The Blue State

You're no longer a U.S. citizen when making an international call

The wiretap legislation allows the Bush Administration to spy on you without a warrant if you make an international call.  What's next: spying on Americans who visit non-U.S. web sites?  Talk about isolationism!

Arlen Specter's (D-PA) wiretap bill is on the verge of possibly sneaking through the Senate by the slimmest of margins.  But according to a Justice Department spokesman, the bill would allow the NSA to conduct warrantless wiretaps of American citizens:

The program approved by Mr. Bush “does allow for the interceptionwithout court order of international communications where one end iswithin the United States, and this agreement would provide thisauthority and would establish a process for moving to individualizedcourt orders with respect to individuals within the United States,”said Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman. He declined toelaborate.

See, here's the problem.  Arlen Specter is trying to make this look like a compromise -- in that if it's a U.S. call a warrant is required, but if it's an international call then a warrant is not required to wiretap.  Fair deal, right?

But it should have nothing to do where the call is going, but instead who is making the call.  If there is an American citizen at a U.S. phone, then that person should have full privacy protections under the constitution.  According to the 1978 Foreign Surveillance Act, no calls -- regardless of whether one or two on the line are from the U.S. -- can be wiretapped unless there is warrant.  That is the law.  But under this bill, things will be changed drastically.

So instead of one side getting something out of this deal, the Administration manipulated Specter to give the White House exactly what they wanted, while at the same time making it appear like a compromise. We're taking a giant leap backward by telling Americans that they are no longer entitled to the same protections under the law once they place an international phone call. 

What's next: the Administration monitoring all Americans on the internet because it's the "world wide web?"  Not to sound too much like John Stossel, but give me a break!

Let me be even more clear: my objection is not with warrantless wiretaps themselves, but with the consistency of the law.  If you are going to make it legal for warrantless wiretapping of Americans who place an international call, then why not legalize such wiretaps on Americans making U.S. calls as well?  What's the difference?  Are we not supposed to be talking with foreigners?  Now there's a isolationist mindset if I ever saw one!

Oh, and did you know that the GOP want to put the wiretap and torture bills together into one giant legislation?  That is a topic for another debate.
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Other progressive sites blogging about this issue: The State Roots Project, Liberty for All, The Unknown Candidate, Unclaimed Territory, Daily Kos, Swift Speech, The Real Spiel, Disgrunt, Saving the World.

Bush might get Congressional pardon

Arlen Specter (R-PA) has a wiretap bill that is pending a vote in the U.S. Senate.  The bill would allow electronic surveillance of Americans for up to seven days without a warrant from the FISA court.  This alters the 1978 Foreign Surveillance Act, which strictly outlawed domestic warrantless wiretaps.

Even more importantly, because the bill would make domestic warrantless wiretaps partly legal, the Administration officials that have broken the law up to this point would be granted immunity.  MoveOn.org is raising awareness about this bill, and wants users to sign a petition to stop the vote:

This week, the Senate is planning to quietly hold a vote that wouldpardon President Bush for breaking the law by illegally wiretappinginnocent Americans. So far, Democrats and some Republicans are holdingstrong against the bill, and there are good chances to stop it ifenough of us speak up.

This is good news for President Bush, just in case the Democrats take back both the House and Senate.  However, there are few who think that Bush would be impeached even if a huge shift in Congressional seats took place on election day.

That isn't stopping a few local groups from putting impeachment on the ballot:

• The Badger Herald is reporting that Wisconsin Rapids is considering whether to put an impeachment referendum on the local ballot.  The Wisconsin Common Council President opposes it.  "If [the voters] want a referendum, that’s fine, let them have one,”Paterick said. “To me, I think the opposite — if we weren’t in Iraqright now, we might be getting bombed here."  Okay, that's about enough of that rhetoric!
• 38 U.S. House Reps. are supporting a bill that would create a Select Committee devoted to studying whether President Bush conducted any impeachable offense.  But 38 Reps. is probably all the support that bill will get.  There are more than 200 Democratic Reps. all together, and there is virtually no support for impeachment at all.
• Meanwhile, the conservative National Review blog is trying to scare people into thinking that if the Democrats take back the House they will impeach Bush.
• The Spectrum, a Southern Utah newspaper, is trying to stop the GOP scare tactic about impeachment.  The newspaper explained that the Democrats don't want to impeach Bush; and even if they did, they need a 2/3 vote in the Senate.  "While it is true that a simple majority is allthat is necessary to pass articles of impeachment in the House ofRepresentatives, a two-thirds vote is required in the Senate to convictan individual and remove them from office."

