The NSA has spent six years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to kick-start a program, intended to help protect the United States against terrorism, that many experts say was doomed from the start.
...
A 2003 NSA inspector general's report obtained by The Sun found that the spy agency was unable to monitor the progress or the results of its early Trailblazer contractors. Moreover, Inspector General Joel Brenner said that his office could find no evidence of the program's specific priorities, could not track the ways all of the money was being spent and found that the NSA had overpaid some contract employees. The contracts showed no limits on labor costs.

"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research."

1.30.2006 "Palace Revolt" Newsweek

These Justice Department lawyers, backed by their intrepid boss Comey, had stood up to the hard-liners, centered in the office of the vice president, who wanted to give the president virtually unlimited powers in the war on terror. Demanding that the White House stop using what they saw as farfetched rationales for riding rough-shod over the law and the Constitution, Goldsmith and the others fought to bring government spying and interrogation methods within the law. They did so at their peril; ostracized, some were denied promotions, while others left for more comfortable climes in private law firms and academia. Some went so far as to line up private lawyers in 2004, anticipating that the president's eavesdropping program would draw scrutiny from Congress, if not prosecutors. These government attorneys did not always succeed, but their efforts went a long way toward vindicating the principle of a nation of laws and not men.

1.29.2006 "Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him"

1.29.2006 Modo: "When President Bush cut into Oprah's show with a press conference, perhaps he was trying to get the focus off truth. It was truly weird to see the twin live TV moments: A disgraced author, and a commander in chief who keeps writing chapter after chapter of fictionalized propaganda."

1.28.2006 Marty Lederman:

So, what to do? Even if Congress kicks and screams during next month's hearings -- even if it passes another statute saying "FISA -- WE MEAN IT!" -- the President will continue with business as usual.

My friend David Barron has come up with the simple but ingenious idea that Congress should vote for a statute that would confer statutory standing on certain persons to file a cause of action in federal court seeking declaratory relief that the NSA program is unlawful -- say, for example, persons who have a reasonable basis for claiming that they are chilled by the spying program because their employment regularly requires them to make overseas calls in connection with academic or journalistic work related to the war on terrorism.

That way, the Supreme Court could resolve the question, particularly if the plaintiffs could sue for injunctive as well as declaratory relief.

After the Senators on the Intelligence Committee spoke about why their FISA amendments were so important and why it was so necessary to amend FISA in order to expand the Administration’s eavesdropping capabilities, various Administration officials from the Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA all testified about their views concerning these amendments. Each of them acted as though it mattered what Congress did with regard to amending FISA – they all gave the impression that it was Congress through FISA that determined the scope of the Administration’s eavesdropping powers – and never once stated, suggested, implied or even hinted that the Administration, months before, had decided that it could eavesdrop far beyond the mandates of that law.
...
This whole FISA-"bypass" program was a complete hoax perpetrated on Congress. The Senate sat there in 2002 holding hearings on whether FISA should be amended to increase the surveillance powers of the Administration even while the Administration had decided that FISA was totally irrelevant.
...
At any point, the Administration could have easily said that they did not need amendments to FISA becasue the AUMF already gave them all the authorization they needed to eavesdrop in violation of FISA. Why didn't they say that if they really thought that Congress had given them that authority? That would have made all of these FISA amendments which the Senate was pitifully debating totally unnecesssary.

1.28.2006 Juan Cole: "Democracy depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority."

1.28.2006 First they came for the Vegans and I wasn't a vegan:

WXIA: Two documents relating to anti-war and anti-government protests, and a vegan rally, prove the agencies have been "spying" on Georgia residents unconstitutionally, the ACLU said. (Related: ACLU Complaint -- PDF file)

For example, more than two dozen government surveillance photographs show 22-year-old Caitlin Childs of Atlanta, a strict vegetarian, and other vegans picketing against meat eating, in December 2003. They staged their protest outside a HoneyBaked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County.

