NewsTrust - Domestic Spying - Most Recent Stories: Opinion

What the CIA hid from Congress

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Jane Harman - Jul. 26 (Opinion) - Were members of congressional intelligence committees told everything about the Bush administration's surveillance programs? Not even close, reveals Jane Harman, the former top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

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Mr. Cheney, You Did Not Keep Us Safe

Thu, 14 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - May. 14 (Opinion) - If 3,000 Americans had been killed on your watch, in an attack that could have been prevented, perhaps you'd be a little hesitant to accuse anyone else of endangering America. And if you had advocated torture, and the torture produced false information that you used to mislead America into an unwise, unjust and unwarranted war, you might be a tad sheepish about defending the use of torture.

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Is the Threat of Homegrown Extremism Real?

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Michelle Goldberg - Apr. 22 (Opinion) - Last week's leaked DHS report has some asking if we need to train a closer eye on fringe political groups. But we shouldn't overlook the potential for abuse with government surveillance.

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Obama Administration Embraces Bush Position on Warrantless Wiretapping and Secrecy | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

eff.org - Apr. 06 (Press Release) - The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration's position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency's (NSA's) warrantless wiretapping program, filing a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA late Friday. In Jewel v. NSA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging the agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. The Obama Justice Department claims in its motion that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets." These are essentially the same arguments made by the Bush administration three years ago in Hepting v. AT&T, EFF's lawsuit against one of the telecom giants complicit in the NSA spying. "President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."

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The CIA responds to Seymour Hersh (via MinnPost)

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

minnpost.com - By Eric Black - Mar. 12 (Statement) - "I saw your story on Seymour Hersh’s recent allegations regarding CIA activities since 9/11. If you wish, you can attribute the quoted portion that follows to me, in name, as a CIA spokesman:

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Ramsey County Charges RNC 8 Under State Patriot Act, Alleges Acts of Terrorism

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

National Lawyers Guild Minnesota - By NLG Minnesota - Sep. 30 (Press Release) - Affidavits released by law enforcement which were filed in support of the search warrants used in raids over the weekend, and used to support probable cause for the arrest warrants, are based on paid, confidential informants who infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul.

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A New Rush to Spy

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By NY Times Editorial - Aug. 22 (Opinion) - There is apparently no limit to the Bush administration's desire to invade Americans' privacy in the name of national security. According to members of Congress, Attorney General Michael Mukasey is preparing to give the F.B.I. broad new authority to investigate Americans -- without any clear basis for suspicion that they are committing a crime.

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Obama on the Brink

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Robert Scheer - Jul. 24 (Opinion) - Barack Obama is betraying his promise of change and is in danger of becoming just another political hack. Yes, just like former maverick John McCain, who has refashioned himself as a mindless rubber stamp for the most inane policies of the miserably failed Bush administration. Both candidates are embracing, rather than challenging, the fundamental irrationality of Bush's "war on terror," which substitutes hysteria for rational analysis in appraising the dangers the country faces.

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Political harmony v. the rule of law

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Jul. 19 (Opinion) - Former Congressman Harold Ford appeared at the Netroots Nation conference yesterday, argued that Bush officials shouldn't be held accountable for crimes they committed while in office, and then insisted that Democrats shouldn't be expected to defend civil liberties and Constitutional rights because "the Constitution doesn't poll very well." In arguing against prosecutions for Bush lawbreaking, Ford said that Bush officials already have been subjected to accountability for their lawbreaking: "'I think that accountability was brought in 2006 when [the GOP] lost in the House and the Senate

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Talking With Jane Mayer

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Eric Umansk, Jane Mayer - Jul. 15 (Interview) - As much as any other reporter, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has helped expose the post-9/11 system of detention, rendition and abuse of 'enemy combatants.' Her book out today, "The Dark Side," significantly expands on her reporting. We talked to Mayer about how the move to the system started with bureaucratic bungling and the curiously passive role of President Bush, who kept "disappearing from the frame."

