Gonzales’ False Choice
Gonzales’ False Choice
No one disputes that the government needs to monitor all communications by Al Qaeda. During today’s hearing, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) laid out the choices available to the administration to accomplish this –
Mr. Attorney General, if terrorists are operating in this country or people in this country are communicating with terrorists and of course we must collect whatever information we have, or that we can. To accomplish this, the administration had three options as you know:
First, it could have followed the current law which most experts believe gives you all the authority you need to listen to these calls.
Second, if you thought the law inadequate, you could have asked Congress to grant you additional authority.
Third — the course you followed — conduct warrantless spying outside current law and without new authorization.
Gonzales describes the situation as a choice between following the law (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and protecting America. Kohl helps demonstrate that is a false choice. We can do both.
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And what Mr. Gonzalez needs to understand is that not following the law is simply not an option!
February 6th, 2006 at 12:12 pmI denke they need to monitor the activities that go on in prisons in California and Yemen. Fogedaboud innocent murkans.
Yemen Prison Jihadists – 23
USA Stooges – 0
Super Bowl Jihad XL
NSA
February 6th, 2006 at 12:21 pmThe Senators need to shoot down this one too:
“We will expose our methods to the terrorists.”
Is Gonzo saying the terrorists are so stupid they don’t know they’re being monitored?
I won’t wait………….
February 6th, 2006 at 12:22 pmJust waiting for Feingold.
Right now Jeff Sessions is being a bottle of warm milk with gonzo and he (gonzo) is chatting it up. Jeff Session just said it just ain’t fair for the world to hear that the president and AG are being called liars in this meeting.
Down south we call this sugar sap!
February 6th, 2006 at 12:25 pmIs Gonzo saying the terrorists are so stupid they don’t know they’re being monitored?
Basically…yes. That’s exactly what he’s saying. He’s saying that real life terrorists don’t have the sense of Hollywood terrorists, who seem to expect monitoring…
February 6th, 2006 at 12:27 pmNow session is taking Super Bowl Talk oh wow! lets protect the consitution via super bowl.
Maybe we need to lose our freedoms ,watch our poor die and allow only the wealthy to educate their children.
maybe we need to hit rock bottom then maybe people like session,specter,kyl and others will come to understand what so many of us are saying.
February 6th, 2006 at 12:28 pm#4 Aw, gee, Senator Sessions. Why is it unfair to call the President and the Attorney General liars when they both have a history of making false, untrue, mendacious, disingenuous and misleading statements to the public, the press and the Congress?
February 6th, 2006 at 12:29 pmmr gonzales has not only put the president above the Law. He has put Himself above the Law.
They Had 72hrs window to tap phones without a warrant.
I wish they would ask this
Does it Take 72 hours to fill out an Application for a Warrant Mr Gonzales?
Can you believe it an attorney General who will IGNORE the Law?
Lets not forget the other “program” Able Danger that did find Alqaeda members, and that was ignored…????!!!??
this is crazy, you knew about the terrorists over here, yet
February 6th, 2006 at 12:32 pmBushco ignored the ABLE DANGER intelligence FOR warrantless taps that have netted nothing?
Jeff Session just said it just ain’t fair for the world to hear that the president and AG are being called liars in this meeting.
Well If seesions wont do it, I WILL.
February 6th, 2006 at 12:35 pmBush is a Liar. and thats been proven time and time again.
Politicians are Liars, who doesnt know that?
So FISA is way to slow and cumbersome for International calls to Domestic citizens, but is just fine and dandy for domestic to domestic calls.. yeah that makes a lot of sense…
February 6th, 2006 at 12:38 pmGonzo said we are at war. When did congress declare war? As far as I recall they only passed a resolution authorizing the use of force, relative to Iraq.
February 6th, 2006 at 12:39 pmthe admin has done nothing to prove that they ARE NOT LIARS!
February 6th, 2006 at 12:39 pmPoliticians are Liars, who doesnt know that?
Comment by mr ho — February 6, 2006 @ 12:35 pm
There’s a difference between lying as in “Read my lips: no new taxes.” and lying as in “Whenever we talk about wiretaps, we’re getting a court order.”
February 6th, 2006 at 12:41 pmIf they can get a warrant and then get a court order AFTERWARDS, they never had any issue. This is just more Nixonian paranoid crap.
