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Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 15:52:11 -0500
To: TSCM-L <TSCM-..._at_googlegroups.com>
From: "James M. Atkinson" <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Subject: Gonzales: "Screw the Constitution"
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/07/gonzales.nsa.tm/index.html
In defense of eavesdropping
By BRIAN BENNETT AND MASSIMO CALABRES
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sipped water, read
from bread-box sized law books and generally kept his cool through a
barrage of questions Monday as Senators from both parties tried to
corner him on the limits of presidential wartime powers. It was the
first real public debate in Congress since 9/11 about presidential
authority in times of war, and so while the hearing was ostensibly
about the President's secret warrantless wiretapping program, the
most exercised debate was about how far the Commander in Chief's
powers could be taken without judicial oversight.
"Mr. Attorney General," Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont
said at one point, "I'm getting the impression this administration
picks and chooses what it's subject to." Senators asked directly if
opening first class mail or listening to calls beginning and ending
inside the U.S. without notifying a court could be justified under
the same argument. Gonzales wouldn't answer, saying he couldn't talk
about operational details. Senators repeatedly pressed him on who was
keeping the National Security Agency (NSA) program in check. How
could Americans be assured that the government was only listening to
the phone calls of known terrorists?
The NSA performs its own oversight, said Gonzales. The program, he
argued, is run by professional intelligence officers, and the NSA
Inspector General reviews the program to be sure the agency is not
listening in on the conversations of unsuspecting citizens. Also, he
added, the program itself, which only monitors phone calls where one
end originates outside the U.S., is renewed every 45 days on the
condition, said Gonzales, that "al Qaeda continues to pose a threat."
The NSA wiretaps were performed without obtaining the warrants
beforehand required by the law that governs eavesdropping on foreign
agents, in part, because the process is "cumbersome and burdensome,"
said Gonzales. Convinced that it wasn't necessary, the Bush
Administration did not ask Congress to streamline the procedures to
perform these wiretaps. Senators cited five recent examples when
changes in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) were
passed at the request of the White House. When asked, Gonzales
argued, it wasn't necessary because the president's constitutionally
granted powers, as well as the specific wartime authority granted
after 9/11, allow the President to authorize these types of wiretaps,
without a change of existing law. The program "is an early warning
system for the 21st century," Gonzales said.
Unlike Republican colleagues Orrin Hatch of Utah or John Cornyn of
Texas, Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania didn't easily accept
that rationale. He expressed his skepticism early on, telling
Gonzales that federal law has a "forceful and blanket prohibition
against any electronic surveillance without a court order"; he even
suggested that the program's legality should be reviewed by a special
court. Specter did come to Gonzales' aid early on, when Democrats on
the committee ate up twenty minutes with a doomed procedural vote to
force Gonzales to testify under oath, a gesture Chairman Arlen
Specter (R - Pennsylvania) thought was unnecessary.
Kevin Griffey, a 27-year-old mechanical engineer from San Diego,
California, interrupted the proceedings midway through the day by
jumping up and calling Gonzales, at the top of his lungs, a "lazy
fascist." Griffey, who was subsequently escorted from the hearing,
had attended a protest at the White House on Saturday and wanted to
attend the hearing because he felt Gonzales has been misinterpreting
the law. "It might be the only opportunity to talk to the
Administration," he told TIME after he was taken out of the building.
"He might hear what I had to say."
That is doubtful. But Gonzales heard plenty of what the Senators had
to say. When Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, suggested
the former White House Counsel had been less than truthful during his
Attorney General confirmation hearings a year ago for saying that a
question about warrantless wiretapping was "hypothetical," Gonzales
remained firm; the question was indeed hypothetical, he retorted,
because Feingold had asked him whether he thought the president could
authorize eavesdropping "in violation of the law."
Questions about the operational specifics of the NSA program bounced
off Gonzales all day -- "what happens to the data?", "how long is it
retained?" -- none of which Gonzales would answer. "An open
discussion of the operational details would put the lives of
Americans at risk," he claimed.
Sitting in the front row of the spectator's gallery Richard Fisher, a
retired social studies teacher from Hinsdale, Ill. had the same
questions. After a recent trip to the Middle East, Fisher was curious
if any of his phone calls or emails to the region are now in the
NSA's database and sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
to find out. The NSA responded that they could neither confirm nor
deny that they intercepted copies of his communications. He's written
an appeal and is still waiting for an answer. "It's not about getting
money," said Fisher, leaning back in his gallery chair during the
hearing, "it's about knowing. Yes, you have the information or no you
don't." After spending the day with Gonzales, Senators looking for
some detailed answers about the controversial wiretapping program had
to be just as unsatisfied.
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