An undercover DeKalb County Homeland Security detective was assigned to conduct surveillance of the protest and the protestors, and take the photographs. The detective arrested Childs and another protester after he saw Childs approach him and write down, on a piece of paper, the license plate number of his unmarked government car.

Bush's stand is all too reminiscent of President Nixon, who said during the unraveling of the Watergate scandal: "If a president does it, it's not illegal."
...
What other secret orders has Bush issued to enhance his powers and diminish ours?

The 9th Circuit issued a disturbing opinion today. It was not disturbing because it affirmed that it was constitutional to require airplane passengers to present identification to board airplanes. It was disturbing because material portions of its ruling relied upon the reader trusting the judge's secret review of the binding legal order in question without actually telling us what that order said. This is not a secret document, it is a secret government regulation, and the parts that were secret were necessary to the court's holding. Transparency is far better proof against the forces that would undermine our society than secrecy. A nation with secret laws is not a nation of laws at all.

1.28.2006 Saturday night apotheosis: NYT

The investigation of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, took a surprising new turn on Thursday when the Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bush

1.24.2006 "The End of 'Unalienable Rights" which includes "The Bush/Laden Symbiosis" Robert Parry

1.23.2006 NYT:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 - The White House was told in the hours before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans that the city would probably soon be inundated with floodwater, forcing the long-term relocation of hundreds of thousands of people, documents to be released Tuesday by Senate investigators show.

A Homeland Security Department report submitted to the White House at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the storm hit, said, "Any storm rated Category 4 or greater will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching."

The internal department documents, which were forwarded to the White House, contradict statements by President Bush and the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, that no one expected the storm protection system in New Orleans to be breached.

1.23.2006 Glenn Greenwald:

...Saddam Hussein's defense theory at his war crimes trial in Baghdad sure does sound an awful lot like the Bush Administration's theories as to why they have the right to violate the law. As Stirling Newberry points out (h/t American Coprophagia):

Saddam Hussein's defense against his indictment by an ad hoc Iraqi tribunal is simply that has the head of the state he had unlimited power to defend the state. That enemies of the state did not have legal protection, and therefore he cannot be charged for what he did during that time.

1.23.2006 "The essential universal theme of nature is cooperation." Robert Augros and George Stanciu, via Potsy

1.22.2006 "Wayward Christian Soldiers" via Bora and Duncan Shiek

1.22.2006 "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito" By FRANK RICH

It’s when truthiness moves beyond the realm of entertainment that it’s a potential peril. As Seth Mnookin, a rehab alumnus, has written in Slate, the macho portrayal of drug abuse in “Pieces” could deter readers battling actual addictions from seeking help. Ms. Winfrey’s blithe re-endorsement of the book is less laughable once you start to imagine some Holocaust denier using her imprimatur to discount Elie Wiesel’s incarceration at Auschwitz in her next book club selection, “Night.”

This isn’t just a slippery slope. It’s a toboggan into chaos, or at least war. As everyone knows now – except for the 22 percent, according to a recent Harris poll, who still believe that Saddam helped plan 9/11 – it’s the truthiness of all those imminent mushroom clouds that sold the invasion of Iraq. What’s remarkable is how much fictionalization plays a role in almost every national debate. Even after a big humbug is exposed as blatantly as Professor Marvel in “The Wizard of Oz” – FEMA’s heck of a job in New Orleans, for instance – we remain ready and eager to be duped by the next tall tale. It’s as if the country is living in a permanent state of suspension of disbelief.

"...RIAA and MPAA's attempts to freeze the progress of consumer electronics technology and then start turning back the clock on all of us. Fair use, meet your successor: ~customary historic use~ "

"...legislation sponsored by Senator Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) that contains provisions which appear to limit digital broadcast media reception devices to "customary historic use of broadcast content by consumers to the extent such use is consistent with applicable law and that prevents redistribution of copyrighted content over digital networks." In other words, if it does anything heretofore unheard of with the digital content that it receives, then it's illegal. And if it does anything "customary" that could also possibly lead to unauthorized redistribution, then it's also illegal. So all the bases are covered! "

"There's been a consolidation of power by the Republican Congress and this White House in which, if you are the ordinary voter, you don't have access," Obama said. "That should be a source of concern for all of us.