This administration thanks their lucky stars for 911 everyday. It was the best thing that ever happened to them.
February 6th, 2006 at 12:42 pmAh, you have discovered the Neo-Con response to everything. “Do it our way or you are not protecting America”
These guys like to deal in very stark black & white choices. As Bush once said “I don’t do nuance”. Unfortunately in the real world nuiance is what it’s all about.
If they insist on things either being clear and defined, then I suggest defining their actions as criminal and putting the whole gang on trial.
February 6th, 2006 at 12:45 pmKirk #11 — the days of declared war are over. I think a reasonable person would agree that we at war. Reasonable people might argue about who we are at war against and who we are spending our time waging war against…
The point is that even war doesn’t allow the president to do whatever he wants. FISA has extra provisions built in for wartime interpretations, which means the authors of that law probably didn’t expect it to be ignored in wartime.
Tell me again who hates my freedoms and who wants to end tyranny?
February 6th, 2006 at 12:47 pm“Because President Nixon attempted to justify his action by citing the then ongoing war in Vietnam, as well as the Soviet nuclear threat of the Cold War, the crafters included a provision that in time of war ’Äì including an all-out Congressionally declared war ’Äì the NSA is limited to just fifteen days of warrantless eavesdropping. Later, both Republicans and Democrats enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which required the NSA to obtain a warrant from a special court before eavesdropping on Americans on U.S. soil, and included a penalty of five years in prison for every violation. For three decades, during both Republican and Democratic administrations, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court functioned smoothly and without a single leak, issuing nearly 19,000 warrants and turning down only five. Those few rejections could then be argued de novo before the Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, which has only heard one case in nearly thirty years.”
http://cryptome.org/nsa-bamford.htm
Looks like they’re breaking the lawr. The White House is now a prison. Wouldn’t want the Presnit’s job for all of the money in the world. When he flies in AF-One, he’s on the lam. He’s the most hunted ‘leader’ on the face of the earth.
February 6th, 2006 at 12:47 pmHow long did it take to get a bill sign on Terry Shivao?
They have 72 hrs but also up to a week to have FISA to give the OK…
February 6th, 2006 at 12:47 pmAnd yet my conservative friends still go ballistic if you bring up Bill “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” Clinton. What a fucking joke.
February 6th, 2006 at 12:48 pmReprinted from guntotingliberal.blogspot.com :
Terror in the Libraries of the “Safest American City”
Today the Boston Globe presents a column in which the author, Richard L. Cravatts, lambasts the librarian in the Massachusetts suburb of Newton for “protect[ing] terrorists” by insisting that Federal officials secure a search warrant before looking at the records of a suspected bomber who looked at books at her library.
This writer, who appears to be a shill for the Heritage Foundation, a Right-Wing think tank with more axes to grind than a medieval blacksmith, is the latest to equate the protection of constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms with aiding and abetting terrorists. It makes me wonder, do we as a people even deserve the fantastic, historically unique protections our forefathers guaranteed us anymore?
We have a president who literally cannot help himself to keep from lying at every turn (although less in February!), telling us in one speech that, “every time you hear about government wiretapping, that requires a warrant, and nothing’s changed (my paraphrase, more accurate details to follow),” while at the very same moment engaging in a wholesale fishing expedition through the citizenry’s protected private information looking for any evidence he thinks supports terrorism, in direct contradiction to his phony assurances.
Remember, Attorney General Albert Gonzalez is already on record as saying that the reason the White House didn’t present the President’s wishes for greater surveillance power through desired changes to FISA law back on ‘01 and ‘02 was that the administration knew Congress would not grant such widespread authority. The choice was made to disregard the process when they knew their assertions of unlimited executive power would not pass muster. When he goes on trial, this will be a key point: the administration knew they were overreaching, that their conduct was illegal, and they knew they’d be stopped, so they merely proceeded in secret.
This is, quite simply the most audacious move of any president in the last century, and the greatest constitutional crisis since the South seceeded from the Union in 1861.
Read this op-ed piece. It implies that unless federal authorities can look into anyone’s library account, at any moment, for any or no reason at all, we will be blown to smithereens by “terrorists.” Not even the Soviets were able to raise our fears to such hysterical heights.
