from
… [S]ince the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] statute provides a five-year prison term for intentionally engaging in electronic surveillance under the color of law, and the surveillance has been ongoing since 2002 and has been reauthorized every 45 days, then Bush has violated this statute on at least 24 occasions. Since the action was also specifically approved by the Attorney General, then Alberto Gonzales, the current attorney general, has apparently violated this statute at least 7 times, and John Ashcroft, who preceded Gonzales, is responsible for at least 16 violations.
What we are seeing is a concerted effort to render the Fourth Amendment ineffective. FISA has been found to be constitutional, and contains an out that Bush has eschewed: this act allows a warrant to be issued if necessary up to 72 hours after the fact.
… Bush has become an enemy from which he swore to protect and defend the Constitution. Therefore, Congress must fulfill its obligation to protect and defend the Constitution by removing Bush from office. From what Bush himself has explained, there are at least 24 impeachable offenses just from this policy.
from
The bottom line is, like so many things the administration does, this is evil and retarded on so many fucking levels it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly I find most repugnant about it. The defenses offered thus far by administration apologists and certain other ignorami have been so poorly thought out and contemptuously asinine that I cannot even believe they are given airtime, let alone taken seriously by the so-called journalists of the American media…
These wiretaps are a flagrant affront to the rule of law, and – as with the McCain torture bill – it disgusts me that their legality has even been debated to the extent that it has. What the president has admitted to doing is clearly, facially illegal. God knows he’s done a lot of awful things during his tenure in office, and this probably isn’t the worst of it, but I can think of no other time when he has so openly admitted to what are pretty clearcut impeachable offenses. Any member of Congress who refuses to impeach Bush for this has absolutely no right to ever criticize any president for doing anything, ever again. Bush must be impeached for this. If not next year, then in ’07, hopefully with a congress slightly less detached from reality. But it’s totally on now. There’s no going back. To repeat my oft-spoken mantra: CALL YOUR FUCKING CONGRESSMAN. Call your senators. But especially your congressperson. The House of Representatives as sole authority to impeach officials. It is time they exercise that authority.
i did
Bush to continue domestic spying
By David Jackson and John Diamond
USA TODAY
Tue Dec 20, 2005
President Bush made an unapologetic defense Monday of a controversial program to spy on some Americans’ international phone calls without court warrants, vowing to continue it as long as the nation faces "an enemy that wants to kill American citizens."
Bush said during a news conference that the program "has been effective in disrupting the enemy," and is limited to people with "known al-Qaeda ties and/or affiliates."
Three Democratic senators called for suspension of the formerly top-secret program until Congress can hold hearings on its legality. "He is the president, not a king," said Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., who was joined by Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
During his 56-minute news conference, the president also hailed last week’s elections in
Iraq and blasted senators who blocked reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act. That law gave additional powers to federal law enforcement after the Sept. 11 attacks but is set to expire at the end of this month.
Senators from both parties raised civil liberties concerns about the Patriot Act as well as the domestic spying conducted by the National Security Agency. Four GOP senators joined most Democrats in blocking Senate renewal of the Patriot Act, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., called the spying "inappropriate" and promised hearings.
Bush justified the phone-monitoring program under the constitutional requirement that presidents protect and defend the country; he also cited the 2001 congressional authority permitting military force against al-Qaeda, passed after the 9/11 attacks. He said congressional leaders have been briefed on the program more than a dozen times.
In calling for suspension, Feingold, Levin and Reed said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 already gives the president power to quickly tap phones, intercept e-mails and seek a warrant after the fact.
"I’m at a loss to understand why they adopted this extreme legal procedure," Reed said.
In speaking with reporters, Bush also:
• Declined to say how many American troops he hopes to pull out of Iraq next year, saying it would be based on conditions there.
• Acknowledged that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has hurt U.S. credibility on other intelligence fronts, including allegations of nuclear development in
Iran. He said there’s been a lot of work to determine "what went right and what went wrong, as well as to build credibility."
• Called the Senate filibuster of the Patriot Act "inexcusable." He said, "I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to go home and explain why these cities are safer."
The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security.
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Dec. 19, 2005
Dec. 19, 2005 – Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate—he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda—but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting,
but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.
The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that "the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy." But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a "shameful act," it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.
No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had "legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force." But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing "all necessary force" in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.
What is especially perplexing about this story is that the 1978 law set up a special court to approve eavesdropping in hours, even minutes, if necessary. In fact, the law allows the government to eavesdrop on its own, then retroactively justify it to the court, essentially obtaining a warrant after the fact. Since 1979, the FISA court has approved tens of thousands of eavesdropping requests and rejected only four. There was no indication the existing system was slow—as the president seemed to claim in his press conference—or in any way required extra-constitutional action.
This will all play out eventually in congressional committees and in the United States Supreme Court. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974.
In the meantime, it is unlikely that Bush will echo President Kennedy in 1961. After JFK managed to tone down a New York Times story by Tad Szulc on the Bay of Pigs invasion, he confided to Times editor Turner Catledge that he wished the paper had printed the whole story because it might have spared him such a stunning defeat in Cuba.
