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"Nothing."

WaPost:

At a private White House meeting in November 2004, President Bush thanked his Press Secretary Scott McClellan for his help in Bush's re-election:

"Is Scotty here? Where's Scotty?" Bush asked, half-grinning, according to two people who were in the meeting but asked not to be quoted by name because they were discussing a private event. Bush scanned the room for Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary.

"I want to especially thank Scotty," the president said, looking at his aide. "I want to thank Scotty for saying" -- and he paused for effect. . . .

" Nothing ."

At which point everyone laughed and the president left the room.

They Couldn't Dream One Up

WaPost:

"Sources knowledgeable about the program said there is no way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is to listen in on a vast array of communications in the hopes of finding something that sounds suspicious. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the White House had tried but failed to find a way.

One government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration complained bitterly that the FISA process demanded too much: to name a target and give a reason to spy on it.

'For FISA, they had to put down a written justification for the wiretap,' said the official. 'They couldn't dream one up.'"

In other words, the administration regularly spies on Americans in a complete fishing expedition.

This is the worst of all possible worlds.

Bob's Wish List 2006

What do I wish for in the coming year?

• Abramoff turns state's evidence by Jan 15 2006
  
• DeLay convicted by Feb 1 2006
  
• Indictment of Karl Rove by Feb 15 2006
  
• Impeachment hearings begin in the House by May 1 2006
  
• Indictment of Dick Cheney by June 1 2006
  
• Bush Convicted in the Senate by July 1 2006
  
• Nov 2006: Democrats re-take the House, Senate.
  

In short. A return to law and order.

First Comments from the Man Charged with Congressional Oversight: Sen Pat Roberts (R-KS)

Bush has said that he had congressional oversight, and the Senate Committee charged with this is the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), who has been silent until now.

Here he is, mocking Senator Rockefeller's handwritten protestation to Dick Cheney that the strictures Cheney placed on the few Senators briefed on the warrantless spying program (under threats of violating national security laws) made it impossible for him to give oversight:
AP:

"Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., pushed back Tuesday, saying that if Rockefeller had concerns about the program, he could have used the tools he has to wield influence, such as requesting committee or legislative action. 'Feigning helplessness is not one of those tools,' Roberts said."

This is very disappointing. My question for Roberts: is he prepeared to assert that his committee gave oversight to this program -- oversight which resulted in direct violation of congressional laws (FISA)? Because oversight which permits violation of congressional laws is not oversight at all, it's incompetence.

Cheney notified Roberts in July 2003 that the Bush administration was regularly violating the FISA act. Why did he not report this to the Senate?

George Bush on Court Ordered Wiretaps

President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

-- President George Bush, April 20th 2004, by which time Bush had authorized wiretaps circumventing court orders for more than five 45-day periods, in violation of the FISA act.

Big. Fat. Anti-constitutional. Liar.

Impeachment Watch Day 3: Two Conservative Scholars Chime In

Think Progress: Two conservative constitutional scholars argue that Bush has committed impeachable crimes.

Bush: Spying on the Media?

Over at Americablog, John has an interesting speculation. Bush stated in his press conference today that he was spying on people who were talking to people who had known ties to Al-Qaeda.

That describes at least two kinds of people: Al Qaeda members, and members of our fourth estate.

Bush as Messiah

Bob points below to Bush's tautological explanation of why it was legal for him to order illegal wiretaps and email intercepts on US citizens: that because he ordered it, and because he "shares some concerns" about our civil liberties and has sworn to uphold the law, therefore it is legal. This amounts to a declaration that anything Bush does is, by definition, within the law. No matter what the law says.

This circular argument is so absurdly logic-defying that it seems more like the plot device in a Mel Brooks movie than the governing philosophy of our nation's leadership. And yet this is exactly the argument advanced in the two infamous legal memoranda of UC Berkeley (Boalt) Law Professor John Yoo: the first "torture memo", which argued that only the most extreme torments qualify as torture under US law; and the second, which argued that the President had ultimate authority to conduct whatever activity he considered necessary in prosecuting the "war on terror", thanks to the "inherent executive power" granted his office by the Constitution. (Boy! For a crowd that claims to favor strict construction of that document...)

Anyway, we are not used to encountering this argument of "Because I do it, it must be right" in our day to day lives. And there is a good reason for that. In fact, to my knowledge there is only one entity prior to George W. Bush who satisfied this claim: namely, the Lord made flesh, i.e. Jesus. Or more broadly: Jesus, plus those occasional dictator kings who also claimed the godhead.

So for those of you that had your suspicions about this, I argue, here is your proof: Dubyah considers himself our Risen Savior.

Merry Bushmas!

Gonzoles: The Authorization for Force was the Authorization to Spy on Americans

NYTimes: "Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales also spoke out today as the Bush administration mounted an all-out offensive to rebut the criticisms of Democrats. 'Our position is that the authorization to use military force, which was passed by the Congress after Sept. 11, constitutes that authority,' he said."

