All_Around_Brown

Among the two big leak cases?

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Pujo

More outrage in congress about the NSA. And I think it's because congress realizes that the NSA may very well be monitoring them. They're not outraged for America, they're outraged for themselves - but at least they're outraged.

All_Around_Brown

This is a clear double standard. It basically says outing a CIA agent involved in WMD investigations overseas- not too urgent (thus politically pro-Bush).
Leaking of a gross abuse of power, a high crime and misdemeanor, concealed for three years by the executive branch - thats urgent (and is thus politically pro-Bush).

It will be interesting to see who in the media goes to jail for not disclosing their sources in the latter.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Pujo

Well, there is some argument to whether the wiretaps are legal or not. Personally, I think they're illegal, but the Bush administration is making a two-pronged argument:

1. The wiretaps were authorized by statute. Basicaly, this is the blank check argument. The administration is saying that the law congress passed shortly after 9/11, which allowed Bush to use force against Al Queda, implicitly authorized Bush to do anything and everything to bring terrorists to justice. They have no shot at this one. If the courts agreed with the administration here I would hope even the administration would complain about the activist judges that rule for them.

2. The authority is inherent in the role of the executive and cannot be extinguished even by act of congress. This is a similar argument made by Lincoln when he suspended the writ of habeas corpus (found unconstitutional), by FDR to intern Japanese-Americans during WWII (found constitutional), and by Truman when he attempted to seize steel mills during the Korean War. Personally, I think the argument requires an "activist" reading of the constitution, but there's no telling how the courts would rule.

Assuming that the practice is indeed unconstitutional, you would be right that evidence gained through an illegal wiretap would be inadmissable under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. I don't think Bush intends to use this information for criminal prosecution, though. My feeling is (and I admit I'm just hypothesizing) is that Bush would use an alternative system of "justice" to avoid bringing cases like this to federal court. Perhaps by declaring people as enemy combatants and trying them in military tribunals.

All_Around_Brown

http://villagevoice.com/news/0601,ridgeway,71459,6.html

FWIW...it looks as if they knew it was illegal, which is why FISA wouldn't sign off on it. Question is: what about it wouldn't FISA sign off? One speculation was that it was political retribution- spying on opposition. The disclosures of Greenpeace, religious groups, and PETA being spyed on doesn't help their case.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

All_Around_Brown

They are too scared of the political sleaze collected on them under the illegal wiretapping perhaps? If they speak out, the skeletons come stumbling out of closets.

This is also one reason why the FISA Law was enacted. Because it would be too easy to attack political opponents with such broad surveillance powers.

Now, take a look here...

The National Security Red Herring




By Larry Johnson,



Tue Jan 3rd, 2006 at 07:54:47 AM EDT :: War on Terror
(4 comments)

Definition: A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue.

Caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, President Bush is working feverishly to divert attention from the fact that he has subverted the FISA law by claiming that the revelation in the New York Times of the NSA spying program has jeopardized national security and given the terrorists a hand. Sorry Mr. President, that dog won't hunt.


The fact that the NSA has the ability to listen to electronic conversations, such as phone calls and emails, has been public knowledge since the 1970s. Al Qaeda has known this for more than ten years. The authors of the al Qaeda training manual dealt specifically with the need to take precautions to prevent their conversations from being captured by US listening posts. If we are dealing with terrorists who don't realize their conversations could be intercepted, then we are after people who really must be living in a cave.

Could our national security have been jeopardized? Yes, but only if the New York Times had divulged how the conversations were being intercepted. That knowledge would allow the targets of the intercepts to change their method of communicating. (In this case the President would be right to be upset.) But, that is not what happened. The Times did not reveal a methodology. The fact that the Government has the power to intercept conversations is why we have the FISA law in the first place. Telling the American people that the President is circumventing the law does not harm national security in any fashion, but it could threaten George Bush's job security.

Let's be clear: Bush is upset because he has been discovered violating his oath of office. Instead of protecting the Constitution, he has authorized procedures that violate the Fourth Amendment, ostensibly in the name of saving the nation. The inconsistency and hypocrisy of the Bush administration on this issue is breathtaking. They only scream about damage to national security when it suits their purpose. They had no qualms about outing Valerie Plame or Mohammed Noor.

The Government itself is very inconsistent on what can and cannot be told to the public. Robert Baer, for example, received permission from the CIA in 2002 to publish See No Evil (which is a terrific book). A careful reader, especially one who has held a Top Secret Special Access Program (SAP) clearance, can quickly pick out information in his book about a signal intercept program that is highly sensitive. Bob Baer was not trying to hurt the United States, he was just telling a great story and trusted the CIA to take out all damaging material. CIA censors, however, dropped the ball. In the latest battle over what the public can and cannot be told, CIA reviewers prohibited Gary Berntsen from telling certain facts in his book, Jawbreaker, which another CIA officer, Gary Schroen, was permitted to include in his 2004 work, First In.

The search for the leakers who have blown the whistle on the surveillance story is not about protecting national security. This is an effort to intimidate real investigative reporters who tell the American people the stories they need to hear. Unlike Judith Miller, who provided highly paid stenography services to the Bush administration, Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau have a done a public service by alerting us to the fact that President Bush was ignoring the Constitution and acting like a king with a divine right to decide unilaterally what is and is not in the national interest. Larry Johnson worked as a CIA intelligence analyst and State Department counter-terrorism official. He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). http://forum.truthout.org/blog/

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

PatsWickedPissah

Or choice #3, the leak of the out of country secret CIA prisions.
So many leaks, so little time.

The Plame leaker IF they violated the law should go to prison. I think Fitz has not indicted here because the law was not violated - she may not have been covert and the leaker has to disclose her knowing that she's covert. Yet IF it was not illegal but done out of political retrubution for husband Joe, the person should resign. In this universe if that happened we'll never know for sure.

The other national security leaks reflect a blatant disregard for operational secrecy in the midst of the war on terror. I hope the leakers are found, tried, convicted and jailed.

All_Around_Brown

I am not surprised you feel that way. However, to say that outing a CIA NOC who was, at the time, working on nuclear non-proliferation is not a breach of national security is clearly a bias on your part. You support some leaks, but not others, depending on whether they help or hurt your boy, No?

If Bush broke the law, we need to know. That includes outing a CIA agent (I realize that the law is specific and very difficult to prove regarding Plame.) That also includes running secret prisons and rogue intelligence services.

This man needs to stop deceiving and obfuscating because its starting to get really obvious, and dangerous.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Pujo

That still doesn't draw attention from what was leaked. Whistleblowing, in the right circumstances, is a very patriotic thing. No order is valid if it's illegal, and reporting an illegal action (assuming the wiretapping is illegal, which is still an open question) is heroic. Remember the right's hero-of-the-day, Linda Tripp, also obtained evidence by illegal wiretapping (by recoridng her conversations with Lewinsky without notification), though Republicans had no problem seizing the opportunity to use the ill-gotten info.

PatsWickedPissah

No. Try reading what I wrote rather than projecting.