This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason – and less out of genuine concern about national security – that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.
by Jeff Cohen
Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations.
And tell your friends.
Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation’s oil revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is Hugo Chavez. Call him “the Anti-Bush.”
Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes primarily to Venezuela — not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US. (click here to find one near you.) By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela’s democratic government is using to provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.
Instead of using government to help the rich and the corporate, as Bush does, Chavez is using the resources and oil revenue of his government to help the poor in Venezuela. A country with so much oil wealth shouldn’t have 60 percent of its people living in poverty, earning less than $2 per day. With a mass movement behind him, Chavez is confronting poverty in Venezuela. That’s why large majorities have consistently backed him in democratic elections. And why the Bush administration supported an attempted military coup in 2002 that sought to overthrow Chavez.
So this is the opposite of a boycott. Call it a BUYcott. Spread the word.
Of course, if you can take mass transit or bike or walk to your job, you should do so. And we should all work for political changes that move our country toward a cleaner environment based on renewable energy. The BUYcott is for those of us who don’t have a practical alternative to filling up our cars.
So get your gas at Citgo. And help fuel a democratic revolution in Venezuela.
Jeff Cohen is an author and media critic (www.jeffcohen.org)
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
December 20, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 – Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.
F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.’s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.
But the documents, coming after the Bush administration’s confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.
One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a “Vegan Community Project.” Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group’s “semi-communistic ideology.” A third indicates the bureau’s interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week, came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored.
The F.B.I. had previously turned over a small number of documents on antiwar groups, showing the agency’s interest in investigating possible anarchist or violent links in connection with antiwar protests and demonstrations in advance of the 2004 political conventions. And earlier this month, the A.C.L.U.’s Colorado chapter released similar documents involving, among other things, people protesting logging practices at a lumber industry gathering in 2002.
The latest batch of documents, parts of which the A.C.L.U. plans to release publicly on Tuesday, totals more than 2,300 pages and centers on references in internal files to a handful of groups, including PETA, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group, which promotes antipoverty efforts and social causes.
Many of the investigative documents turned over by the bureau are heavily edited, making it difficult or impossible to determine the full context of the references and why the F.B.I. may have been discussing events like a PETA protest. F.B.I. officials say many of the references may be much more benign than they seem to civil rights advocates, adding that the documents offer an incomplete and sometimes misleading snapshot of the bureau’s activities.
“Just being referenced in an F.B.I. file is not tantamount to being the subject of an investigation,” said John Miller, a spokesman for the bureau.
“The F.B.I. does not target individuals or organizations for investigation based on their political beliefs,” Mr. Miller said. “Everything we do is carefully promulgated by federal law, Justice Department guidelines and the F.B.I.’s own rules.”
A.C.L.U officials said the latest batch of documents released by the F.B.I. indicated the agency’s interest in a broader array of activist and protest groups than they had previously thought. In light of other recent disclosures about domestic surveillance activities by the National Security Agency and military intelligence units, the A.C.L.U. said the documents reflected a pattern of overreaching by the Bush administration.
“It’s clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans,” said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.
“You look at these documents,” Ms. Beeson said, “and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they’re talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology.”
The documents indicate that in some cases, the F.B.I. has used employees, interns and other confidential informants within groups like PETA and Greenpeace to develop leads on potential criminal activity and has downloaded material from the groups’ Web sites, in addition to monitoring their protests.
In the case of Greenpeace, which is known for highly publicized acts of civil disobedience like the boarding of cargo ships to unfurl protest banners, the files indicate that the F.B.I. investigated possible financial ties between its members and militant groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.
These networks, which have no declared leaders and are only loosely organized, have been described by the F.B.I. in Congressional testimony as “extremist special interest groups” whose cells engage in violent or other illegal acts, making them “a serious domestic terrorist threat.”
In testimony last year, John E. Lewis, deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, said the F.B.I. estimated that in the past 10 years such groups had engaged in more than 1,000 criminal acts causing more than $100 million in damage.
When the F.B.I. investigates evidence of possible violence or criminal disruptions at protests and other events, those investigations are routinely handled by agents within the bureau’s counterterrorism division.
But the groups mentioned in the newly disclosed F.B.I. files questioned both the propriety of characterizing such investigations as related to “terrorism” and the necessity of diverting counterterrorism personnel from more pressing investigations.
“The fact that we’re even mentioned in the F.B.I. files in connection with terrorism is really troubling,” said Tom Wetterer, general counsel for Greenpeace. “There’s no property damage or physical injury caused in our activities, and under any definition of terrorism, we’d take issue with that.”
Jeff Kerr, general counsel for PETA, rejected the suggestion in some F.B.I. files that the animal rights group had financial ties to militant groups, and said he, too, was troubled by his group’s inclusion in the files.
“It’s shocking and it’s outrageous,” Mr. Kerr said. “And to me, it’s an abuse of power by the F.B.I. when groups like Greenpeace and PETA are basically being punished for their social activism.”