1.21.2006 "The Party of Pain" from NY Times,By John Tierney

As the baby boomers age, more and more Americans will either be enduring chronic pain or taking care of someone in pain. The Republican Party has been reaching out to them with a two-step plan:

1. Do not give patients medicine to ease their pain.

2. If they are in great pain and near death, do not let them put an end to their misery.

Justice Department Issues Memo, Says Bush has 'Legal Basis' to Act Illegally.

Minutes ago, the Justice Department issued an official memo that declared President Bush innocent of any Constitutional violations incurred by the NSA wiretapping scheme--claiming that there is a 'legal basis' for such illegal actions by the President.
...
But we should all pay close attention to what President Bush is trying to do. He is working hard to convince America that phrases like 'legal reasoning' and 'legal basis' are the same as 'law.' When it is most definitely not the same. And he is no longer acting according to the law, he is simply acting according to legal reasoning.
...
Americans beware! The President does not have the authority to rule on matters of law. And if he claims that authority by using trick language like 'legal reasoning,' then he is no longer acting as a representative of the people.

Instead, he is being very bad king, indeed.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

The 22 former military officers said in a letter that Bush should ensure that his administration spoke "with a consistent voice to make clear that the United States now has a single standard of conduct specified in law that governs all interrogations."

Huffington Post: Frist Not Allowing Senators To Speak On The Senate Floor About Alito...

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) tried to secure time this week to speak on the Senate floor about Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist would not allow any time for speeches until January 25, a day after the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on Alito's nomination.

The normal practice of the majority leader is to give senators time to make floor speeches about the nominee.

Instead of speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Leahy will give a speech today at Georgetown University Law School. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will also give speeches today regarding Alito's nomination -- Kennedy at a think tank in Washington, and Durbin at Northwestern Law School.

1.19.2006 Orwell couldn't make this up:

"FDA Tries to Limit Drug Suits in State Courts -- Agency's 'Federal Preemption' Policy Included in Labeling Guidelines for Medications

The new labeling rules require drugmakers to highlight the most important advisory information in the "package insert" issued with every prescription and to cut back on the often-technical legal language that officials said is included more to protect drugmakers from lawsuits than to inform doctors and patients. Gottlieb said drug industry officials convinced the agency that they deserved more broadly stated FDA support because the new, more streamlined labeling would make them more vulnerable to lawsuits.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Abramoff and his associates had nearly 200 contacts with the White House during Bush's first 10 months in office."

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.
...
The government indicated that other, unspecified search engines have agreed to release the information, but not Google.

The Bush administration appears to have violated the National Security Act by limiting its briefings about a warrantless domestic eavesdropping program to congressional leaders, according to a memo from Congress's research arm released yesterday.

The Congressional Research Service opinion said that the amended 1947 law requires President Bush to keep all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees "fully and currently informed" of such intelligence activities as the domestic surveillance effort.
...
The only exception in the law applies to covert actions, Cumming found, and those programs must be reported to the "Gang of Eight," which includes House and Senate leaders in addition to heads of the intelligence panels. The administration can also withhold some operational details in rare circumstances, but that does not apply to the existence of entire programs, he wrote.

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled 6-3 in Gonzalez v. Oregon that Attorney General John Ashcroft lacked the authority under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (the CSA) to "interpret" that statute -- which was intended to regulate drug usage -- as prohibiting physician-assisted suicide, which the State of Oregon legalized by referendum in 1994.
...
The Administration has skillfully used fear-mongering over terrorism to obscure the extent to which intrusive religious conservatism is shaping and molding almost every aspect of U.S. domestic policy. Agencies and sub-agencies which receive relatively little attention but which have great influence on domestic policies have, in many cases, been turned over to religious extremists, and the lack of light being shined on these bureaucratic crevices in Washington means that they are running wild, without any real restraint or opposition.