But this isn't just about impeachment, nor is it just about President Bush.  It is about precedent.  If the wiretap bill passes and all Administration officials are granted immunity, then whenever the Administration knowingly breaks a law in the future they can just ask Congress to pass a bill to make it legal.  This sort of thing happens when you have a GOP Congressional majority that does whatever the Executive Branch tells them to do.

Wiretap program may have been pre-9/11 decision

Today, the news that the White House is being subpoenaed in a suit brought by hundreds of plaintiffs hit the blogosphere like a tidal wave (or, due to the sensitivity of the anniversary of hurricane Katrina, maybe the phrase "like a bullet" is more appropriate!).

The blog Raw Story, which has obtained a copy of the subpoena targeting the Administration, is reporting that subpoenas are on their way to the White House in an effort to find out the details of President Bush's warrantless domestic wiretap program.  The lawsuit also seeks to determine whether phone companies violated the 1996 Telecommunications Act by handing over customer information to the government.

And as the Associated Press adds, more importantly, this will hopefully shed some light on when Bush's secret warrantless domestic wiretap program began.  In other words, did the monitoring start even before September 11, 2001?:

The lawyers said they suspected the administration had begunobtaining the records even before the Sept. 11 attacks, which, if true,would raise questions about whether the program was initiated to combatterrorism.

"We want to find out when they started going after these records. Wewant to find out who authorized it. Was it Dick Cheney? Was it someoneelse? And, frankly, we want to find out if they were using itimproperly," Mayer said.

Keep in mind that the Patriot Act was actually all planned out before the 9/11 attacks.  I wouldn't be surprised if this warrantless domestic wiretap program had the same pattern of origination.  Remember, ever since he was sworn in as Vice President, one of Dick Cheney's goals has been to increase the power of the Executive that he felt had declined after the Watergate scandal.

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Other sites blogging about this story: Hold the Phone, Jazz from Hell, Left Word, Huffington Post, Intoxination, Pogo was Right, View from the Bridge, Crimes and Corruptions of the New World, The Moderate Observer, Newsvine, The Push Journal, Green Sand.

Specter's bill allows unrestrained spying power each time Congress declares war

Arlen Specter's compromise with Dick Cheney on warrantless domestic wiretaps is really not a compromise at all.  It would completely amend the 1978 Foreign Surveillance Act, which until now indicates that a warrant from the FISA court is needed before spying on Americans in this country for terrorist reasons.

But the bill before Congress, S.2453, would give President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales unrestrained wiretap power for 45 days each time that the Congress declares war.  Read this part of the bill:

Sec. 706. EMERGENCY AUTHORIZATION
`Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the President, through theAttorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a courtorder under this title to, acquire foreign intelligence information fora period not to exceed 45 days following a declaration of war byCongress.'.

To add even more power, the President does not have to consult members of Congress any more than once every six months on the issue of electronic surveillance:

`(1) IN GENERAL- In addition to any reports required under subsection(a), the President shall, not later than 6 months after the date ofenactment of this Act and every 6 months thereafter, fully inform eachmember of the congressional intelligence committees (or anysubcommittee thereof designated for oversight of electronicsurveillance programs under this title) on all electronic surveillanceconducted under the electronic surveillance program.

What is going on here?  Why is no one else talking about this?
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Other sites blogging about this issue: Orinkerr, Blatch, Pennsylvania Criminal Defense, William K. Wolfrum, Cut to the Chase, Madness Counseling, Out of the Mountains.

Mehlman lies about Democrats' position on eavesdropping

Chairman Ken Mehlman used the Republican National Committee's summer meeting as a forum to distort the Democrats' national security stance.  On the issue of government eavesdropping, Mehlman claimed that the Democrats oppose eavesdropping on terrorists:

"America faces a critical question," Mehlman said. "Will we electleaders who recognize we're at war and want to use every tool to winit, or politicians who would surrender important tools we need to win?"

He singled out House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi  (D-Calif.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

"As foreign jihadists call into the United States, do we use [NSA]technology to stop sleeper cells before they hit us? Or do we surrenderuse of this technology, as Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean would have usdo?"

Actually, Mehlman should be criticizing Republican Arlen Specter, who to an extent challenged the President by citing that in order to spy on Americans in this country, the NSA must first obtain a warrant from a FISA court.

