Newsweek digs deeper into the NYT story of Ashcroft' and his chief deputy James Comey's discomfort with the NSA spying "program" and they don't hedge, as the Times did, on just how high Croftie was willing to let the eagle soar (ht to Talkleft for ferreting out the key paras):
in March 2004, White House chief of staff Card and White House Counsel Gonzales visited Ashcroft, the seriously ill attorney general, to try to get him to overrule Comey, who was officially acting as A.G. while Ashcroft was incapacitated. Ashcroft refused, and a battle over what to do broke out in the Justice Department and at the White House. Finally, sometime in the summer of 2004, a compromise was reached, with Comey onboard: according to an account in The New York Times, Justice and the NSA refined a checklist to follow in deciding whether "probable cause" existed to start monitoring someone's conversations.
...and this regarding the objections of the then acting A.G., Comey (who was standing in for the hospitalized Ashcroft, prompting Bush's team to make that special journey to J.A.'s sick bed):
According to several officials who would not be identified talking about still-classified matters, Comey (among other government lawyers) argued that the authority for the program—the 2001 "use of force" resolution—had grown stale. It was time to audit the program before proceeding in any case, Comey said.
...Kind of makes you wonder whether it really was a faulty gallbladder that chased Ashcroft out of the AG chair and ushered Torquemada Gonzalez in...
Yesterday, the WaPo reported that the content of the illegal taps were spread through the Pentagon's DIA as well as other agencies. It has taken me a day to digest this, and after thinking about it again, I have two questions:
Who specifically, what government agency or group, requested these taps?
Were these agencies where the tap contents were eventually distributed, the requestors for those specific taps?
If so, I think that could be a really big deal if the DoD, again as example, was given the prerogative to spy on American citizens, tapping their phones and reading their email, using the NSA as a legal cutout.
Mike's also got a timely reminder of just whom -- or should I say what -- Mr. Bush swore an oath to "protect" ...
Meanwhile, ThinkProgress has a reminder of just why Bush's NSA spy gambit is just too risky... and William Safire delivers a surprise opinion based on his own experiences with the original Richard Nixon (courtesy of Crooks and Liars)...
Some good digging by Digby on Comey, and on what the Bushies have really been up to...
From the "and you call yourself a journalist?" file, Michelle Malkin doesn't get that there are, in fact, good and bad leaks... Good thing she wasn't running the Washington Post during Watergate...
Update: I thought right wingers couldn't stand "trahl lawyers...?"AJ Strata has apparently gone mad, and he's taken The Anchoress and someone called (and this one's for all the irony...) "Dr. Sanity" -- with him... So we're going to sue the press, to get them to behalf more like the good people at Granma? Is there any part of the United States Constitution and American liberty that conservatives don't loathe...? Fear really is a powerful hallucinogen...
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