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FISA for Nothing

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Robert Davey - Jul. 13 (Opinion) - Now President Bush has the law he and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell set out, more than a year ago, to manipulate Congress and the media into giving them, perhaps it's time to consider once again the role played by Spc. Alex Jimenez. Jimenez was abducted by Iraqi insurgents in mid-May 2007 and probably killed very soon after. But he provided a convenient peg on which McConnell and the rest could hang their specious claims about the flaws in FISA, claims that were believed by the Senate Intelligence Committee and by the New York Times.

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Torture and the rule of law

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Jul. 12 (Opinion) - none of the scandals of radicalism and criminality which we've learned about over the last seven years -- including the creation of this illegal torture regime -- can be viewed in isolation. They're all by-products of the country that we've become in the post-9/11 era, primarily as a result of our collective decision to exempt our Government leaders from the rule of law; to acquiesce to the manipulative claim that we can only be Safe if we allow our Leaders to be free from consequences when they commit crimes; and to demonize advocates of the rule of law

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Get spied on without doing anything wrong

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By D. Parvaz - Jul. 12 (Editorial) - Those who aren't alarmed by racial profiling ought to consider what makes this country special and think about what will be left to protect in a fascistic society where the individual's basic rights -- and our ideal of equal rights -- are meaningless. Just how much of this nonsense are we supposed to suck up in the name of national security?

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Fighting the Unconstitutional Spying Law

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Anthony D. Romero - Jul. 12 (Opinion) - The FAA permits mass acquisition of the international and, in some instances, domestic communications of U.S. citizens and residents without prior judicial approval, without specifying the person, phone line, email address, facility, place or property to be monitored; without any finding of suspicion or probable cause; without meaningful judicial supervision; and without rules or safeguards to protect U.S. communications swept up in surveillance of people abroad.

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McCain's Ties To Telecoms Questioned After Wiretapping Flip-Flop

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Ryan Singel - Jul. 09 (Opinion) - If you've been wondering where all the telecom lobbyists went to lick their wounds after the House rejected retroactive immunity for wiretapping, the Electronic Frontier Foundation says it's found a bunch of them smack dab in the middle of John McCain's presidential campaign organization.

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Netroots Activists Mad at Obama for Spy Bill Flip-Flop

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Sarah Lai Stirland - Jul. 09 (Opinion) - Netroots activists who helped Barack Obama to become the Democratic party's presumptive presidential nominee are unmoved by the senator's explanation of his change of heart on a pending bill regarding warrantless wiretapping. The Obama campaign posted the senator's thoughts on the legislation on the eve of Independence Day, and members of his policy team answered questions for an hour and a half.

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Congress votes to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, legalize warrantless eavesdropping

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Jul. 09 (Opinion) - The Democratic-led Congress this afternoon voted to put an end to the NSA spying scandal, as the Senate approved a bill -- approved last week by the House -- to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, terminate all pending lawsuits against them, and vest whole new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President. The vote in favor of the new FISA bill was 69-28. Barack Obama joined every Senate Republican (and every House Republican other than one) by voting in favor of it, while his now-vanquished primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, voted against it. John McCain wasn't present for any of the votes, but shared Obama's support for the bill. The bill will now be sent to an extremely happy George Bush, who already announced that he enthusiastically supports it, and he will sign it into law very shortly.

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FISA Fight: Attack Of The Epic Failure

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Martin Bosworth - Jul. 09 (Opinion) - This was a battle the Democrats absolutely could have won. They could have stood their ground and fought the new laws every step of the way, and gotten good press, more donations, and the respect of their constitutents. Instead, they knuckled under to protect their corrupt leadership from being hit by lawsuits for their part in the surveillance, and in so doing, granted one of the most corrupt and authoritarian American presidents in our history one of his greatest victories--the unchecked expansion of "Total Information Awareness," a vast data dragnet where your every move is catalogued, cross-referenced, and analyzed for "suspicious behavior." It's the stated aim of current DNI Mike McConnell to not only expand the government's surveillance reach not only to the Internet and databases, but to outsource that surveillance to corporate partners such as AT&T--the same company which is up to its eyeballs in the illegal spying scandal.

