Attorney General Gonzales defends Bush regarding the spying program

[buttmunch]

CBS/AP) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a Senate hearing Monday that the Bush administration's electronic surveillance program was "reasonable" and "lawful."

But the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed skepticism over President Bush's assertion that he has the legal authority to wiretap Americans' conversations.

Federal law "has a forceful and blanket prohibition against any electronic surveillance without a court order," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., as he opened a hearing on the National Security Agency's controversial eavesdropping program.

While the president claims he has the authority to order such surveillance to protect Americans from terrorist attacks, Specter said, "I am skeptical of that interpretation."

Gonzales was the sole witness before Monday's session.

In his opening statement, he called the program "reasonable" and "lawful." He lashed out at the news media for stories he characterized as often "misinformed, confused or wrong."

"As the president has explained, the terrorist surveillance program operated by the (electronic-monitoring National Security Agency) requires the maximum in speed and agility," Gonzales said, "since even a very short delay may make the difference between success and failure in preventing the next attack."

His arguments reiterated those defending Mr. Bush's decision to allow the NSA to eavesdrop, without first obtaining warrants, on people inside the United States whose calls or e-mails may be linked to terrorism.

Gonzales told the committee he could not discuss how the program works, as skeptics of the program have demanded. "An open discussion of the operational details of this program would put the lives of Americans at risk," he said.

The senior Democrat on the panel, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said in an opening statement that, while al Qaeda terrorists should be monitored, Mr. Bush chose to illegally wiretap Americans' conversations without safeguards to protect civil liberties.

"My concern is for peaceful Quakers who are being spied upon, and other law-abiding Americans and babies and nuns who are placed on terrorist watch lists," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said in prepared remarks.

The program has sparked a heated debate about presidential powers in the war on terror since it was first disclosed in December.

Gonzales argued that Congress did, in fact, authorize the president in September 2001 to use military force in the war on terror.

He noted that the legislation "calls on the president to protect Americans both 'at home and abroad,"' and "to take action to prevent further terrorist attacks 'against the United States."'

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told CBS News' The Early Show that Americans "want to know that a president doesn't exceed his constitutional or legal authority because we are a nation of rule of law. But also, they want to make sure that the president carries out his constitutional responsibilities as commander in chief to make sure that Americans are secure because the number one responsibility of the federal government is our national security."

But congressional Democrats have said they did not intend to order domestic surveillance.

"This administration says we want to stop following this [FISA] law, the president shouldn't have to. I think that's wrong," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told The Early Show. "The law is there. It binds this president, as any president. We want to be safe but we want to do it in legal ways.

News accounts have suggested the program vacuums up vast amounts of communications and sifts through them for possible links to terrorists. Gen. Michael Hayden, the nation's No. 2 intelligence official, rejected that, saying on Sunday that the NSA first establishes a reason for being interested in the calls or e-mails.

"This isn't a drift net over Lackawanna (N.Y.) or Fremont (Calif.) or Dearborn (Mich.), grabbing all communications and then sifting them out," Hayden said of three U.S. cities with sizable Muslim populations.

Leahy predicted that the committee would have to subpoena the administration to obtain internal documents that lay out the legal basis for the program. Justice Department officials have declined, citing in part the confidential nature of legal communications.

Specter said Sunday he's open to that. "If the necessity arises, I won't be timid," he said.

Leahy charged that Mr. Bush misled the public when he said during the presidential campaign in April 2004 that his administration was following the law by getting warrants for wiretapping.

"I think ultimately we're going to have to subpoena them," Leahy said on CBS' Face the Nation, expressing doubt that lawmakers would get the material otherwise.

The Judiciary Committee's Democrats also want Specter to call more administration officials for questioning, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and ex-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey. Comey reportedly objected to parts of the program.

[Grimmlok]

From AMERICAblog:

Gonzales will say that media reports about Bush's spy program are all wrong. Then why did Cheney just say the media reports caused "enormous damage"?

by John in DC - 2/05/2006 10:13:00 PM


Gonzles had better have lots of evidence tomorrow that he's telling the truth, and not again perjuring himself, because this flatly contradicts slews of stories based on information from administration officials.

From the Financial Times:

"Contrary to the speculation reflected in some media reporting, the terrorist surveillance programme is not a dragnet that sucks in all conversation and uses computer searches to pick out calls of interest," Mr Gonzales will say in response to questions raised by Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. "No communications are intercepted unless first it is determined that one end of the call is outside of the country, and professional intelligence experts have probable cause [that is, 'reasonable grounds to believe'] that a part to the communication is a member or agent of al-Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organisation."

But that appears to conflict with a detailed report in yesterday's Washington Post, based on anonymous interviews with US intelligence officials. The report said that only some 5,000 Americans had had their conversations recorded or e-mails read since the programme was launched following the September 11 terrorist attacks. However, in order to identify those targets, hundreds of thousands of calls and e-mails are first scanned and subject to computer filtering in order to identify the smaller number deemed suspicious.
Wait a minute, the media got the story totally wrong, but then:

1. Bush came out and, in response, admitted the details of the program publicly. Why would he do that if the media got the story wrong? All he'd have to do is say we're not doing any of that, period. But instead he publicly admitted the real details of a super classified program that he claims by making public serious jeopardizes national security?