But let's get to the heart of the matter.  The Democrats do not oppose eavesdropping on terrorists.  What Mehlman said is a down-right lie, and he knows it.  All he cared about was saying something that cable channels would repeat over and over.  No one opposes eavesdropping on terrorists.  What is in question is how to combat terrorism inside this country when it involves spying on taxpaying Americans.  Do we give the President unrestrained power by mortgaging the very check and balance system that we are trying to promote throughout the world, or do we follow the law?  The 1978 Foreign Surveillance Act law says that whenever the NSA needs to eavesdrop on Americans, they must go to a FISA court to get a warrant, which is normally rubber stamped almost 100% of the time anyway.  That's all.  Why are the Republicans so stubborn to follow the law that was passed down by their predecessors?

I think most Americans agree that the last thing we need now, especially after this disastrous leadership on Iraq, is to give the Executive Branch unrestrained power without any oversight.  We can fight terrorism and follow the law at the same time.  Mehlman's continuous distortions of the sort are not helpful for an open and honest debate.  Yes, I happen to think that the Democrats are stronger on national security.  But at the very least, let's conduct a debate of the issues by using nuance, not manipulated rhetoric. 

Then again, these are the Republicans we're talking about here.  From judging how they went after Max Cleland in 2002 and John Kerry in 2004, Mehlman's outburst signals just the beginning of yet another dirty campaign to divert attention away from issues that most Americans deem relevant.  If this is an election on the issues, the Democrats win.  So it will be the jobs of Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and Frank Luntz to change the subject.

(Senator Joe Biden's speech last December on warrantless domestic wiretaps pretty much sums up theprogressive consensus on this issue.)

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Other sites blogging about this issue: Fight Bad Policy, Americablog, OK Blue Notes, 2008 Presidential Campaign Blog, Progressive Gold.

Whistleblower subpoenaed ahead of his testimony before Congress

Alberto Gonzales and President Bush are using NSA whistleblower Russel Tice as an example to all those who might want to leak anything to the press in the future.  Tice says that nothing he leaked was classified.  Still, the FBI showed up at his door:

NSA whistleblower Russell Tice says he was visited on Wednesday by twoFBI agents who handed him a federal subpoena instructing him to appearbefore a grand jury next week in Virginia.

Tice is being charged with violating Title 18, United States Code, Section 793.  This comes right before he is set to testify in front of Congress about the unconstitutional use of power by the Executive Branch:

Tice says he considers the subpoena a form of intimidation by thegovernment to keep him from testifying before Congressionalinvestigators about what he knows about the surveillance systems.

According to the conservative National Review, it may have been Tice who tipped off Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R) about NSA procedures that President Bush failed in his constitutional obligation to brief the Congress on.  But until that is proven, the whole Hoekstra-Tice connection is nothing more than a conspiracy theory.

Russell Tice is scheduled to appear before a 23-member grand jury in Virginia this week.

It should also be said that a few months ago the Supreme Court ruled that government whistleblowers are no longer protected from retaliation from their employers.

And Bush calls this a compromise

Last month the Supreme Court ruled that the Executive Branch does not have unrestrained power when it comes to holding detainees.  Right now on a similar front, negotiations are under way between the Legislative and Executive branches regarding how to handle the issue of domestic wiretaps.  The New York Times reported this morning that the President is ruling out the idea that his branch must obtain a warrant each time they spy on someone inside the country.  And get this: he thinks this is a compromise!

But the bigger question is why President Bush is even negotiating with the Senate in the first place?  He wants to create a new law that will make warrantless domestic wiretaps legal.  But that is basically a concession that contradicts the White House's claim up to this point that they are not bound by the 1978 law that requires them to get a warrant from the FISA court.  Sounds like a little flip-flop to me!

So what is the Administration's excuse for not obeying the 1978 Foreign Surveillance Act?  The Assistant Attorney General tried to spin the argument:

"Congress did not anticipate the technological revolution that wouldbring us global high-speed fiber-optic networks, the Internet, e-mailand disposable cell phones," said Acting Assistant Attorney GeneralSteven Bradbury.

So because of technology the Administration should not have to obtain a warrant?  Let's get real.  The fact is that the FISA court almost always rubber stamps any effort by the Executive Branch to get that warrant.  So this notion that things would get tied up in the courts is ludicrous.

Nonetheless, the White House and most of the Republican majority are dead-set in support of Bush's new proposal that would effectively nix the Foreign Surveillance Act, and grant the Administration unrestrained power to spy inside this country.