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Opponents of Retroactive Immunity Live To Fight Another Day

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Chris Dodd - Jul. 07 (Opinion) - That we know this happened is not because the government told us -- they say the matter is classified. And it is not because one of the telecoms told us. We may not have known any of this at all were it not for serious investigative journalists. And we wouldn't know how deep the problem really went without an Internet technician by the name of Mark Klein, a 22-year veteran of AT&T who one day at work found a switch that channeled Internet traffic culled from millions of living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and offices across the nation to a secret room operated by the National Security Agency. Mr. Klein was old enough to remember when a law was passed to prevent this sort of unchecked spying operation from happening:

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Barack Obama and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

FindLaw - By John Dean - Jul. 01 (Opinion) - Not everyone is aware of the statement that Obama made to Will Bunch, or the reality that there is no immunity from criminal prosecution under the FISA amendments. In fact, it is not clear if Senator Obama himself is aware of the limits of the immunity in the FISA amendments. However, if Obama is a man of his word, he should explain to his Senate colleagues that when elected President, he will "immediately" request that his attorney general investigate the criminal activity of the Bush Administration in violating the FISA statute, along with the telecommunications firms who aided and abetted these violations.

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Memo to Obama: Moving to the Middle is for Losers

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Arianna Huffington - Jun. 30 (Opinion) - Running to the middle in an attempt to attract undecided swing voters didn't work for Al Gore in 2000. It didn't work for John Kerry in 2004. And it didn't work when Mark Penn (obsessed with his "microtrends" and missing the megatrend) convinced Hillary Clinton to do it in 2008.

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Obama Network Organizes and Revolts Over Spying

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Ari Melber - Jun. 30 (Opinion) - Many activists are outraged by the Senator's recent announcement that he will back a controversial bill to grant the Executive more spying powers and immunize telephone companies accused of illegal surveillance. Both efforts demonstrate how Obama's national network, which broke fundraising records and turned the first term Senator into an unlikely presidential nominee, can respond to top-down edicts and spring into action for self-organized protests.

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Time for a Grand Inquest into Bush's High Crimes

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

OurFuture.org - By Robert Borosage - Jun. 25 (Opinion) - But Congress need not convict President Bush to impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanors. And arguably, the House need not even impeach the president to hold a grand inquest into the powers that he has claimed, registering a formal objection to them. The Judiciary Committee in the House should formally convene that inquest, no matter what the decision is on impeachment. For if Pelosi's sensible political judgment results, as it has to date, in a show of congressional "inertia, indifference or quiescence," the Democratic majority in Congress may have gained a dozen seats at the cost of relinquishing its own powers, and putting the rights of Americans at risk.

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Serenity Lost:Obama And The Netroots

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Sam Stein - Jun. 25 (Opinion) - Indeed, there is ample evidence to suggest that Obama's standing with the netroots has not always been peachy. Prior to his victory in Iowa, he consistently trailed former Sen. John Edwards (and, on occasion, Chris Dodd) in the Daily Kos primary poll. Even before then, his (now-chilled) relationship with Sen. Joseph Lieberman as well as an essay he posted (again on Daily Kos) concerning Supreme Court nominations earned him some plaudits but also skepticism among some prominent online voices.

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Why Congress Treats The Constitution Like A Toy

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Art Brodsky - Jun. 25 (Opinion) - The Democratic "leadership" wanted a bill President Bush would sign. That was the bottom line. It wouldn't matter if the Constitution got trashed. It wouldn't matter if the government was given too much authority. These "legislators" had to legislate, or else they would be made to look bad by a president whose policies are now opposed by about 80 percent of the American people. Heaven forbid there's no new legislation and the government has to operate with the authority already in place. How would that look? To some people, just fine. On the other hand, while the House "leadership" basks in its legislative glories, the Republicans go preening to the press on how they snookered the other side. They are only partially right. It's not fooling someone if that person knows what's going on is stupid yet participates willingly. That's what happened here.

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