So the position of the President was that the statute which authorizes activity which would be (they say) illegal under FISA was the authorization by Congress for Bush to use military force in Iraq.

My Illegal Tactics are Required by the War on Terror: The Law is My Word-- Bush

During Bush's press conference today, he made the following statement:

I can fully understand why members of Congress are expressing concerns about civil liberties, I know that. I share the same concerns. I want to make sure the American people understand, however, that we have an obligation to protect yo, and we're doing that and at the same time protecting your civil liberties. Secondly, an open debate about law would say to the enemy, "Here's what we're going to do." And this is an enemy which adjusts. We monitor this program carefully. We have consulted with members of the Congress over a dozen times. We are constantly reviewing the program. Those of us who review the program have a duty to uphold the laws of the United States. And we take that duty very seriously.

What Bush is saying here is that, because he has a duty to uphold the laws of the United States, he has the authority to order a warrantless spying program which is in violation of the FISA act. In other words any program he approves is not in violation of any law. He's effectively saying, "my duty to uphold the law means that whatever I do is approved by law, because I approved it. The law is my word."

More significantly, he reveals some of what his reasoning was in ordering an illegal wiretapping operation by the NSA -- "an open debate about law would say to the enemy, 'Here's what we're going to do.'" -- i.e., even though this stuff is illegal, he couldn't try to change the law because that would tip terrorists off as to our methods.

This is very disturbing reasoning. Bush seems to believe both that he is empowered and that it is right for him to conduct illegal actiivities as President, because that way terrorists would never know what it is he's willing to do to catch them. Under that reasoning, he could use any completely illegal activity he wanted to prosecute the war on terror. Indeed, that's what he's done here -- he's ordered violation of the FISA act.

This is a serious threat to the American people. Our rights cannot be shunted aside by a President who finds them inconvenient. Our rights were here before he arrived in office, and they were supposed to be left intact after he leaves office. He swore he would uphold them, and now he's violating them.

Bush Declares War

NYTimes.
Bush is asserting that his illegal spying on Americans is, in fact, legal, and has asked the Justice department to investigate leaks.

Perhaps some intrepid reporter will ask the President if he expects all White House personnell to cooperate with the investigation; whether or not he would fire anyone who was involved in leaking secret information; and if it his policy to fully disclose all information he has about people leaking to the press when the Justice Department asks for it, and to the American people.

In other words, all the quesetions they asked with regards to the Plame investigation, but which the White House equivocates on.

More importantly, demanding the Justice department to go into this indicates that he is through the looking glass; he is staking the territory that spying on Americans in the US without a court warrant is legal, and defensible.

The problem, of course, is that Bush knows that, on balance, what you can get away with is abusing power in a way which seems socially responsible. Example: Nixon's ordering people to lie to the Justice Department in investigating the Watergate break-in, bad; but if everyone thinks it's okay to follow hot phone trails, that's okay, even if he's breaking the law while doing it.

Another example: courts have, de facto, had a standard that leaks of secret information will go unpunished if the leak serves a substantial social benefit. Example: the Pentagon Papers, unpunished, because it gave the public important information about the duplicitousness of the executive branch in prosecuting the Vietnam War, telling us it was going swell, when in fact all was chaos, and getting worse -- result: no prosecution. Counter-example: the Plame leak, where a CIA agent was outed for political punishment -- result: prosecution.

Here, I think, the courts will find against Bush, because in performing his activity, he has ignored the legal authority of Congress in setting the law in the first place, and in the reviewing role of the FISA court to make sure the administration does not abuse the ability to spy on Americans.

Homeland Security Agents Really Do Use Library Loans to Try to Discover Terrorists. Welcome to the Soviet Union

I never understood why Bush wanted the power to demand library loan lists. Even aside from the more important civil liberty, the right to be let alone, not having your reading scrutinzed by the U.S. government, would agents really think they could efficiently generate a list of terrorists by watching who checks out what books?

Turns out,
the answer is yes. Agents tracked down, met and interviewed a UMass Dartmouth history student because he checked out a copy of Mao's "Little Red Book". The book is on a "watch list", the agents told the student, and, combined with the fact the student had spent a lot of time abroad, they thought they would drop by, make sure he wasn't planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches, or something like that.

This sort of exercise is not a dismissable joke. The Bush administration has asserted the power that they could take into custody people like the student above -- not "arrest" them, because they take them without charge -- and hold them without a lawyer, without judicial review forever.

We have become the Soviet Union. There is no nice way to put it. You combine the above to powers, and we have arbitrary and capricious arrest powers in the hands of our government. This does not make us safer -- in fact, it puts us in danger, but not at the hands of terrorists: at the hands of our own government.

Impeachement Watch: Feinstein

Chronicle.

Feinstein leaves little wiggle room that she views the activities as illegal, even as former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) who was chairmon of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time that Bush started eavesdropping, reports that he only learned about it after he was off the committee. Feinstein embelished, saying that, the way things sound now, Bush failed to meet the basic oversight requirements given by law.

