From Newsweek:
The controversy over President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program took another surprise turn last week when a team of FBI agents, armed with a classified search warrant, raided the suburban Washington home of a former Justice Department lawyer. The lawyer, Thomas M. Tamm, previously worked in Justice’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR)-the supersecret unit that oversees surveillance of terrorist and espionage targets. The agents seized Tamm’s desktop computer, two of his children’s laptops and a cache of personal files. Tamm and his lawyer, Paul Kemp, declined any comment. So did the FBI. But two legal sources who asked not to be identified talking about an ongoing case told NEWSWEEK the raid was related to a Justice criminal probe into who leaked details of the warrantless eavesdropping program to the news media. The raid appears to be the first significant development in the probe since The New York Times reported in December 2005 that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents without court warrants.
Tom Maguire, Clarice Feldman, and A.J. Strata offer background and context.
For my part, I’m waiting for Glenn Greenwald(s) to tell me what to think before I comment. I’m hoping it’ll be something flowery about how important it is for those in positions of power to be willing to break the law and reveal national security secrets in order to keep the Constitution from being “shredded.”
Because even if the Courts don’t agree with that last assessment, you have to it admit, it gives self-interested law-breaking for political gain the glow of ideological nobility.
Which is nice.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Congress went ahead and quietly passed the new amended FISA measures — much to the chagrin of the ACLU, the WaPo, and others — who, naturally, blame this predictable move by Democrats (was there really any chance they’d ever effect an end to this kind of important intel gathering?) on none other than Chimpy:
“We are deeply disappointed that the president’s tactics of fearmongering have once again forced Congress into submission,†said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. “That a Democratically-controlled Senate would be strong-armed by the Bush administration is astonishing. This Congress may prove to be as spineless in standing up to the Bush Administration as the one that enacted the Patriot Act or the Military Commissions Act.â€Â
To which I’d reply that there is nothing at all astonishing about how Democrats in Congress voted.
They brayed about the “overreach” of the program just so long as they could make political hay of it. But in the run-up to a Presidential election, it would be suicidal for them to take a position that would leave the homeland vulnerable, particularly when the position hinges on a legally contentious battle over Presidential authority and the separation of powers.
No, the only thing that is truly astonishing is that the progressives who today are pillorying the Dem congress actually seemed to believe that the national Democrats would be willing to shoot themselves in the electoral foot so that Glenn Greenwald could sell a few more copies of his increasingly irrelevant book.
That these same folks are now blaming Democrat duplicity on Bush’s scaremongering genius is, well, precious.
Bitter irony in this little tidbit:
A leak about an investigation into leaking?
For a lame duck, Quackers McHallibushimpler seems to get a lot of what he wants on this subject.
“We are deeply disappointed that the president’s tactics of fearmongering have once again forced Congress into submission,†said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. “That a Democratically-controlled Senate would be strong-armed by the Bush administration is astonishing. This Congress may prove to be as spineless in standing up to the Bush Administration as the one that enacted the Patriot Act or the Military Commissions Act.â€Â
Are these the same Democrats that are going to bust a diplomatic cap in Iran’s ass?
‘Bout frigging time.
“No, the only thing that is truly astonishing is that the progressives who today are pillorying the Dem congress actually seemed to believe that the national Democrats would be willing to shoot themselves in the electoral foot so that Glenn Greenwald could sell a few more copies of his increasingly irrelevant book.”
Fot, hell, they want Congress to auto-castrate themselves..
Foot….s/b foot.
PIMF.
Bush administration in a nutshell.
wishful thinking AJB
Yes, the Bush administration has exasperatingly defied nutshellization, until just now. Good catch.
AJB – If your beloved Dems were so keen about upholding the rule of law, and not shredding the Constitution, why did they pass the new statutes?
I get it, they were against it (when they were not in power and not in a position to actually have to do anything), before they were for it (when they are in power and see the necessity of same), and then passed it out of the House and Senate, controlled by your beloved liberals.
Who said these Dems don’t have a spine? By passing this legislation, they have pissed off a majority of their moonbat base. Now they can proceed to blame Bush for using some tricky mind rays on them and forcing them to do something that they did not want to do, or that it was done under duress, since the rubes in the Heartland demanded that our national security be taken seriously.
Regardless, we ought to be praising them for doing something right, despite that stupid hick President tricking them into doing so.
But don’t those lousy Chimperor fellators realize how much this program jeopardizes the civil rights of the American people?
Granted, “civil rights” ought to read “communications security” and “American people” ought to read “persons with ties to terror or terror-funding groups”, but still.