“President Bush may believe he can authorize spying on Americans without judicial or Congressional approval, but this program is illegal and we intend to put a stop to it,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “The current surveillance of Americans is a chilling assertion of presidential power that has not been seen since the days of Richard Nixon.”

See also: ACLU Statement
Government eavesdropping on Americans is an extremely serious matter; the ability to intrude on the private realm is a tremendous power that can be used to monitor, embarass, control, disgrace, or ruin an individual. Because it is so invasive, the technology of wiretapping has been subject to carefully crafted statutory controls almost since it was invented. Ignoring those controls and wiretapping without a court order is a crime that carries a significant prison sentence (in fact, criminal violations of the wiretap statute were among the articles of impeachment that were drafted against President Nixon shortly before his resignation).

Although I am named in this suit in my own behalf, I am motivated to join it by concerns well beyond my own. I have been frankly appalled by the discrepant and contradictory positions taken by the Administration in this matter.
...
The better the ostensible justification for an infringement upon domestic liberty, the more suspicious one ought to be of it. We are hardly likely to be told that the government would feel less encumbered if it could dispense with the Bill of Rights. But a power or a right, once relinquished to one administration for one reason, will unfailingly be exploited by successor administrations, for quite other reasons. It is therefore of the first importance that we demarcate, clearly and immediately, the areas in which our government may or may not treat us as potential enemies.

Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate effect on its battlefield of choice. The casting of suspicion and doubt about the actions of veterans who have run against President Bush or opposed his policies has been a constant theme of his career. This pattern of denigrating the service of those with whom they disagree risks cheapening the public's appreciation of what it means to serve, and in the long term may hurt the Republicans themselves.

1.17.2006 Ah ha! The Raw Story

A controversial neoconservative (Michael Ledeen) who occasionally consulted for the Bush Defense Department has confirmed that he was a contributor to the Italian magazine Panorama, whose reporter first came across forged documents which purported that Iraq was seeking to obtain uranium from Niger.

And again, the FISA process, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that supervises our authorities under that act has been a very valuable tool in fighting the war on terror ... but it is one tool and the president has directed that we make available to him all the possible tools provided under the law and that's what we have done in this case.

UPI: The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.

But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.

1.17.2006 Glenn Greenwald:

King asked Gonzalez whether innocent Americans "have nothing to worry about" in terms of eavesdropping by the Government, and Gonzalez -- in claiming that it’s only Al Qaeda whom we’re eavesdropping on -- went out of his way to limit his assurances by saying that he’s "only talking about what the president described to the American people in his radio address." That would seem to suggest that there is eavesdropping on Americans outside of "what the President described to the American people in his radio address." What was Gonzalez referring to there? (And it's always worth noting that if we're only eavesdropping "where we have reason to believe that a party on that communication is a member of al Qaeda or is a member of an affiliate group with al Qaeda," then it becomes that much more difficult to explain why FISA warrants couldn't have been obtained for such eavesdropping).

Justices, on a 6-3 vote, said that federal authority to regulate doctors does not override the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people. New Chief Justice John Roberts backed the Bush administration, dissenting for the first time.

The two lawsuits, which are being filed separately by the American Civil Liberties Union in Federal District Court in Detroit an t in Manhattan, are the first major court challenges to the eavesdropping program.

Raw Story says:

In an address delivered in Washington to multiple standing ovations, Vice President Al Gore repeatedly attacked the Bush Administration for the expansion of executive power -- the ability of the government to wiretap its own citizens without legal authority and kidnap Americans abroad.

