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No Immunity for Unconstitutional Spying – Take Action

No Immunity for Unconstitutional Spying – Take Action

The idea that the rule of law – and even the Constitution itself – threatens our safety has been used to justify repeated attacks on civil liberties and the principle of checks and balances since 2001. And now Congress is about to consider new legislation that would further bloat the power of the executive branch by removing crucial judicial and congressional oversight. Legalizing the President’s warrantless domestic surveillance is not what the Founding Fathers meant by ‘checks and balances.’ I don’t want any legislative “fixes” to the law that would whitewash the executive branch’s illegal eavesdropping.

Please do your bit to stop three awful bills that are taking shape in congressional committees. S. 2453 (Sen. Specter), S. 2455 (Sen. DeWine) and H.R. 5825 (Rep. Wilson) would essentially codify Bush’s illegal domestic spying program despite that 1) the full scope of the program is still a secret, and 2) A federal court in Michigan ruled the program unconstitutional.

Urge your congressional officials to protect the Constitution!

The White House is cranking up its fear and smear machine again. President Bush and his political allies exploited the 9/11 anniversary with yet another round of media appearances equating dissent with support for terrorists. They’re trying – one more time – to smear and intimidate anyone who objects to Bush administration policies that run roughshod over our Constitution. The administration’s propaganda blitz was not only about exploiting fears of terrorism for the fall elections. It was also about building support for a new push in Congress to give the Bush administration political and legal cover for policies that violate basic constitutional principles like due process.

E-mail or fax your representative and senators now and tell them to reject these dangerous bills and all legislative whitewashes that would give the executive branch immunity from the judicial and congressional oversight so vital to our system of checks and balances.

More information about the NSA illegal spying program

(People For the American Way)

Ducking Congressional Oversight – Again

Ducking Congressional Oversight – Again

Republican Pete Hoekstra, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has criticized Bush for hiding more surveillance programs from Congressional oversight. The NY Times has published his criticism of Bush on this matter.

On Fox News Sunday, Hoekstra said that a whistleblower came to him with several more spying operations that were in danger of being abused without oversight.

Wait… several more??

Hoekstra: …this is actually a case where the whistleblower process was working appropriately. Some people within the intelligence community brought to my attention some programs that they believed we had not been briefed on. They were right. We have now been briefed on those programs, but I wanted to reinforce to the President and to the executive branch in the intelligence community how important and by law–the requirement that they keep the legislative branch informed of what they are doing.

See video at Crooks and Liars

So…. first, an internal whistleblower comes to him because he knows that the legislative branch hasn’t even been informed about several other spying operations.

Then, once it’s clear that this is the case, they are (probably very partially) informed under a question-and-answer format?

Even this Republican ally says

“The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution.”

So what are you going to do about it, Congress?

What are you going to do about it?

White House Switchboard

White House Switchboard

Political comedy email making the rounds…

“Thank you for calling the White House switchboard. Our new voice activated system will help direct you to the proper office.”

“If you are calling to complain about the mishandling of the war in Iraq, press one.”

“If you are calling to complain about the abuse of prisoners and the White House’s endorsement of torture, press two, and then say the name of the torture site that you wish to complain about (and please note for the sake of the voice mail system that it is pronounced Abu GRABE, not Abu grahb).”

“If you are calling to complain about illegal spying on American citizens and the abuse of FISA laws, press 3, but do know that these calls will be recorded.”

“If you are calling to complain about the disastrous mismanagement of the hurricane Katrina recovery, please press 4, and your call will be directed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If you wait for more than 48 hours without anyone picking up the phone, hang-up and send a letter. We have been assured that all letters will receive a prompt reply within one year.”

“If you are calling regarding the administration’s unwillingness to enforce immigration law, press cinco, por favor, or direct any thanks to your local chamber of commerce office, which can explain why we like cheap labor that can’t vote and where you may be able to find willing illegal day laborers in your local area.”

“If you are Jack Abramoff or any Saudi prince, please call the private line * it is always open.”

“If you are calling about the Medicare prescription debacle, please press 6. If you are having a medical emergency, you should proceed directly to your local emergency room, although please understand that your health coverage may not pay for the visit and you can no longer get out from under the bill by declaring bankruptcy.”

“If you are calling about the ballooning federal deficit or the recent hike in the debt ceiling to $3 trillion, please press 7, unless you are Bill Clinton calling to brag about the surpluses under your administration, in which case we don’t want to hear about it.”

“If you are calling to complain about the White House’s efforts to block stem cell research, please press 8, and then say the disease that you are most concerned about that may ultimately be cured through scientific
research. If you are a scientist calling with new research findings or important clinical data, please hang up, we don’t want to hear from you.”

“If you are calling to express concern about global warming and our efforts to roll back environmental laws, please press 9, unless you are a government scientist, in which case you are forbidden to talk without first clearing it with the oil lobbyist we hired to screen and edit your research. He can be reached at Exxon 4-2611.”

“If you are calling to complain about the President’s efforts to “privatize” social security, please press 1 and then the pound key, and your call will be redirected to representatives at Merrill Lynch, who will explain the
virtues of putting all your savings in the stock market.”

“If you are calling about the need for more prayer in public schools or any other faith-based initiatives, please press 1 and then the star key, and Reverend Falwell will be with you shortly.”

“If you are calling to lobby for more Supreme Court Justices who will block a woman’s right to choose, please stay on the line and the President will be with you immediately.”

