What were the pre-2005 "other intelligence activities"?
That Alberto Gonzales is a serial liar -- including when he testifies under oath to Congress -- has been long-established, and few people now bother to dispute it. He has been lying to Congress' face about the NSA scandal since it first emerged in December of 2005. When he first testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, 2006, he made a series of statements that turned out to be so obviously false that he was forced to send a lengthy letter "correcting" and retracting many of the key answers he gave.
That is what Alberto Gonzales does. He lies to protect the President. And the President will never fire him. Gonzales isn't keeping his job despite his willingness to lie to Congress, but because of it. Congress has no choice but to act meaningfully -- impeachment of Gonzeles and a Special Prosecutor -- and if they do not, then, I suppose, one could say that Congress deserves to be lied to.
Having said that, though, many commentators who are focusing on Gonzales' specific wording concerning Ashcroft/Comey's objections -- i.e., that those objections did not apply to the "Terrorist Surveillance Program," but rather only to "other intelligence activities" -- are missing, even unintentionally obscuring, the critical point here.
Ever since George Bush came right out in December, 2005 and admitted spying on Americans without the warrants required by law, the administration has been playing the same rhetorical game. From the beginning, when asked questions about the scope of their spying activities (are you eavesdropping on domestic calls, too? opening mail with no warrants? entering homes with no warrants?), they have carefully confined their denials to "the specific program which the President confirmed" -- i.e., the specific "Terrorist Surveillance Program the NYT revealed. They have always made clear that there are "other intelligence programs" that we do not know about and which are excluded from all of their public assurances.
Since the end of 2005, Gonzales in particular has qualified almost every statement he has made before the Senate Judiciary Committee by drawing a distinction between (a) the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" (which means the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program in its incarnation when it was revealed in 2005 by the NYT) versus (b) "other intelligence activities," including whatever it was they were doing prior to March 2004 that prompted Ashcroft and Comey's objections.
more...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/25/gonzales/index.html
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