The librarian held the searchers at bay for ten hours while they secured warrants, and the patron’s rights were protected, and nothing blew up, except Mr. Cravatts’ anger. In a system wherein an accused individual is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the idea that the patron is simply, with no evidence and no debate, a “terrorist,” chills me to the bone. I mean, I go to the library all the time. I don’t want anyone’s government nosing around in my records and seeing what my private literary tastes are like. Am I now a terrorist because I value my unique, American right to privacy?
How can we be the strongest and most prosperous nation the world has ever known and yet at the same time be so vulnerable to total annihilation that a person reading a book in the nation’s safest city is more dangerous than all the machinations of the Soviet Union? Our unique constitutional rights make this country what it is, and even fifty years of Communism couldn’t crack the sanctity of the Bill of Rights. Not that paranoid Right-Wingers didn’t try, again and again, to fight their perceived enemies by becoming more and more like them.
Think about it. Then go to your local library in Newton, or Springfield, or Kansas City, or Duluth, or Richmond, or wherever you are reading this, and check out a book of your choice.
While you still can.
February 6th, 2006 at 12:52 pmI, as any American, am safest when I am fully protected
by ALL of my Constitutionally granted rights.
All of my rights protect me.
Thats when I am safest and most secure.
February 6th, 2006 at 1:00 pmThe spy hearings, take three…
Gonzales is refusing to answer “on security grounds…” More on Kohl’s questioning from Think Progress….
February 6th, 2006 at 1:05 pmWhy did they try to amend FISA in july of 02? here is a link to James A. Bakers statement. http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/073102baker.html
February 6th, 2006 at 1:06 pmreal life terrorists don’t have the sense of Hollywood terrorists
I wish they would track the real-life terrists as diligently as they track the Hollywood terrists. We know which ones pose the greater threat to them.
Does it Take 72 hours to fill out an Application for a Warrant Mr Gonzales?
To quote his boss: “It’s hard work.” Do you think Bush actually took the tests at Harvard Business?
February 6th, 2006 at 1:07 pmIf we allow the Democrats to speak, the terrorists have won!
February 6th, 2006 at 1:12 pmRiddle me Please, SOMEONE.
Why is the FISA court even RELEVENT when it comes to warrentless wire taps, er… terrorist sevailence programs, if they, the talkies like AG Gonzales, hold up the president’s authority to make such a move with no defference toward FISA as GRANTED by Congress’s express authority as the ultimate reasoning to his decisions???
The two reasons ARE NOT in allignment with each other and suggest that they cancel and not support each claim.
AM I SEEING IT WRONG???
February 6th, 2006 at 1:12 pmKeep in mind that when Diane Fienstein asked whether the illegal NSA wiretapping capture conversations from Domestic American to American calls, ALberto GOnzales didn’t say “No” he said “Not the program we are discussing today.”
February 6th, 2006 at 1:20 pmSpudge_Boy
Yes, I caught that diflection too.
February 6th, 2006 at 1:26 pmand she backed offff .we are being spied on ,,,,
February 6th, 2006 at 1:30 pmThe parallel universe of 2006…
Gonzales speaking…
Bushbot hears: “Blah, blah, blah, national security… blah, blah, blah, 9/11… blah, blah, blah, terrorists… blah, blah, blah, protect America… blah, blah, blah, we are at war…. blah, blah, blah, President Bush is awesome.”
Intelligent person hears: “Bogus legal argument, blah, blah, blah… False choice, blah, blah, blah… Impeachable offense, blah, blah, blah… Up is down, blah, blah, blah… The Constitution is “quaint”, blah, blah, blah… If we take away your freedoms, they can’t hate you for your freedom, blah, blah, blah.”
February 6th, 2006 at 1:40 pm#27 & 28
I think that’s where the Repubs are trying to claim we’re wrong. It is my guess that there are really two programs in play here. One is the Terrorist Surveillance Program that we all agree should be used to spy on phone calls made by the terrorists. But I think there is a second, illegal and secret program which is used to spy on domestic groups (like the Quakers, Greenpeace, PETA, whoever). It is this second program whose existence they are strongly denying, and they are using the first program to confuse the issue. Whenever anybody brings up illegal domestic spying, they immediately claim that the TSP is necessary to go after terrorists. That’s as may be, but it’s not what the rest of us are talking about.
February 6th, 2006 at 1:41 pmAnd what Mr. Gonzalez needs to understand is that not following the law is simply not an option!