Please write to your Senators and tell them not to support the Bush warrantless domestic wiretap proposal.  His political advantage is not more important than our laws.

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Other blogs writing about this issue: Rebelblog, Maikimo, The Lantern, Rebelle Nation, Keegan's Blog, This is not Over,  All Deaf, Scatablog, Chezlark, The Wild Ride, Mad as Hell, Hoffmania!.

Cartoon: Congress spies on White House

(By R.J. Matson, Roll Call, Cagle Cartoons)
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Other blogs writing about this issue: Americablog, Professor Hex, Crimes and Corruptions of the New World, Perception Managers, Make Me a Commentator, True Blue Liberal, The Lantern.

Congressional Republican: President may have broken the law

Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, who is also the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is furious at the White House over specific Executive powers in the war on terrorism that have not been disclosed to Congress.  Hoekstra actually supports President Bush's warrantless domestic wiretap program.  But after meetings with intelligence officials behind closed doors, he has reason to believe that the Administration is hiding from Congress other kinds spying tactics that are being used by the intelligence community.  Hoekstra wrote a letter to the White House on May 18th blasting them over this matter.  The New York Times obtained a copy, which will appear in Sunday's newspaper:

Recently, after the harsh criticism from Mr. Hoekstra, intelligenceofficials have appeared at two closed committee briefings to answerquestions from the chairman and other members. The briefings appear tohave eased but not erased the concerns of Mr. Hoekstra and otherlawmakers about whether the administration is sharing information onall of its intelligence operations.

A copy of the four-page letter dated May 18, which has not been previously disclosed, was obtained by The New York Times.

"I have learned of some alleged intelligence community activities aboutwhich our committee has not been briefed," Mr. Hoesktra wrote. "Ifthese allegations are true, they may represent a breach ofresponsibility by the administration, a violation of the law, and, justas importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of thiscommittee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect informationon our enemies."

He  added: "The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution."

Now that the New York Times released this letter, I am sure that Hoekstra's feet will be put to the fire.  But Hoekstra is not alone on this.  A lot of other conservative Republicans have reservations about this program because of the lack of Congressional oversight.

I think we can relate this to a real world example:

If your teenage daughter comes home very late on Saturday night, you're obviously going to approach her and say, "How come you were out so late.  I was worried sick.  What were you doing?"

"I was fine," your daughter replies.  "Trust me."

You repeat yourself, "You didn't answer the question.  Why were you out so late?"

"I'd rather not say," your daughter fires back.  "It's none of your business.  But just trust that I would not ever get into trouble."

As it pertains to intelligence oversight, the Bush Administration is like the daughter that stays out all night, while Congress is like the concerned mother.  If the Executive Branch says they are not doing anything illegal, why are they hiding information from Congress?  It is basically an admission of guilt.

Just a side note: Peter Hoekstra will appear tomorrow morning on the weekly show Fox News Sunday.  Expect for him to be attacked by the conservative host because of his criticisms about the White House's lack of disclosure.

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Other blogs writing about this issue: Whatever Already, The Democratic Daily, Prairie Weather, Black White, Liberty Street, Bustard Blog, The Reaction, Daily Kos, Vox Verax, State of the Day, The Common Ills,

To Bush Administration, increase in Executive had little to do with 9/11

As I have often expressed on this blog, you never know how authoritarian someone is until they are given a position of power.  You can claim to be a libertarian, but might turn into a control freak when given access to potentially unlimited entitlement.  In 2000, Bush ran for president on a small government platform.  But ever since being elected, he has presided over the largest government expansion since World War II.

You might be thinking to yourself, "Well, we're at war, so that's okay."  But as Bloomberg reports, the desire for government expansion, with help from the NSA, began even before September 11th:

The U.S. National Security Agencyasked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring siteseven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimedJune 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.                

The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, thenation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach ofprivacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of VerizonCommunications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suitalleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W.Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S.Constitution, and seeks money damages.

``The Bush Administration asserted this became necessaryafter 9/11,'' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephoneinterview. ``This undermines that assertion.''

This report is analogous to the one by staffers of Senators who claimed that the Patriot Act was planned before 9/11.

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Other blogs writing about this issue: Daily Kos, Americablog, Damned Empire, MyDD, Lost Chord, Gideon Starorzewski, The town Crier, Russell Silver, The Flypaper Theory, Wot is it good 4, Picks Commentary, Ramblings from my Mind, Mad in the Middle.