“If you are calling about all the tax breaks for the wealthy, press *1 if you have ideas for more loopholes and are making more than a million dollars per year; if you are earning less than a million per year but have ideas for how you may help the wealthy, press *2; if you are earning less than a million per year and just want to complain that all the burden is now falling on you, please call back in a couple of years.”

“If you voted for President Bush and are now concerned that over 12% of the U.S. population now falls below the poverty line while the top 1% has wildly increased their wealth, please understand that we are not laughing AT you.”

“Press zero at any time if you would like to hear these options again.”

“Thank you for calling the White House. It is our pleasure to serve you.”

(Thanks Corinne!)

Illegal domestic spying is BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST

Illegal domestic spying is BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST

George Bush has overturned the United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18, which prohibits domestic spying by NSA. He has violated the federal act which created the FISA court to oversee covert domestic investigations. He has disregarded the Fourth Amendment guarantee against warrantless searches.

Now, the story continues… Just yesterday, in a galaxy right here, it was reported in USA Today that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth in the largest database ever created. This includes all calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders – except for the lucky customers of Qwest (Qwest said no to the NSA, fearing legal problems if sanity ever returns to this country). For how long? Since at least 2001, under secrecy and then under the lies Bush and others were telling about the extent of the spying.

The NSA’s domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA’s efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. “In other words,” Bush explained, “one end of the communication must be outside the United States.”

As a result, domestic call records — those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders — were believed to be private.

Sources, however, say that is not the case.

Lies lies and more lies.

Please join me and call on the House and Senate today to issue subpoenas and expose the extent of this intrusion.

Although Bush said today that our government was “not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans,” I’m not sure what else you could possible call a huge secret database of domestic telephone calls, especially when considered along with the “vacuum cleaner surveillance” of e-mail messages and Internet traffic being done by NSA personnel in at least one AT&T building.
(San Francisco – anyone gonna go check? You’d think they’d do it in Texas…)

They’ve also managed to kill the investigation into the illegal spying – smells like coverup to me:

The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005 – yup, he’s the very guy who directed warrantless surveillance of American citizens. Now, he will head the CIA unless some congresspeople actually care about our constitutional rights, not to mention the takeover of a civilian institution by military interests. Block this guy, wouldja? Having himrun the CIA is almost as much of an insult as tolerating “Death-Squad” Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence. I never thought I’d find myself defending the CIA, but they have been trashed by Porter Goss under Bush’s direction. Now we are to approve a military takeover of this civilian institution? When will we stand up for our own freedom, democracy, and civil rights? Who will stand up for the interests of all Americans in these dark days? Here are some of Hayden’s comments on the matter, although he’s dodging the issue as much as he can. (It’ll be a little harder now to dodge, I hope).

It is not a driftnet over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about.

This is targeted and focused. This is not about intercepting conversations between people in the United States. This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al Qaeda. We bring to bear all the technology we can to ensure that this is so. And if there were ever an anomaly, and we discovered that there had been an inadvertent intercept of a domestic-to-domestic call, that intercept would be destroyed and not reported.

Yeah, right.

So, let’s have it:

The BUSH LIE LINEUP in the “Official Response from the White House” today- all in one place!

First, our intelligence activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates. Al Qaeda is our enemy, and we want to know their plans.

Collecting all possible domestic communications with a dragnet is not “targeted” to al Qaeda, nor to their “known affiliates.”

Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval.

He has already admitted that if one party is outside the US, there has been no oversight. I would even speculate that with the sound-compression technology available today, all of our conversations could actually be in the process of being stored in their entirety – why else create the largest database in the world? It could be done, and I’ll wager that it is being done. The NSA’s secret domestic eavesdropping program was not reported under the requirements of either Title III or FISA – the agency’s budget is unknown.

Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat.

They are not lawful just because he wants to make us think they are lawful, nor have all appropriate members been briefed. Moreover, Congress needs more than selective “briefing” – they need to vote to approve any such actions because NO domestic surveillance is lawful outside of what Congress has specifically approved.

Fourth, the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities. We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates.

Then why do they need a database of DOMESTIC calls? How does that “fiercely protect” our privacy? Their efforts are clearly directed at us, you and me, Americans.

This is not a kindly Empire, this country that was formerly a beacon of freedom and democracy, and we seem to be missing some essential Jedi knights. You laugh at the metaphor, perhaps, but you know what is meant. The metaphor collapses, of course, since there seem to be quite a few Sith roaming about (not just the master and his apprentice). Go back and look at the arguments for the illegal spying – now try to fit in the idea we are all under surveillance by our own government. This is profoundly anti-American.

It is not targeted only for known al Qaeda terrorists and their associates. It is not limited by location. There is no Congressional or Judicial (or even economic?) oversight. There has been no vote by Congress or by the American people to allow this overturning of our system.

The so-called right is so very wrong.

I have some hope that the upcoming elections may put some into the position of actually having to think about what they can say to their constituents. They seem to think we’re very very stupid.

Personally, I’d like to see most of Congress thrown out on their butts. I have confidence in only a handful of them. Any who have allowed these things without public protest need to go, too.

Put the voting apparatus back into the hands of the people.

“If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [NSA] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”
Senator Frank Church, 1975

Congress needs to investigate this government intrusion — immediately. Please demand that the House and Senate issue subpoenas and expose the full extent of this program against the citizens of the United States of America.