senator Russ Feingold has a little more to say on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA): We have more work to do. So, enjoy July 4th, be safe, but get ready to rumble after the holiday.
Update: Obama Moving to the Center
Progressives, including myself, have become somewhat disillusioned over the last couple of days as we watched our candidate seem to drop some of his core beliefs and move towards the center. I have no problem with a politician changing their mind. Heck, if President Bush would have changed his mind, we could have had our troops home four years ago. So, changing one’s mind is not necessarily a bad thing. What made Senator Barack Obama different was that he offered a new kind of politics, one that was not about political calculation but instead was about doing the right thing. Over the last seven days, it seems that we are seeing political calculation more than anything else.
The FISA bill may pose a conundrum for some politicians. Some may believe that they will be portrayed as weak and “supporting the terrorists” if they oppose this piece of legislation. I believe that there are two principles at stake with this legislation. First, all spying on Americans with regards to national intelligence should go through the FISA courts. Remember that during Alberto Gonzales’s tenure, the Bush White House decided that the FISA courts were too slow and too cumbersome. Therefore, they bypassed the court. This piece of legislation will prevent that bypass (in theory). Secondly, this piece of legislation offers immunity to the telecoms. I think the telecoms you get immunity if I can also get immunity from not paying my taxes for the next five years. I’m just saying…
So in this legislation there is a small sliver of good and a larger slice of bad.
Faith-based initiatives were a cornerstone of President Bush’s 2000 campaign. Unfortunately, as we have now found out, they were more about funneling money into the pockets of people that Bush liked. The program was less about helping the poor or decreasing inner-city violence. As a matter of fact, it had nothing to do with those kind of charitable issues. The program was about keeping the religious evangelicals in support of the Bush administration. Therefore, programs like intelligent design, abstinence-only, and similar programs were pushed by this faith-based initiative.
Obama’s proposal is not an update on Bush’s program, but instead it’s a complete reform or overhaul on this program. Anyone who has read his book The Audacity of Hope, understands that Obama is a man of faith. They should also understand that faith plays an important part in his life. I don’t necessarily have a problem with this. I’ll wait and see how things shake out.
Now Obama’s recent stance on NAFTA is a little bit more confusing. During the primaries, it appeared that Obama wanted to take a hard look at this treaty and possibly renegotiate some of aspects. Recent statements seem to contradict this. For the last eight years, “free trade” has meant more profits for companies and more layoffs of American workers. This trend must stop if we are going to restore the middle class.
As a matter of fact, I’m surprised that Mexico hasn’t tried to renegotiate this deal. Jobs that originally went to Mexico have now gone to China, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Why? Mexico was too expensive so it is now left with empty factories. Relatedly, the U.S. has unemployed workers, idle factories, and larger mansions.
I have not seen any convincing evidence to show that NAFTA has helped the American worker. If I am shown convincing evidence, I’ll rethink my position but currently I will support most measures that will strengthen unions and help the American worker. So I don’t think I can agree with Obama in this situation. [Read more →]
Countdown – Special Comment, FISA and Barack Obama
Congratulations, Glenn Greenwald. Glenn Greenwald challenged both Barack Obama and Keith Olbermann over this FISA legislation. The bottom line, as Glenn pointed out, was that Barack Obama stood firmly against immunity for the telecom companies during the primaries. Now that he is one step away from the White House, he appears to be playing politics, and backing off from this pledge.
Keith Olbermann did his homework, or rather, he had John Dean do his homework for him. Over the weekend, John Dean not only read the FISA legislation also looked at related statutes. He concluded that the telecom companies would be immune from civil lawsuits but not from criminal prosecution. Therefore, Barack Obama can vote for the FISA legislation and still pledge to prosecute any criminal activity of the telephone companies. This would be something. But for me, I would like to see Barack Obama say no telecom immunity. No! Then, follow up with a pledge that if criminal wrongdoing is found he would instruct the attorney general to prosecute.
With John McCain cranking up the rhetoric on Barack Obama’s campaign-finance “flip-flop,” I think it is important that he (Obama) takes a stand on principle. The Republicans are going to do what they’re going to do (lie and distort). Therefore, it is critical for Barack Obama to decide where he’s going to stand in this election.
Congratulations to Glenn Greenwald (Glenn’s Olbermann posts – here and here. Glenn’s original post on FISA and Obama here.) It is rare for a blogger to have any influence of the world on which he blogs. Glenn’s arguments are thoughtful and well researched. It is very hard to argue with Glenn… and win.
The Errington Thompson Show – 06-28-08
Great Show. I chat with Glenn Greenwald about FISA and the Democrats inability to stand up and say no more. I then switch gears and talk with local author Cecil Bothwell who has been covering the Pak Square “illegal” sale of land and the indictment and conviction of Sheriff Bobby Medford. I give away another $75!! Just listen and you can win.
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Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
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