It Was CHENEY Who 'Briefed' Congressional Leaders On NSA Eavesdropping !!!

[WillyT]

<snip>

Defiant in the face of criticism, the Bush administration has portrayed each surveillance initiative as a defense of American freedom. Bush said yesterday that his NSA eavesdropping directives were "critical to saving American lives" and "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution." After years of portraying an offensive waged largely overseas, Bush justified the internal surveillance with new emphasis on "the home front" and the need to hunt down "terrorists here at home."

Bush's constitutional argument, in the eyes of some legal scholars and previous White House advisers, relies on extraordinary claims of presidential war-making power. Bush said yesterday that the lawfulness of his directives was affirmed by the attorney general and White House counsel, a list that omitted the legislative and judicial branches of government. On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly rejected the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on the power of the commander in chief, describing the president's war-making powers in legal briefs as "plenary" -- a term defined as "full," "complete," and "absolute."

A high-ranking intelligence official with firsthand knowledge said in an interview yesterday that Vice President Cheney, then-Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet and Michael V. Hayden, then a lieutenant general and director of the National Security Agency, briefed four key members of Congress about the NSA's new domestic surveillance on Oct. 25, 2001, and Nov. 14, 2001, shortly after Bush signed a highly classified directive that eliminated some restrictions on eavesdropping against U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

In describing the briefings, administration officials made clear that Cheney was announcing a decision, not asking permission from Congress. How much the legislators learned is in dispute...

<snip>

More: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10509407/

Ya know... when they claim to have briefed Congress, it makes it sound like Congress approved. Looks like that ain't the case, huh?

:mad::shrug::mad:

[jbnow]

1. Graham is "misremembering the briefings,"? OK

Former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who chaired the Senate intelligence committee and is the only participant thus far to describe the meetings extensively and on the record, said in interviews Friday night and yesterday that he remembers "no discussion about expanding to include conversations of U.S. citizens or conversations that originated or ended in the United States" -- and no mention of the president's intent to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

"I came out of the room with the full sense that we were dealing with a change in technology but not policy," Graham said, with new opportunities to intercept overseas calls that passed through U.S. switches. He believed eavesdropping would continue to be limited to "calls that initiated outside the United States, had a destination outside the United States but that transferred through a U.S.-based communications system."

Graham said the latest disclosures suggest that the president decided to go "beyond foreign communications to using this as a pretext for listening to U.S. citizens' communications. There was no discussion of anything like that in the meeting with Cheney."

The high-ranking intelligence official, who spoke with White House permission but said he was not authorized to be identified by name, said Graham is "misremembering the briefings," which in fact were "very, very comprehensive." The official declined to describe any of the substance of the meetings, but said they were intended "to make sure the Hill knows this program in its entirety, in order to never, ever be faced with the circumstance that someone says, 'I was briefed on this but I had no idea that -- ' and you can fill in the rest."

Sure, spying on US citizens illegally is easy to forget you heard?

[merbex]

11. Senator Graham takes copius notes on EVERYTHING in his life

I'll beleive his characterization of what took place

[jsamuel]

17. I believe Graham, what he is saying is that THEY DIDN'T REALLY TELL HIM

WHAT THEY WERE DOING!

If it were Cheney saying it, I believe it fully.

[Independent_Liberal]

2. Ooooooooo!!!!!!!! It was Crashcart who briefed!

I see.

:)

[fooj]

3. Big fucking deal.

briefed four key members of Congress about the NSA's new domestic surveillance on Oct. 25, 2001, and Nov. 14, 2001, shortly after Bush signed a highly classified directive that eliminated some restrictions on eavesdropping against U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

He told them after the fact.

Peace.

[Erika]

4. Cheney is one cold blooded ghoul

Someone W identifies with.

[AtomicKitten]

5. woooops, wrong answer.

I'm sorry, Mr. Cheney, but you were supposed to go before the secret court. Nobody gives a crap what Congress has to say about it.

[H2O Man]

6. It seems strange,

because if the president had gone to congress, he would surely have been given the emergency powers he could have requested. A couple things stand out: first, we know from several sources that Cheney had "called up" the shadow government (Dean, Byrd, and Hersch are among the sources for this). It looks like Cheney was the acting leader; many people noted that Bush played the role of the VP/cheerleader publicly after 9-11, while Cheney was the behind-the-scenes leader.

