NSA Domestic Spying Issues Continue To Unravel... And Continues To Be Unaddressed By Congress

NPR ALL THINGS CONSIDERED: Oregon Lawsuit Challenges Domestic Spying

A lawsuit filed in Portland, Ore., alleges that the federal government illegally wiretapped lawyers for an Islamist charity based in that state. As Colin Fogarty of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports, it isn't the first legal challenge to the warrantless surveillance program but it's the first to claim specific documented evidence.

I only wish I was a millionaire so I could fund the effort. However, I predict that there will be other lawsuits. But I wonder if the congress critters that are supporting the cause and passed the laws that Bush and his gang are manipulating can be sued as well?

Terror Operative Seeks To Rescind Plea Over NSA Spying

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An Ohio truck driver and al Qaeda operative who pleaded guilty in 2003 to participating in a plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge wants to rescind that plea if the National Security Agency ever eavesdropped on him without a warrant.

Iyman Faris was sentenced to 20 years in prison in October 2003.

His attorney is asking a federal court to force the government to hand over information about whether the National Security Agency secretly eavesdropped on his Faris, and government sources have told CNN that it did.

Attorney David Smith wants Faris' May 1, 2003, guilty plea thrown out and is requesting "all documents relating to or concerning" electronic surveillance or any monitoring of Faris' conversations "whether or not pursuant to warrant," according to court filings.

Smith also wants documents from third-party conversations the government may have monitored in which Faris' name is mentioned or in which he is "otherwise identified."

It would appear that the NSA, FBI, DOJ and the Bush administration took lessons in investigation procedures from the same law enforcement team that handled the OJ Simpson case. Officially OJ was found not guilty, but his case was won for him by the incompetence of the investigation and prosecution team that could not help themselves from blowing the chain of custody, warrants and evidence processing.

FBI Leaks The NSA Spying Program In 2004

A hat tip to Edward Copeland for this one.

A classified document that an Islamic charity says is evidence of illegal government eavesdropping on its phone calls and e-mails was provided in 2004 to a Washington Post reporter, who returned it when the FBI demanded it back a few months later. According to a source familiar with the case, the document indicated that the National Security Agency intercepted telephone conversations in the spring of 2004 between a director of the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and lawyers for the foundation in the District.

Well, well, well... Our nation's secrets are safe and secure with the DOJ and FBI running things. And the NSA warrantless domestic spying programs become more of a liability than an asset. Now, just exactly how many secret programs are there?

Al-Haramain, a Saudi group that once operated in Oregon, sued the Bush administration in federal court this week, alleging it was a victim of President Bush's secret domestic eavesdropping program. Its lawyers asked a judge to privately review the classified material, which the organization contends would help prove its claim.

Treasury Department officials inadvertently provided the classified document, which was marked "top secret" and dated May 24, 2004, to al-Haramain lawyers that same month, according to FBI correspondence with The Post. Treasury was investigating the foundation for possible links to terrorists and soon designated the group a terrorist organization.

Inadvertently? It sounds more like "incompetently" than inadvertently. One of the problems I see developing out of the entire national security picture under the direction of George W. Bush and his gang is that no one seems to really understand what is going on, what needs to be done or what can be done legally.

In the late 1970s there was a poster that had the body of a rooster in a farm yard with a triple-exposed image of the head pointing east, west and north. The caption of the poster read: "I am so confused I don't know which way to point my pecker!" It certainly seems appropriate to reconfigure the poster with at least five different Bush administration players replacing the rooster.

At the same time, an attorney for al-Haramain, Wendell Belew, provided a copy of the document to Post reporter David B. Ottaway. Ottaway was researching Islamic groups and individuals who had been designated terrorists by the U.S. government and were attempting to prove their innocence.

In November 2004, FBI agents approached Belew, and soon thereafter Ottaway, saying that the government had mistakenly released the document. They demanded all copies back and warned that anyone who revealed its contents could be prosecuted.

Is this the kind of mistake we should be seeing with this type of investigation and "top secret programs"? Have we noticed that the answer that this administration--at all levels--has for mistakes is to threaten prosecution, threaten to veto, or to accuse folks of being disloyal?

U.S. Is Settling Detainee's Suit in 9/11 Sweep

The federal government has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by an Egyptian who was among dozens of Muslim men swept up in the New York area after 9/11, held for months in a federal detention center in Brooklyn and deported after being cleared of links to terrorism.

The settlement, filed in federal court late yesterday, is the first the government has made in a number of lawsuits charging that noncitizens were abused and their constitutional rights violated in detentions after the terror attacks.

It removes one of two plaintiffs from a case in which a federal judge ruled last fall that former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other top government officials must answer questions under oath. Government lawyers filed an appeal of that ruling on Friday.

In the settlement agreement, which requires approval by a federal judge in Brooklyn, lawyers for the government said that the officials were not admitting any liability or fault. In court papers they have said that the 9/11 attacks created "special factors," including the need to deter future terrorism, that outweighed the plaintiffs' right to sue.

When the congress is considering the liability caps that it continues to stress as being needed, perhaps it should also eliminate settlements that do not admit any liability or fault. In my book you do not pay a settlement unless you have some wrong to right... especially if you are the government and have an inherent, albeit limited, immunity under the legal principle of "sovereignty." The settlement was accomplished because it was clear that the case was a loser when it was in front of a jury and that the government had clearly violated the rights of the plaintiff.

