**** More here.
December 22, 2005
Imperial powers? (UPDATED)
Powerline’s John Hinderaker has a long and meticulously argued post that agrees in large measure with my earlier post, and with the assessments of Messrs Cass Sunstein, Richard Posner, and Clinton associate attorney general John Schmidt, From “On the Legality of the NSA Electronic Intercept Program”: […] Finally, in 2002, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review decided Sealed Case No. 02-001. This case arose out of a
December 22, 2005
Problematizing the NSA
From the NYT “News of Surveillance Is Awkward for Agency”: At a news conference at the White House on Monday, General Hayden also emphasized that the program’s operations had “intense oversight” by the agency’s general counsel and inspector general as well as the Justice Department. He said decisions on targets were made by agency employees and required two people, including a shift supervisor, to sign off on them, recording “what
December 22, 2005
More NSA analysis. Because really, who can’t get enough of this stuff?
U of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, on Bush’s NSA program: The discussion of wiretapping by the President, without court approval, raises a number of important and interesting legal issues. According to CNN, Attorney General Gonzales recently said, “There were many people, many lawyers within the administration who advised the president that he had an inherent authority as commander in chief under the Constitution to engage in” this kind of
December 22, 2005
“The War on Christmas Poem”
When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me — but I tell her to quick, run and hide!—before the goddamned ACLU and its goddamned lawyers find her and the baby Jesus, and strangle them both right where they fucking stand!
December 21, 2005
Sure. But could he manipulate her with his mind if he had a FISA warrant…?
From the AP: Attorneys for television talk show host David Letterman want a judge to quash a restraining order granted to a Santa Fe woman who contends the celebrity used code words to show that he wanted to marry her and train her as his co-host. A state judge granted a temporary restraining order to Colleen Nestler, who alleged in a request filed last Thursday that Letterman has forced her
December 21, 2005
Talking Smack
John Cole works himself into quite a state today over an LA Times story he believes suggests that the President may have “lied”—a pronouncement upon which John’s commentariat pounces like snappy terriers on a bloody lamb shank. John’s outrage, he tells us, stems from his provisional acceptance of the facts cited in this LA Times story, facts that, if true, would make statements Bush made about the NSA “spy” program
December 21, 2005
“The Schrödinger’s cat goes to the john post” (from the protein wisdom conceptual series)
Schrödinger: “Jesus, cat—would you please hurry it up? I’ve been holding it in for over an hour now. What could you possibly be doing in there…?”
December 21, 2005
FISAing Words
Clinton associate attorney general John Schmidt, writing in the Chicago Tribune (h/t Charles Martin): Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents. The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda,
Peter Fonda comments on the leak-driven story about the NSA’s “illegal” domestic “spying” program authorized by the Bush adminstration under AUMF and FISA authorities
Fonda: “All I’ll say on the matter is this: In ‘75 or thereabouts, I had a nice steak dinner with Frank Church, and the shit he laid on me about COINTELPro—the extent, man, to which the government was watching us—made the hair on my nipples stand on end. I mean, would you want Tricky Dick and his kinky First Lady wife getting their freak on to wire taps of Sylvia