The total listing so far:
For: 3 (Feingold,Spector,Feinstein)
Against: 0
Uncertain: 97

Impeachment Watch Day 1: Tallying Senators: Russ Feingold, Arlen Spector

Vote counting -- the guesswork and confirmation ability that made Johnson a great Senate leader -- is an exercise in reading tea leaves and public statements to determine who will vote which way on a given bill.

So, I'm declaring the beginning of an Impeachment Watch, starting December 18 2005, to tally up the Senators who indicate publicly if they believe Bush has broken the law -- which, implicitly, means they would vote to convict him on a bill of Impeachment.

Today: we have Russ Feinfold (Democrat) and Arlen Spector (Republican):

Bush Administration Mounts Broad Defense of Iraq War - New York Times: "'The issue here is whether the president of the United States is putting himself above the law,' Mr. Feingold, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said on CNN, 'and I believe he has done so here.'"

The Republican chairman of that committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who on Friday had called the surveillance "a violation of our law beyond any question," moderated his tone today, but still said that he would hold hearings to investigate the matter.

The total listing so far:
For: 2 (Feingold,Spector)
Against: 0
Uncertain: 98

Convict Us, we Dare You -- White House

The White House is daring the country to convict Bush on domestic spying charges, declaring thta he is the only voice which will be heard on the issue. NYTimes: "'There was an interest in saying more about it, but everyone recognized its highly classified nature,' one senior administration official said, speaking on background because, he said, the White House wanted the president himself to be the only voice on the issue. 'This is directly taking on the critics. The Democrats are now in the position of supporting our efforts to protect Americans, or defend positions that could weaken our nation's security.'"

Spooks on the line

Actually, my first take-away from the NYT story Bob talks about below was: "Omigod, the NSA has been listening to our talks with Bob!"

Disturbing, yes - but at least it explains those annoying "click" sounds we've been hearing.

NSA Spies Domestically -- and the New York Times waits a year to tell us because the White House Asked them to

In Today's article Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts , the NYTimes included this little paragraph: "The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted."

So get this: The NYTimes, a reporting agency, delays reporting news based on policy considerations. If they agreee with the policy considerations of the Administration and the need for secrecy to further those considerations, the NYTimes will not report.

So how is that not the organ of the White House? Would they have waited a year if they had not agreed with the need for the policy, if the thought the policy was bad for the country?

Is there any news organization left in America which defends the people's right to know, without fear or favor?

Abercrombie & Fitch subject of SEC inquiry

It seems they're being accused of having a monopoly on hotness.

Tortured Confessions

Nice to see that our European allies have been able to focus attention on the illegal acts of torture being carried out in our name by the current Administration, a task that our own "independent media" had not quite gotten around to at this point, four years after 9/11. Today Condi Rice announced, as a new policy of the US Government, that inhumane interrogation tactics would no longer be permitted at US military installations overseas (Herald-Tribune story).

Given the fact that:

• Memos from the White House and Justice Department demonstrated several years ago that the Administration was approving new techniques of cruel & inhumane interrogation for use by the CIA and military;
• Chief among these was a memo by current Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, written in his capacity as White House Counsel (i.e., legal counsel to the President);
• Also among these was a signed certification by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approving these techniques;
• Vice President Dick Cheney is known to have sponsored this strategy;
• Since the introduction of John McCain's bill reiterating the legislative ban on such tactics, and since it gained approval 96-0 on the Senate Floor, Dick Cheney has been secretly working to either kill the bill in the House, in conference, or to preserve an exception for CIA interrogations overseas;
• Such tactics are outlawed by the UN Convention on Torture, to which the US is a signatory;
• These tactics are also outlawed by the enabling US legislation, passed by Congress in 1994;
• If any of this torture had yielded the slightest bit of useful intelligence, you can be sure we would have heard about it by now; and
• Secretary Rice's latest revision of policy is de facto a confession to all of the above;

I really only have one question left:

What is it going to take to try this lot as war criminals?

Three "Left Behind" Movies - and counting

Over at Slate, Grady Hendrix has watched all three - yes, three - of the "Left Behind" movies, and so that we don't have to, he's written about the experience.

Worth a read, especially for the bit about how viewers might be confused about the residents of present-day Israel, and how the Antichrist-slash-UN Secretary General goes about consolidating his power (think "Godfather").

I recall these movies being discussed in our blog's pages a year or more ago, but can't track down the relevant post(s) (the "search this blog" feature above promises way more than it delivers - trust me on this). As I recall, Patrick briefly had an open bet on whether a movie would be made from these books or not, before Robin pointed out that the first had already been made.

F-Student has CIA Arrest (and Torture?) his professor

The CIA -- since it's not being watched over by anyone else -- has to police its own mistakes. Of thousands of people they've arrested and interrogated, they expect some mistakes. According to a an article on those mistakes in the WaPost: The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said."