Gonzales Crushes His Own Inquiry into the NSA Spying/What you can do

[Robbien]

To determine whether Ashcroft and current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales acted properly in overseeing the spying program, the Justice Department launched an official probe in January. But it didn't get very far.

Why? Because the investigators were denied the security clearances needed to do their work. And now National Journal reports those rejections are suspect. Two senior government officials told the magazine that the investigators "were only seeking information and documents relating to the National Security Agency's surveillance program that were already in the Justice Department's possession." Whoever denied the clearance (it might have been the NSA itself, it might have been DOJ high-ups or even Gonzales himself; no one is sure) is basically saying the DOJ's internal watchdog can't review documents already in the DOJ's possession.

To get to the bottom of this mess, New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey just introduced a measure to force
President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General Gonzales to turn over their documents regarding the investigation, including their telephone and email records, logs and calendars and records of internal discussions. Those are the same kind of personal communications that the NSA is monitoring to spy on millions of Americans, so it should be interesting to see how Bush and his appointees criticize or resist this request.

Hinchey's office says he is also specifically requesting:

An investigation to find out who within the DOJ first authorized the domestic surveillance program and what that official's justification was for doing so; if the Bush administration had already enacted the program before getting original DOJ approval; what the reauthorization process for the surveillance initiative entails; and why, according to news reports, did then-Acting Attorney General James Comey refuse to reauthorize the program and why then-Attorney General John Ashcroft expressed strong reservations about the program and may have rejected it as well.

But while Rep. Hinchey fights to stop this abuse of power, other members of Congress are working just as energetically to cover it up.

Senator Arlen Specter and Senator Mike DeWine are pushing legislation to provide a smokescreen for domestic spying and to undermine legitimate legal challenges to the spying.

Mike DeWine's solution to warrantless domestic spying is to offer more warrantless domestic spying. That is literally what his bill would do.

You can urge your Senators to oppose the DeWine bill here.
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/ccr/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=3948

[fooj]

1. Done

[texastoast]

2. Done. n/t

[MrModerate]

3. On the bright side . . .

The warrantless spying issue is not going away. Many of us feared it'd evaporate like the morning dew, but the Bushoid Fact Eradicator doesn't seem to be working so well these days. When the roof falls in, this behavior could easily add Gonzales' butt to the long line of butts planted on bunks in high security government housing.

Regardless of the merits of warrantless spying (as in "none," since getting a warrant or rewriting legislation if needed is dead easy, and you don't even have to break the law!), this is another sack of shit that the Schimpanski Administration's camel has to carry. Its knees have already begun to buckle.

Now we have Haditha, aka "My Lai for the 21st Century," the fact that no one is going to get out of the immigration debate unbloodied, and we're beginning to hear the first quiet mutters of the R-word (see Nixon, 1974).

Yep, we live in interesting times -- but it still really sucks to be in Iraq right now, regardless of who you are.

[Robbien]

5. I hope it isn't going away. DeWine is scrambling like crazy

trying to provide cover.

Remember to click through the link to send the email.

[papau]

4. About time operation "Firstfruits" was investigated

NSA has been spying on -1. their own employees - 2. People who resisted going along with the "party-line" of the administration.- 3 other members of the government who may have been potential whistleblowers - 4. employees of other U.S. intelligence agencies -- including the CIA and DIA – 5. CIA and DIA contacts in the media - 6. members of Congress, oversight agencies and offices - and 7. Journalists - The journalist surveillance program was code named "Firstfruits".

Indeed, Did NSA knowing Judith Millers contact keep the media from publishing Millers revelation about Bush in June 2001 knowing Osama'a plans?

======================================================
BACKGROUND INFO:
===============================================
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/19/14619/9977

NSA spied on its own employees, other U.S. intelligence personnel, and their journalist and congressional contacts.
Operation FirstFruits : NSA spied on Dissenters and Journalists?
by Vyan Wed Jan 18, 2006 at 10:46:19 PM PDT

While doing research on a post discussing the recent speech by Vice-President Al Gore, I discovered a webpage/blog called MediaChannel.org which described a secret NSA program called FirstFruits (COMMENT:previously described by not too credible on DU Wayne Madsen Report?) whose aim is even more dark and heinous than anything previously discussed concerning the current scandal of performing warrantless surveillance of partially domestic al-Qaeda communications .<snip>

In addition, beginning in 2001 but before the 9-11 attacks, NSA began to target anyone in the U.S. intelligence community who was deemed a "disgruntled employee." According to NSA sources, this surveillance was a violation of United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The surveillance of U.S. intelligence personnel by other intelligence personnel in the United States and abroad was conducted without any warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The targeted U.S. intelligence agency personnel included those who made contact with members of the media, including the journalists targeted by Firstfruits, as well as members of Congress, Inspectors General, and other oversight agencies. Those discovered to have spoken to journalists and oversight personnel were subjected to sudden clearance revocation and termination as "security risks."

“Firstfruits was a database that contained both the articles and the transcripts of telephone and other communications of particular Washington journalists known to report on sensitive U.S. intelligence activities, particularly those involving NSA. According to NSA sources, the targeted journalists included author James Bamford, the New York Times' James Risen, the Washington Post's Vernon Loeb, the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, the Washington Times' Bill Gertz, UPI's John C. K. Daly, and this editor , who has written about NSA for The Village Voice, CAQ, Intelligence Online, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).”

What is also quite interesting is that Democratic Underground reports that the CNN Transcript of this interview was altered to remove the Amanpour question –
Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?

Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.

When originally posted it was mere speculation, but apparently the salient details have been confirmed by NBC (regarding the question, investigation and it's subsequent scrubbing...)


NBC confirms it's investigating whether Bush spied on CNN's Christiane Amanpour
by John in DC - 1/04/2006 10:27:00 PM


NBC did not say it pulled the references to Bush spying on Amanpour because it was inappropriate conjecture about something which Andrea Mitchell had no evidence.


No, NBC said it pulled the references because it was still investigating the accusation and didn't want to scoop itself before it was finished investigating. And make no mistake, NBC is "continuing their inquiry."

[Robbien]

7. NBC should continue the investigation, but will it break the story

in a timely manner which would make a difference in how this whole NSA mess is resolved?

[papau]

8. Will GE/NBC put in danger defense contracts Rummy is awarding?

doubt it.

[madmark]

6. well this is subpoena 1 if control of the house passes this fall