Comment by Wayne A. Schneider #1
Wayne,
You know what your problem is?
You’re stuck in pre-9/11 thinking…
…we had laws then…
…post 9/11, all laws have been suspended for the privileged class..
…laws are only for “the little people”…
February 6th, 2006 at 1:44 pm#32 I know. It’s sooo extremely early twenty-first century of me! :)
February 6th, 2006 at 1:47 pmWayne A. Schneider,
I thnk you just nailed it. There are most likely two programs, one legal and one illegal. One spying on terrorists (good) one spying on Americans (bad).
February 6th, 2006 at 1:49 pmgraham is really grilling gonzo and gonzo is backing down somewhat.
February 6th, 2006 at 2:06 pm#34 I freely admit that I have no evidence of this. It’s just a hunch. But it sounds like something they might do.
Also, can anyone Bush supporters explain how even admitting that such a program exists gives too much information away to the terrorists? I mean, do any of you think that all of them are too stupid to know that phone calls could be monitored? They keep telling us that they can’t reveal too much about the program because that would be giving away information to the “enemy”. The only way this even remotely makes sense to me is if they view us (the American people who care about civil liberties) as the “enemy”.
February 6th, 2006 at 2:07 pmWayne A. Schneider,
I am just saying that a super secret warrantless wiretapping program that skirts the FISA courts is the perfect cover for a super duper secret program that doesn’t just skirt the FISA laws, but actually steps all over them.
February 6th, 2006 at 2:18 pm[...] Also – Think Progress: “Gonzales describes the situation as a choice between following the law (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and protecting America.” more later. [...]
February 6th, 2006 at 2:19 pmGraham is a lawyer, gonzo’s comment about not reading up on the constitutionality of extending the supposed presidential powers to their limits is revealing, he doesn’t want to admit that the extension of the powers he claims for the executive obviously lead to the unitary executive powers that some here label as “facist” but are really more a gutting of the constitution to the advantage of the president and those who seek to control the society for their vision of what is American or patroitic.
February 6th, 2006 at 2:20 pmSpudge_Boy,
Couldn’t agree more. As I said, just so others don’t think I’m asserting something as true which clearly isn’t, I have no proof that this is what they are doing. But it would explain a lot, and it would make a lot of the answers they gave make sense. But that is not “proof” of its correctness, and I fully understand that.
But one has to wonder just exactly what is it that they are hiding and don’t want people to know even exists if it isn’t illegal, doesn’t violate the Constitution, and doesn’t trample on innocent Americans’ civil rights.
February 6th, 2006 at 2:34 pmSince Alberto Gonzales is NOT under oath he can LIE through his clenched teeth like a drunk on malt liquer!
His testimony is completely BOGUS since he is NOT under oath!
Sen. Arlen Specter is an attorney himself, so he knows that anything said by Gonzales is HEARSAY without being under oath, so the entire Senate hearing is a farce!
February 6th, 2006 at 2:36 pm#41 I thought that, too, at first. But I think Judd is right when he said (in another thread) that even if he’s not under oath, lying to Congress is still illegal.
If he gives false testimony to Congress, then that is “lying to Congress”. If he was under oath when he did it, then it is also “perjury” in addition to “lying to Congress”, and he could get charged with two crimes (concurrent sentences).
Either way, especially as a representative of the Executive branch, he has no legal authority to give false testimony to Congress. If he can’t answer because the subject matter is classified, then he has to give them the answers they seek in closed session. But he does not have any right whatsoever to give false testimony to Congress, whether or not he is under oath.
February 6th, 2006 at 2:47 pmIn a system wherein an accused individual is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the idea that the patron is simply, with no evidence and no debate, a “terrorist,†chills me to the bone.
Welcome to the New and Improved McCarthyism. Look at what Chambliss said on Friday. Compare that with the anti-Cleeland ads Chambliss ran in ‘02. It seems to have become a GOP overarching strategy to attack the patriotism of anyone and everyone that does not agree with their policies. That people buy this crap is the most frightening part.
February 6th, 2006 at 2:49 pm#31 Wayne,
February 6th, 2006 at 4:46 pmBut I think there is a second, illegal and secret program which is used to spy on domestic groups (like the Quakers, Greenpeace, PETA, whoever). It is this second program whose existence they are strongly denying, and they are using the first program to confuse the issue.