By installing the shadow government, Cheney suspended such things as congressional oversight of the executive, and constitutional powers for the general population. It is interesting to note that Senator Rockefeller, who was opposed to the Cheney decision (that was announced, not approved), could have been charged with espionage if he discussed it outside the meeting with Cheney.

[Swamp Rat]

8. So, ya think Cheney will resign and Lieberman will step in?

Lieberman seems to be hanging around those guys a lot lately. :shrug:

[hootinholler]

10. Nice graphic!

I think it would be a tad more sinister if it were Cheney's face.

-Hoot

[spanone]

14. Another Great One Swamp Rat!!!!

Thanks

[Solly Mack]

9. they would have charged him too

without blinking an (Plame) eye.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

20. This brings to light a real flaw in the system

Bush and Cheney reveal illegal activities to a small and select group of the legislative branch who are then rendered powerless to do anything because they are hamstrung by the "national security" cloak of silence. Congress needs to look at this and enact some legislation that can address a situation exactly like this. There needs to be some venue where Pelosi and whoever else could have officially addressed their concerns about criminal acts and subversion of the Constitution by the executive branch without worrying about treason and espionage charges. They are all sworn to uphold the Constitution from threats both external and INTERNAL.

[bigtree]

7. CIFA The Counterintelligence Field Activity- the new Cointel?

from the article:

The Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, began as a small policy-coordination office but has grown to encompass nine directorates and a staff exceeding 1,000. The agency's Talon database, collecting unconfirmed reports of suspicious activity from military bases and organizations around the country, has included "threat reports" of peaceful civilian protests and demonstrations.

CIFA compiled records of dissenters like military recruiting protesters, according to the article. One of their missions, I understand, is the investigation of threats of treason. I'll bet their mandate doesn't fall far from outright prosecution of sedition to the point of suppression. What a mess.

side note:

Not since Wilson was president have we seen such a determined assault on dissent by the Executive. Woodrow Wilson urged legislative action against those who had "sought to bring the authority and 'good name' of the Government into contempt." He worried in his declaration of war, about "spies and criminal intrigues everywhere afoot" which had filled "our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government." http://www.cia.gov/csi/monograph/firstln/wilson.html

During his presidency more than 2,000 American citizens were jailed for protest, advocacy, and dissent, with the support of a compliant Supreme Court. http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12666&c=206

The Wilson-era assaults on civil liberties; Schenck v. U.S.; Frohwerk v. U.S.; Debs v. U.S., Abrams v. U.S., were ratified by Supreme Court decisions which asserted that free speech in wartime was a hindrance to the efforts of peace. http://www.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=341&invol=494

Justice Holmes, in upholding the 1919 Schnek case, in which leaflets were distributed that expressed opposition to the draft, wrote of the words of protest: "Their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight" (referring to the war), and that "no court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right."

Justices Brennan and Holmes wrote the majority opinion which was phrased as the new "clear and present danger" test in which they argued: "The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree." http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/classroom_courtcases_print.html

etc. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5614411

[WillyT]

12. Kick !!!

:kick:

[Fovea]

13. K&R

n/t

[WillyT]

15. Cheney, Cheneny, Bo Beney, Fee Fi Fo Beney, Cheney !!!

:rofl:

[No Exit]

16. Then the ranking democrats couldn't have been told

because Cheney never, never speaks to democrats (except to say "go fuck yourself".)

[leveymg]

18. If domestic spying was legal, then why shut down Able Danger?

This disclosure undermines the ratiionale given that the Pentagon's AD Project was closed down and its files scrubbed because the program violated the FISA. Now, we learn that FISA was irrelevant.

Well, then, why was AD scrubbed four months before 9/11?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

19. The president does NOT have "plenary" authority...

...to overturn the 4th amendment. And arguing this as part of extended executive war-making powers is stupid. All of his other magical superpowers have to do with non-citizens overseas. If this kind of shit is permitted we might as well throw away the 4th amendment right now, because it doesn't mean shit.