I forget, how did that lawsuit turn out?
That FISA bill they passed is only valid for 6 months. Sheesh.
AJB is heet’s dumb cousin. How sad is that. Anyhow, onto the post. Anybody, maybe even you ajb, that has a different tactic in this fight, speak up. Please. I don’t for one minute think this is a pernicious or terrible thing to do in this atmosphere (I understand the academics whose best buds are guys named ahmed and muhammed have a problem with this, but then again, they can kiss my ass), but if you disagree by all means, offer an alternative. If you say, do what Clinton did, then please off yourself, as what Clinton did, um, didn’t actually work. Thanks in advance.
I wonder if the Left will get all bent out of shape about an investigation into this leaker like they did with Libby. Actually, I do not wonder, as they will glorify this clown as some twooth tweller, and take a position diametrically opposed to that which they took in the Libby case, and they will never get called on it by the media.
No, you don’t. This fellow will be featured on the cover of “Time” as part of the “Year of the Whistleblower”.
Yeah, it’s really galling that Congress would authorize the administration to eavesdrop on conversations between foreign nationals on foreign soil(s) when the communications pass through U.S. systems.
That’s just crazy.
Yes, AJB, it involves both endpoints being foreign. So they don’t have standing to sue anyone in court.
dicentra – Along similar lines, the idea that a call between a domestic number and a foreign number could somehow be a domestic call is laughable, but that is the type of redefinition the Left and the media have done.
It could also very well be that the information about the existence of a credible domestic threat provided to Congress in the past week or so caused many of them to have a “This Is No Shit and I’d Better Get Out Front” moment about FISA. God help them if something very, very bad were to happen before election day, and the Dems could be held responsible for not allowing all the dots to be connected this time.
What a pussy.
GiGi will get to that now that he’s done pretending that FISA was the big issue in 2006. I think he’s assigning Ellers McEllerson to do the piece glorifying Tamm, while Wilson does the piece condemning John Boehner.
I hope they did it because it was the right thing to do, even if only for 6 months. I doubt it though. I suspect that the stupid evil genius tricked them, and their pure political calculus was that they could not not do this.
yokel – Amazing how being put in a position of responsibility changes their perspective. Have the nutroots started calling them Nazis yet?
I’m furious with these morons. They can’t get the job done to save their lives. They are a cowering, sniveling bunch of tippytoes who don’t have the guts to take a firm and principled stand. Yeah, lotsa leaking; break out the Depends, because nobody’s speaking up for the record.
I believe this is not Tamm’s only claim to glory. Google indicates he prosecuted a weird witchcraft case which IIRC was a the basis for a truly wonderful Homicide episode.(From his online postings, and the fact that the FBI could not have obtained the warrant without first showing good reason to believe their was evidence on his home computers, I’d venture a guess that he’s left a mile wide trail.
I won’t be happy until Bill Keller is perp walked.
….Have I totally missed something here?
– It continues to amuse that the alarmist campaign, and obligatory excuse of “encroachment on citizens rights to privacy” meme, has had no decernible effect on the public at large. Its a train wreck looking for an end point for the Dems, but they seem to be willing to follow KosCo over the cliff.
– cynn – no voices of protest….you have to have been living under a rock for 7+ years.
– Jeff, Washington insiders have said the Dems smacked the 6 month limit onto the bill, get this, “hoping to be able to use the issue again during the up coming election cycle”. Now either they have taken complete leave of their sense’s, recting to hard left threats, or they are more than willing to shot, not one, but both feet. Added to Pelosi’s closing comments at the end of this Congressional session “[that] I want everyone to concentrate on the articles of censure when we return in the fall.”, just proves this frieght train of political suicide has no breaks known to man. Thus, my prediction is safe for now.
– As a footnote, if the Dems actually are so stuck on stupid they continue down this path right through the elections, I await with great anticipation to the first middle America town hall meeting with the Dem candidate, wherein a voter stands at the mike and says….
“….So Senator….if I have this right, your position is that all of us normal everyday citizens will be greatly releived that the Government will not be eavsdropping on our phone conversations, whenever we call our friends and family in al Qaeda. Have I got that right?”
– Simply amazing what Bush syndrome seems to do to some peoples brain.
[…] 7th, 2007 · No Comments We go to Protein Wisdom again today for another story out of Newsweek. The leaker for the NSA surveillance program is being […]
uhoh somebody messed up. id hate to see that happens to the leaker not mention their giving up their precious 6 figure salary. say goodbye to the lexus!!