8.22.2007 Chris Roberts of the El Paso Times interviews National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.

Q: How many calls? Thousands?

A: Don't want to go there. Just think, lots. Too many. Now the second part of the issue was under the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us. Because if you're going to get access you've got to have a partner and they were being sued. Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So my position was we have to provide liability protection to these private sector entities. So that was part of the request. So we went through that and we argued it. Some wanted to limit us to terrorism. My argument was, wait a minute, why would I want to limit it to terrorism. It may be that terrorists are achieving weapons of mass destruction, the only way I would know that is if I'm doing foreign intelligence by who might be providing a weapon of mass destruction.
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A: I am. The issue that we did not address, which has to be addressed is the liability protection for the private sector now is proscriptive, meaning going forward. We've got a retroactive problem. When I went through and briefed the various senators and congressmen, the issue was alright, look, we don't want to work that right now, it's too hard because we want to find out about some issues of the past. So what I recommended to the administration is, 'Let's take that off the table for now and take it up when Congress reconvenes in September.'

Lawyers for Verizon customers seized on the comments during arguments Thursday before Walker. They said the quotes are enough to connect New York-based Verizon to the government probe, and undermine the government's assertion that confirming any relationship with companies would cause "exceptionally grave harm" to national security.

Verizon customers accuse the company of violating their privacy rights by turning their calling records over to the government without a warrant. Their lawyers urged Walker to deny a request by Verizon and the government seeking to dismiss the case.

Echoing a pervasive argument throughout these cases, government lawyers said revealing the identities of surveillance targets and detailing the relationships with private companies would require the U.S. to divulge "state secrets" and hurt national security while fighting the global war on terror.

Walker did not rule on the motions Thursday. He said he likely won't see the parties again until after the appeals court rules on the other two cases.

6.30.2006 "Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say" By Andrew Harris, Bloomberg

8.29.2007 "GOP Corruption: '07 is the New '06" Paul Kiel sums it up and reminds us about the Grand Ole Docket

8.28.2007 Fed Bends Rules to Help Two Big Banks By Peter Eavis, Fortune

In a clear sign that the credit crunch is still affecting the nation's largest financial institutions, the Federal Reserve agreed this week to bend key banking regulations to help out Citigroup and Bank of America, according to documents posted Friday (8.24.2007) on the Fed's web site.
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Don't forget: The Federal Reserve is in crisis management at the moment. However, it doesn't want to show any signs of panic. That means no rushed cuts in interest rates. It also means that it wants banks to quickly take the big charges that will inevitably come from holding toxic debt securities. And it will do all it can behind the scenes to work with the banks to help them get through this upheaval. But waiving one of the most important banking regulations can only add nervousness to the market. And that's what the Fed did Monday in these disturbing letters to the nation's two largest banks.

The JAGs cited language in the executive order in which Bush said CIA interrogators may not use "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual." As an example, it lists "sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation."

Among lawyers, "for the purpose" language is often used to mean that a person must specifically intend to do something, such as causing humiliation, in order to violate a statute. The JAGs said Bush's wording appears to make it legal for interrogators to undertake that same abusive action if they had some other motive, such as gaining information.
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The Bush administration legal team had previously invoked a similar "intent" loophole to give legal cover to harsh interrogations. In a once-secret Aug. 1, 2002, Justice Department memo about an antitorture law, the administration legal team said interrogators could avoid violating anti-torture laws if they said their motivation was protecting national security.

8.24.2007 White House Declares Office Off-Limits By Dan Eggen, The Washington Post

The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort to fend off a civil lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House servers.

The claim, made in a motion filed Tuesday by the Justice Department, is at odds with a depiction of the office on the White House's own Web site. As of yesterday, the site listed the Office of Administration as one of six presidential entities subject to the open-records law, which is commonly known by its abbreviation, FOIA.
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Much of the White House, including the offices of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, is not subject to FOIA, which allows the media and the public to demand disclosure of federal public records. But the Office of Administration, which was formed in 1977 and handles various administrative and technology duties, responded to 65 FOIA requests last year and even has its own FOIA officer, records show.

"[U]nder the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us," Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said in an interview with the El Paso Times published Wednesday.

His statement could help plaintiffs in dozens of lawsuits against the telecom companies, which allege that the companies participated in a wiretapping program that violated Americans' privacy rights, former Justice Department officials said. Warrantless surveillance began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and was placed under supervision of a special court in January.
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"There's a sense that we're doing massive data mining," McConnell said, according to a transcript released by the El Paso newspaper. "In fact, what we're doing is surgical. A telephone number is surgical. So, if you know what number, you can select it out." Select it out of the mined data?

8.21.2007 Cheney's Office Says It Has Wiretap Documents By Dan Eggen, Washington Post

Vice President Cheney's office acknowledged for the first time yesterday that it has dozens of documents related to the administration's warrantless surveillance program, but it signaled that it will resist efforts by congressional Democrats to obtain them.
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Nonetheless, Coffin identified by date a series of memos and orders that "may be responsive" to the Senate committee's demands. They include 43 separate authorizations from President Bush for the program, which had to be renewed approximately every 45 days beginning on Oct. 4, 2001.

emptywheel: But very important: Eggen doesn't say whether or not those reauthorizations include the March 10, 2004 one that would prove--presuming it bears Bush's signature--that Bush reauthorized the program after DOJ told him it was illegal. This was the document Sheldon Whitehouse was seeking when Gonzales was last before the Senate. (emphasis hers)

Leahy said that the administration’s stonewalling amounted to “contempt of the valid order of the Congress,” and pointed out that these subpoenas were passed by broad bipartisan votes. In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee in the conservative-led 109th Congress, chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) also attempted to ask questions about the program’s legal justifications. But Vice President Cheney personally barred him from issuing subpoenas:

In fact, we were about to issue subpoenas then and one of the senators came to our meeting and said that the vice president had met with the Republican senators and told them they were not allowed to issue subpoenas.

Not quite sure that’s my understanding of the separation of powers, but it seemed to work at that time.

... Leahy also said that while he didn’t receive the requested documents, he did receive “a letter this morning from the Office of the Vice President identifying some documents that would be responsive to the committee’s subpoena.” In the letter, the administration claims the Office of the Vice President is not part of the Executive Office of the President.

Leahy responds, “Well, that’s wrong. … [O]h, incidentally, at least this morning, as I left Vermont, I checked the White House Web site. And even their own Web site, this morning, at least, says that the Executive Office — that the vice president is part of the Executive Office of the President.”

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.
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In an interview today, Mr. Smith said: “The program was always meant for children in lower-income families. As states move higher up the income scale, it’s more likely to substitute for private coverage.”

To minimize the risk of such substitution, Mr. Smith said in his letter, states should charge co-payments or premiums that approximate the cost of private coverage and should impose “waiting periods,” to make sure higher-income children do not go directly from a private health plan to a public program.

Thought Theater: Completely ignored in the issuance of this policy statement by the Bush administration is whether or not insurance is available to a family or whether a family has the means to afford the cost of such insurance. Even worse, the letter indicates that some children must be dropped from the program in order to meet the new guidelines.

The fact that this new policy rationale attempts to portray the issue as a matter of choosing between private insurance and that which would be provided by the government program is laughable. Reality tells us that the choice is actually between having any insurance and having no insurance.

Hoffmania: Family Values My Ass

Once the fetus leaves the womb, that precious little baby life becomes worthless to the Republicans and their idiot sheep who vote for them.