Tag: NSA

Yoo must be joking. | SSDAG.

“Our previous opinions make clear that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion,” said the memo written by John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.” (Nor, apparently, does the Fourth Amendment apply.) An unsettling memorandum by Dubya stooge John Yoo which advocates both dictatorial rule and the legality of torture is released to the public, five years later. “‘The whole point of the memo is obviously to nullify every possible legal restraint on the president’s wartime authority,’ Jaffer said. ‘The memo was meant to allow torture, and that’s exactly what it did.‘”

More than anything, I’m reminded of Lincoln’s remarks to the Indiana fourteenth: “‘Whenever I hear anyone arguing over slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.’“

And, just in case anyone was under the impression that this sort of thing only happened in the dark days of 2003, witness Attorney General Mukasey last week getting publicly verklempt and making up 9/11 tales as he goes along, all to help preserve the NSA’s warrantless wiretaps. At this point, Chuck Schumer has a lot to answer for.

When they came for my rogue, I said nothing.

“The cultural and behavioral norms of virtual worlds and gaming are generally unstudied. Therefore, Reynard will seek to identify the emerging social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments. The project would then apply the lessons learned to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world.” The Director of National Intelligence announces a project to uncover terrorists in World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs. It seems the US government has finally awakened to the catastrophic dangers posed by Bin Laden’s vast army of h4x0rs and ninjas. (Via Yglesias, where the game-savvy commenters are already having a good deal of fun with it.)

Mukasey Unleashed.

“I think what I said was that we could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a Justice Department opinion.” The honeymoon is way over. In congressional testimony yesterday, Attorney General and theoretical straight-shooter Michael Mukasey announces he won’t look into waterboarding, won’t look into the warrantless wiretaps, and won’t enforce the persecuted prosecutor contempt citations. His rationale for all this? If the Justice Department says it’s ok, it’s not illegal. “That would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now consider prosecuting somebody who followed that advice.” Sigh…it’s enough to make one miss Alberto Gonzales. Ok, not really.

Tortured Reasoning.

“The grim truth is, not much has changed. The Bush administration continues to limit our basic freedoms, conceal its own worst behavior, and insist that it does all this in order to make us more free.” As a follow-up to her 2006 list of civil liberties violations, Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick surveys The Bush Administration’s Top 10 Stupidest Legal Arguments of 2007.

Townsend Acts.

The ranks of Team Dubya dwindle further as chief terrorism adviser Frances Fragos Townsend announces her resignation. “Townsend has been a key player in Bush’s circle, earning the president’s trust despite initial suspicion among Republicans because of her background in the Clinton Justice Department…As gatekeeper for intelligence wiretap requests [in the Clinton era], her office fought efforts to invoke the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in matters that could result in criminal cases, fearing that prosecutors would use warrants under that law instead of amassing the evidence needed to cross the more difficult threshold for obtaining a criminal wiretap…Townsend later said she fought ‘tooth and nail’ against information-sharing restrictions.”

Mukasey Taps In.

Having survived his evasions on waterboarding, new Attorney General Michael Mukasey looks to start his tenure in the right direction by reopening the internal investigation into warrantless wiretapping, the same investigation that collapsed in 2006 because Dubya would not grant the department the necessary security clearances. “H. Marshall Jarrett, the OPR’s chief counsel, wrote in a letter to several lawmakers yesterday that lawyers in his office ‘recently received the necessary security clearances and are now able to proceed with our investigation.’“

Black Addington.

“We’re going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop,” Addington said at one point.” The Terror Presidency, a new book by disgusted conservative and former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith, further details the role played by Cheney henchman David Addington in this administration’s rolling back of the rule of law.”‘We’re one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court,’ Goldsmith recalls Addington telling him in February 2004.”

Democratic Disgrace.

“‘We’re hugely disappointed with the Democrats,’ said Caroline Fredrickson, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union. ‘The idea they let themselves be manipulated into accepting the White House proposal, certainly taking a great deal of it, when they’re in control — it’s mind-boggling.‘” Um, why did we put these jokers in office again? Surely not to support such flagrantly unconstitutional intrusions as this. Folding completely to White House pressure, a Democratic Senate voted 60-28 and a Democratic House voted 227-183 to sanction Dubya’s illegal wiretapping procedures. ‘The bill would give the National Security Agency the right to collect such communications in the future without a warrant. But it goes further than that: It also would allow the monitoring, under certain conditions, of electronic communications between people on U.S. soil, including U.S. citizens, and people ‘reasonably believed to be outside the United States,’ without a court’s order or oversight.” The Dems’ fallback position? They included a six-month sunset provision in the bill, so they’ll get a chance to revisit and repeat their capitulation to the executive throne early next year. But can we expect any more leadership from the congressional Democrats then? Really, this is beyond disgraceful. “‘The day we start deferring to someone who’s not a member of this body…is a sad day for the U.S. Senate,’ Feingold said. ‘We make the policy — not the executive branch.’“

Nope, can’t have those either.

Think I’m being shrill? Ok, here’s another: After listening to former Attorney General John Ashcroft discuss internal differences over Dubya’s illegal surveillance program yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-3 to issue subpoenas for White House and Justice Department documents regarding the eavesdropping system. “The White House made no move to comply.“

A Mockery of Justice.

“James B. Comey, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source.” By way of Medley, the WP blanches at a ridiculous attempt by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to secure warrantless wiretaps against the will of the Justice Department. “Having failed, they were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice’s authorization. Only in the face of the prospect of mass resignations — Mr. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most likely Mr. Ashcroft himself — did the president back down.“