Support Growing For Spying Oversight

After two months of insisting that President Bush did not need court approval to authorize wiretapping of calls between the U.S. and suspected terrorists abroad, the administration is trying to channel the political pressure for more oversight into retroactive congressional approval for the program.

The administration opened negotiations with Congress last week, but it is far from clear whether Bush can get the votes he will need.

The latest Republican to join the growing chorus of those seeking oversight is Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

In an interview Sunday on Fox News, Graham, a former military prosecutor whose opinion on national-security matters commands respect in the Senate, said he believed there was now a "bipartisan consensus" to have broader congressional oversight of the program and judicial review.

"I do believe we can provide oversight in a meaningful way without compromising the program," he said, "and I am adamant that the courts have some role when it comes to warrants. If you're going to follow an American citizen around for an extended period of time believing they're collaborating with the enemy, at some point in time you need to get some judicial review, because mistakes can be made."

Why would the administration be changing direction and tactics in this way? Could it be that the Bush gang are beginning to realize how deep the unraveling of this policy is reaching? The idea that the administration is now going to "allow" oversight if they can get retroactive approval of actions taken thus far. Doesn't anyone see that this would be an ex post facto approach that would be inherently unconstitutional? Doesn't anyone see that the criminal action of violating the civil rights of private citizens is inherently wrong? Do we not understand that the rights delineated in the Constitution exist inherently and are inalienable?

Bush Slow To Set Up Watchdog For Civil Liberties

Washington - For Americans troubled by the prospect of federal agents eavesdropping on their phone conversations or combing through their Internet records, there is good news: A little-known board exists in the White House whose purpose is to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are protected in the fight against terrorism.

Someday, it might actually meet.

Initially proposed by the bipartisan commission that investigated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was created by the intelligence overhaul that President Bush signed into law in December 2004.

More than a year later, it exists only on paper.

Last week, after months of delay, the Senate Judiciary Committee took a first step toward setting up the fledgling watchdog, approving the two lawyers Bush nominated to lead the panel. But it may take months before the board is up and running.

Critics say the inaction shows the administration is going through the motions when it comes to civil liberties.

"They have stalled in giving the board adequate funding. They have stalled in making appointments," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. "It is apparent they are not taking this seriously."

The Sept. 11 commission also has expressed reservations about the commitment to the liberties panel.

Wasn't it George W. Bush that said we could "trust him" and his gang to balance national security and civil liberties? If we could really trust him wouldn't he fully endorse oversight by congress and the judiciary, as well as setting up this board as a fully functioning entity? If we could trust him and his gang, wouldn't we see more evidence of competence, more evidence of truthfulness, more evidence of integrity and some evidence that conguity between what he does and what he says? If we could trust this administration, wouldn't we have a sense of that trust as a two-way street?

Senate Passes Legislation to Renew Patriot Act

WASHINGTON, March 2 — The Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation renewing the sweeping antiterror law known as the USA Patriot Act on Thursday, ending a months-long impasse on Capitol Hill and virtually guaranteeing that the measure will go to President Bush to be signed.

The vote of 89 to 10, followed an agreement last month by the White House to add more protections for individual privacy. That deal mollified four Senate Republicans, who had joined with Democrats last year in blocking the bill, an extension of a law enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

The measure's 16 major provisions were set to expire March 10, but if the House approves the bill, as expected, 14 of the 16 will become permanent.

The Senate action was a bit of good news for the president, who has been buffeted by dipping poll numbers and criticism from within his own party on matters including Hurricane Katrina, electronic eavesdropping and port security.

Renewing the Patriot Act was a major priority for Mr. Bush, but resistance from some lawmakers had resulted in a series of short-term extensions as the debate dragged on through the winter.

"The Patriot Act is vital to the war on terror and defending our citizens against a ruthless enemy," the president said in a statement from India.

"This bill will allow our law enforcement officials to continue to use the same tools against terrorists that are already used against drug dealers and other criminals, while safeguarding the civil liberties of the American people."

But the vote on Thursday does not end the long-running debate on Capitol Hill over whether the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the government's investigative powers in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, strikes the proper balance between government authority and civil liberties.

Some lawmakers who voted for the bill expressed deep reservations about it, and the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is already drafting further legislation to revise it.

The chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, voted for the version that passed Thursday, saying it struck "an acceptable balance."

But, he said, "I want to put down a benchmark to get extra protections which better comport with my own sensitivity to civil rights."

Since its adoption in 2001, the Patriot Act has drawn vigorous complaints from advocates for civil liberties, who contend that provisions like those allowing the government to obtain library and medical records infringe on basic civil rights.

The renewal of the USA Patriot Act and the petering out of the efforts to curb lobbyists and reform congressional misbheaviors clearly shows the disdain the Republican-controlled, kowtowing ultra-conservatives have for the Constitution, civil liberties and the average American citizen. The members of congress that have voted for this renewal have essntially "flipped the bird" and "thumbed their noses" at us, and empowered the executive branch to continue an unreasonable grab for power, unreasonable (and unproductive) searches, and violation of their oaths of office.

Combined with the Portgate issues, the other national security problems, the continued unfolding of the issues surrounding our being so unprepared for disasters, the lies and spins on the details coming from the White House and DHS, the nuclear power and arms deal with India, the cutbacks on funding for personnel in military and law enforcement, the continuing saga of incompetence... When are we ever going to be really safe? The real threat to national security, civil liberties and our lives has been playing cricket in India and Pakistan for these past several days... and selling us short in everything he seems to do.