2. Even more bizarre, Cheney this week had the following to say about the NYT's reporting on this story:

With Congress preparing to plunge into a hearing focused exclusively on the warrantless wiretapping, Vice President Dick Cheney said exposing the effort has done "enormous damage to our national security." The New York Times revealed the program's existence in December.

"It, obviously, reveals techniques and sources and methods that are important to try to protect," Cheney said. "It gives information to our enemies about how we go about collecting intelligence against them. It also raises questions in the minds of other intelligence services about whether or not they can work with the United States intelligence service, with our CIA, for example, if we can't keep a secret."

But, if the NYT got the story wrong, then its reporting revealed nothing at all. And its erroneous reporting most certainly did not cause "enormous damage to our national security." It can't, if it's wrong. And finally, the NYT's "wrong" stories most certainly did not "give information to our enemies about how we go about collecting intelligence about against them." If anything, they gave the enemy misinformation, if Gonzales is really going to say this tomorrow. Then what was Cheney smoking last week when he said this?

So, did Cheney lie last week in an effort to slam the NYT, or is Gonzales going to lie tomorrow in an effort to deceive the public about Bush's domestic spying program?

3. And finally, we find this out, that all the news reports have supposedly been wrong, 6 weeks later, on a Sunday night, the eve of congressional hearings on the sujbect? None of those GOP Senators and Congressmen who were briefed on the subject could have come forward in the past six weeks and said, uh, the newspaper stories are just wrong? No, suddenly, tonight, we find this out.

I hate football, but even I recognize a Hail Mary when I see it.

[SVZ]

aaagh!

[Grimmlok]

Even more, from AMERICAblog (i love this place)

Expect more lies and more spin from Gonzales this week
by Joe in DC - 2/05/2006 08:08:00 AM


Attorney General Gonzales will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week on the Bush administration's domestic spying program. Gonzales played a key role in that program when he was White House legal Counsel. Here's the question: why should the Senators or the American people believe Gonzales now when he has already lied about this program under oath -- before the same committee?:

Mr. Gonzales's credibility is especially suspect among Democrats. Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, a member of the Judiciary Committee, is angry over a response from Mr. Gonzales during his confirmation hearing when Mr. Feingold asked, "Does the president, in your opinion, have the authority, acting as commander in chief, to authorize warrantless searches of Americans' homes and wiretaps of their conversations in violation of the criminal and foreign intelligence surveillance statutes of this country?"

At the time, the spy program was well under way. Mr. Gonzales denied that the administration was engaged in anything illegal and said, "So what we're really discussing is a hypothetical situation."

Mr. Feingold, who voted against Mr. Gonzales's nomination, sent Mr. Gonzales a letter last week, reminding him of the exchange — "misleading testimony," he called it — and telling him to be prepared to explain it on Monday.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Feingold said, "He hid the fact that the program existed."

So, he wasn't honest when he was testifying to become the nation's chief law enforcement officer. At the time, in January of 2005, Gonzales was well aware that the NY Times had the story of the domestic spying operation. Remember that the Times released the story in December of 2005, but they'd had numerous conversations with the Bush White House beginning in 2004 over this blockbuster news. Even knowing that a major news organization could prove him wrong, Gonzales lied.

How can anyone believe what Gonzales says now? It is standard operating procedure for the Bush team to lie. The traditional media and members of Congress still have a hard time accepting that -- which is why Gonzales, Rove and the rest of them keep doing it.

Oh this whole thing is fucking useless anyway:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said Sunday that the Bush administration's legal justifications for its warrantless spying program have been "strained and unrealistic" so far. As he opened this morning's hearing into the matter, Specter suggested that the administration may have violated federal law's "forceful and blanket prohibition against any electronic surveillance without a court order."

That's a lot of tough talk from a Republican senator, but will it be followed by actions that match? The early indication: Don't count on it. As the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing began this morning, Specter said that he wouldn't be requiring Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to testify under oath -- despite the fact that Gonzales has testified under oath before the committee before, and despite the fact that he stands accused of lying to the committee under oath when Sen. Russ Feingold asked him about warrantless spying last year.

Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the committee, challenged Specter's decision and asked for the committee to vote on the issue. It did, and Specter's decision now stands on a party-line vote. Thus, while Gonzales said that he's willing to testify under oath -- and that his answers would be the same either way -- the Republicans on the committee have now assured that he won't.

The decision may be largely symbolic: It's a crime to lie to Congress whether you're under oath or not, but no oath means no newspaper photographs of Gonzales' having raising his right hand.

Wtf is the point if he isn't sworn in? He can lie his face off (like he did before) except this time he can't be held accountable.