His speech -- which compares the wiretapping of Martin Luther King to the broad surveillance now imposed on Americans by President Bush -- called on Congress to resume its oversight responsibilities, and enjoined Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor. Gore was to be introduced by former Rep. Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican who has advocated for the constitutional right to privacy. The full text of his speech follows.

(the text can be found here)

Asked by ABC News following his speech whether President Bush's domestic spying program constituted an impeachable offense, Gore said it might be and pointed to one of the three Articles of Impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee approved against President Nixon on July 27, 1974.

"That's a legal determination for the Congress to make," Gore told ABC News. "But Article II of the impeachment charges against President Nixon was warrantless wiretapping that the President said was 'necessary' for national security."

"It can be" an impeachable offense, he added.

Mr. Alito is on his way toward confirmation. He will probably vote to reverse Roe v. Wade. He will not be a champion of voting rights for minorities, or a bulwark against racial and gender discrimination. If his record is any indication, and we have very little else to go on, he will almost always side with the powerful interests, whether in government or the great corporations, against the little guy.

I can understand why the Republican Party - the party of Bush, Cheney, Frist, Abramoff and DeLay - would want such a man. But why the general public would want him is beyond me.

"President Tells Insurers to Aid Ailing Medicare Drug Plan:
With tens of thousands of people unable to get medicines promised by Medicare, the Bush administration has told insurers that they must provide a 30-day supply of any drug that a beneficiary was previously taking, and it said that poor people must not be charged more than $5 for a covered drug."

Today we are again engaged in a debate over wiretapping for reasons of national security — the same kind of justification Hoover offered when he wanted to spy on King. The problem, then as now, is not the invasion of privacy, although that can be a difficulty. But it fades in significance to the claim of unfettered authority in the name of "national security." There may be good and sufficient reasons for invasions of privacy. But those reasons cannot and should not be kept secret by those charged with enforcing the law. No one should have such power, and in our constitutional system of checks and balances, no one legitimately does.

Forcing the executive to explain its reasons for intrusive law enforcement is essential to maintaining not just privacy but freedom itself. A congressional committee must exercise oversight. So too must an independent court because Congress is also subject to possible political pressure.

Our freedom is too precious, and too much blood has been shed to preserve it, to entrust it to a single person, however sincere and however well intentioned.

Remember, this is not about whether it's right or wrong to wiretap bad guys, though the White House hopes to frame it that way for political purposes. Any rational person wants the president to be able to hunt for Qaeda suspects wherever they lurk. The "momentous" issue (Alito's words) is whether this president, or any other, has the right to tell Congress to shove it. And even if one concedes that wartime offers the president extra powers to limit liberty, what happens if the terrorist threat looks permanent? We may be scrapping our checks and balances not just for a few years (as during the Civil War), but for good.
...
The NSA story is an acid test of whether one is a traditional Barry Goldwater conservative, who believes in limited government, or a modern Richard Nixon conservative, who believes in authority. Alito is in the latter category.

1.16.2006 NYT: "For President, Final Say on a Bill Sometimes Comes After the Signing"

Mr. Bush's quiet little statement not only set off fireworks at the Supreme Court nomination hearings of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., but also ignited a new debate about the Bush administration's drive to expand the powers of the president.

To start at the beginning, Congress late last year passed what became known as the torture amendment, sponsored by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to ban cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners in American custody. Mr. Bush at first opposed the amendment, but gave in when it became clear that it had overwhelming support from the two parties on Capitol Hill. The president then invited Mr. McCain, his old political nemesis, to the Oval Office to announce that he agreed with him and "to make clear to the world that this government does not torture."

But on Dec. 30, after signing the legislation into law with no ceremony at his Texas ranch, Mr. Bush issued an accompanying "signing statement" - the 8 p.m. e-mail message - that Democrats and some Republicans say asserted that he could ignore the law if he wished.

Specifically, the statement said that the administration would interpret the amendment "in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the president to supervise the unitary executive branch and as commander in chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on judicial power."