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after seeing this shit....... http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/16/feingold-i-told-congress-so/Feingold: I Told Congress SoBy: emptywheel Thursday April 16, 2009 9:38 am 0 diggs digg it I'll have more on this shortly. But if I were Feingold, my statement about the abuse of the warrantless wiretapping program would have been even stronger. Since 2001, I have spent a lot of time in the Intelligence Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and on the floor of the Senate bringing attention to both the possible and actual effects of legislation that has dangerously expanded the power of the executive branch to spy on innocent Americans. Despite these efforts, Congress insisted on enacting several measures including the USA PATRIOT Act, the Protect America Act, and the FISA Amendments Act, embarking on a tragic retreat from the principles that had governed the sensitive area of government surveillance for the previous three decades. Congress must get to work fixing these laws that have eroded the privacy and civil liberties of law-abiding citizens. In addition, the administration should declassify certain aspects of how these authorities have been used so that the American people can better understand their scope and impact.
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Feingold (and ACLU): I Told Congress So
By: emptywheel Thursday April 16, 2009 9:38 am 0
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I'll have more on this shortly. But if I were Feingold, my statement about the abuse of the warrantless wiretapping program would have been even stronger.
Since 2001, I have spent a lot of time in the Intelligence Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and on the floor of the Senate bringing attention to both the possible and actual effects of legislation that has dangerously expanded the power of the executive branch to spy on innocent Americans. Despite these efforts, Congress insisted on enacting several measures including the USA PATRIOT Act, the Protect America Act, and the FISA Amendments Act, embarking on a tragic retreat from the principles that had governed the sensitive area of government surveillance for the previous three decades. Congress must get to work fixing these laws that have eroded the privacy and civil liberties of law-abiding citizens. In addition, the administration should declassify certain aspects of how these authorities have been used so that the American people can better understand their scope and impact.
Update: Caroline Fredrickson of the ACLU engages in some well-earned "I told you so" speech, too.
“Congress was repeatedly warned that this type of abuse would be the obvious outcome of passing the FISA Amendments Act,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Congressional leadership promised after this law’s passage that it would be reexamined along with the Patriot Act. It’s time to fulfill that promise and restore the checks and balances of our surveillance system. Warrantless surveillance has no place in an America we can be proud of. These revelations make it clear that Congress must now make a commitment to rein in government surveillance.”
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http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/15/did-holder-know-about-the-significant-misconduct-when-doj-claimed-sovereign-immunity/#more-3945
Did Holder Know About the “Significant Misconduct” When DOJ Claimed Sovereign Immunity?
By: emptywheel Wednesday April 15, 2009 8:19 pm 11
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On April 3, DOJ submitted a filing that argued that no citizen had the ability to sue if she had been wrongly wiretapped under Bush's illegal wiretap program. The government, DOJ claimed, had sovereign immunity that protected it from such suits.
As set forth below, in the Wiretap Act and ECPA, Congress expressly preserved sovereign immunity against claims for damages and equitable relief, permitting such claims against only a “person or entity, other than the United States.” See 18 U.S.C. § 2520; 18 U.S.C. § 2707. Plaintiffs attempt to locate a waiver of sovereign immunity in other statutory provisions, primarily through a cause of action authorized by the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2712, but this attempt fails. Section 2712 does not erase the express reservations of sovereign immunity noted above, because it applies solely to a narrow set of allegations not presented here: where the Government obtains information about a person through intelligence-gathering, and Government agents unlawfully disclose that information. Likewise, the Government preserves its position that Congress also has not waived sovereign immunity under in FISA to permit a damages claim against the United States.
Today, just 11 days later, we learn that,
As part of investigation , a senior F.B.I. agent recently came forward with what the inspector general’s office described as allegations of “significant misconduct” in the surveillance program, people with knowledge of the investigation said. Those allegations are said to involve the question of whether the N.S.A. targeted Americans in eavesdropping operations based on insufficient evidence tying them to terrorism.
So when Eric Holder's DOJ made expansive claims arguing that no one could sue federal employees for being wrongly wiretapped under Bush's illegal program, did he know this revelation from Glenn Fine's investigation into the wiretapping program? When DOJ claimed sovreign immunity, were they thinking not so much of the Jewel plaintiffs, whose claim was focused on the dragnet collection of US person data, but of the Americans targeted in what Glenn Fine's office considers "significant misconduct"?
Because if Holder did know (and the timing suggests it is quite likely he did), it makes those cynical claims of sovereign immunity all the more disturbing.
Fine's investigation will contribute to the larger FAA-mandated Inspector General's for which there is a presumption of openness. In other words, even if this hadn't been leaked now, in April, it is supposed to be published in unclassified form in July.
Read the rest of this entry »
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http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/15/lichtblau-and-risen-report-ongoing-fisa-violations/#more-3944
Lichtblau and Risen Report Illegal Wiretapping of Americans … Again
By: emptywheel Wednesday April 15, 2009 5:36 pm 26
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It's pretty pathetic that, three years after they first broke the story of the Bush's illegal wiretap program, Eric Lichtblau and James Risen are still reporting on illegal warrantless wiretapping of Americans.
Their story has two main revelations. First, in preparation for Holder's first semi-annual certification of the FISA program to the FISC, NSA realized it was not complying with the law.
In recent weeks, the eavesdropping agency notified members of the congressional intelligence committees that it has encountered operational and legal problems in complying with the new wiretapping law, according to congressional officials .
Officials would not discuss details of the over-collection problem because it involves classified intelligence-gathering techniques. But the issue appears focused in part on technical problems in the N.S.A.’s inability at times to distinguish between communications inside the United States and those overseas as it uses its access to American telecommunications companies’ fiber-optic lines and its own spy satellites to intercept millions of calls and e-mails.
One official said that led the agency to inadvertently “target” groups of Americans and collect their domestic communications without proper court authority.
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http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/15/does-this-explain-doj-reluctance-to-turn-over-aig-monitoring-documents/
Does This Explain DOJ Reluctance to Turn Over AIG Monitoring Documents?
By: emptywheel Wednesday April 15, 2009 2:42 pm 17
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TPMM notes that DOJ has been reluctant to turn over to the Oversight Committee the documents pertaining to its Delayed Prosecution Agreement with AIG. Here are some data points that might begin to explain why DOJ would be reluctant to reveal what they knew about AIG and when they knew it.
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