Analysis: DOJ Explains AG's Dissembling . . . (enough with the lies)

[ProSense]

Thursday, July 26, 2007

DOJ Explains AG's Dissembling . . . and It's Exactly What You'd Expect

Marty Lederman

The Department of Justice this afternoon released the following press statement, which confirms what I wrote last evening:

1. The NSA electronic surveillance activities -- the "program" -- were first given the moniker "Terrorist Surveillance Program" in early 2006, when the Administration was defending the program to the public, a defense that included assurances that "the program" had been briefed to congressional leaders since 2001.

2. After March 2004 -- that is, after Jack Golddmith, et al., threatened to resign if the program continued as it had been operating since 2001 -- the program consisted of interception of communications that were both (1) "international" (in that at least one party was not in the U.S.) and (2) that involved at least one party who was thought to be "an agent or member of al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization."

3. Since March 2004, there has not been disagreement within DOJ about the legality of the program as so limited. (Which is not to say it was legal -- it wasn't.)

4. But there was huge, unprecedented dissent within DOJ about the legality of the NSA program in early 2004, when the "program" did not satisfy one or both of those conditions -- that is, when the program intercepted wholly domestic communications and/or communications where no party was even loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda or "affiliated terrorist organizations."

5. DOJ would also have you believe that the Attorney General never intended to suggest otherwise to Congress. That's ridiculous, of course, as Spencer Ackerman and Paul Kiel explain at length.

But it's also much less important than the merits. What Congress and the public should be investigating now is not so much what the meaning of "program" was in the Attorney General's hamfisted attempts to deceive the legislature since January 2006, but instead just what the NSA (and the FBI) were up to, both between 2001 and March 2004, when the program must have been unthinkably broad and unlawful; and also from 3/2004 to January 2001, when it was "limited" in the two respects noted above. What were the legal justifications and theories for both versions of "the program"? Those are the questions most worthy of Congress's (and the public's) attention. It's time for Jay Rockefeller, Jane Harman, et al., to step up and explain to the public -- without revealing secret NSA technical capabilities, of course -- just what has been going on all these years, including what members of Congress knew, and when, on the facts and the law. Gonzales, et al., have been able to sustain this run-around as long as they have only because no one else will speak up. If it weren't for Comey's brave testimony, the whole issue would have died out long ago . . .

DOJ STATEMENT:

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[Bitwit1234]

1. I would just like an answer to this question

Since gonzales is head of the DOJ "Why doesn't he know what is going on?" How come he doesn't know anything.

[Lint Head]

2. Because Dick Cheney knows it all and he's not telling anyone.

:dem:

[ProSense]

3. Kick! n/t