The hedge by AG was absolutely an equivocation to be used to get out of hot water in the future if he needs it.
I think the exchange this morning proved exactly that. There is a secret program (FBI) that allows the NSA and FBI to work together and spy on Americans. This is how they spy on Quakers, environmentalists, and Democrats.
Spy on me! I get so LITTLE ATTENTION in my life!
I’m sooo NEEEEEDY!
(please spy on me, I’ll be bad, I promise!)
February 6th, 2006 at 5:27 pmThose who doubt that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld team will attack Iran, while so conspicuously overextended in Iraq, are ignoring the subtleties of the administration’s Middle East strategy.
Bush has no intention of occupying Iran. Rather, the goal is to destroy major weapons-sites, destabilize the regime, and occupy a sliver of land on the Iraqi border that contains 90% of Iran’s oil wealth. Ultimately, Washington will aim to replace the Mullahs with American-friendly clients who can police their own people and fabricate the appearance of representative government. But, that will have to wait. For now, the administration must prevent the incipient Iran bourse (oil-exchange) from opening in March and precipitating a global sell-off of the debt-ridden dollar. There have many fine articles written about the proposed “euro-based†bourse and the devastating effects it will have on the greenback. The best of these are “Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar†by William R. Clark, and “The Proposed Oil Bourse†by Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.
The bottom line on the bourse is this; the dollar is underwritten by a national debt that now exceeds $8 trillion dollars and trade deficits that surpass $600 billion per year. That means that the greenback is the greatest swindle in the history of mankind. It’s utterly worthless. The only thing that keeps the dollar afloat is that oil is traded exclusively in greenbacks rather than some other currency. If Iran is able to smash that monopoly by trading in petro-euros then the world’s central banks will dump the greenback overnight, sending markets crashing and the US economy into a downward spiral.
The Bush administration has no intention of allowing that to take place. In fact, as the tax-cuts and the budget deficits indicate, the Bush cabal fully intends to perpetuate the system that trades worthless dollars for valuable commodities, labor, and resources. As long as the oil market is married to the dollar, this system of global indentured servitude will continue.
Battle Plans
The Bush administration’s attention has shifted to a small province in southwestern Iran that is unknown to most Americans. Never the less, Khuzestan will become the next front in the war on terror and the lynchpin for prevailing in the global resource war. If the Bush administration can sweep into the region (under the pretext disarming Iran’s nuclear programs) and put Iran’s prodigious oil wealth under US control, the dream of monopolizing Middle East oil will have been achieved.
Not surprisingly, this was Saddam Hussein’s strategy in 1980 when he initiated hostilities against Iran in a war that would last for eight years. Saddam was an American client at the time, so it is likely that he got the green light for the invasion from the Reagan White House. Many of Reagan’s high-ranking officials currently serve in the Bush administration; notably Rumsfeld and Cheney.
Khuzestan represents 90% of Iran’s oil production. The control over these massive fields will force the oil-dependent nations of China, Japan and India to continue to stockpile greenbacks despite the currency’s dubious value. The annexing of Khuzestan will prevent Iran’s bourse from opening, thereby guaranteeing that the dollar will maintain its dominant position as the world’s reserve currency. As long as the dollar reigns supreme and western elites have their hands on the Middle East oil-spigot, the current system of exploitation through debt will continue into perpetuity. The administration can confidently prolong its colossal deficits without fear of a plummeting dollar. In fact, the American war-machine and all its various appendages, from Guantanamo to Abrams Tanks, are paid for by the myriad nations who willingly hold reserves of American currency.
This extortion-scheme is typically referred to as the global economic system. In reality, it has nothing to do with either free markets or capitalism. That is just philosophical mumbo-jumbo. It is the dollar-system; predicated entirely on the ongoing monopoly of the oil trade in dollars.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:59 amBut hey, Gonzales has a great argument & justification for electronic surveillance…
Alberto: President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.
Wonder how good a cell service Washington was able to get while crossing the Delaware…
February 7th, 2006 at 11:35 am[...] There’s an awful lot out there about yesterday’s hearings. One needs only to pick up a newspaper or jump to any media site to see coverage. But the best things can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here at Think Progress who’s on this like white on rice. Those links are chock full o’ video goodness for those of you who don’t have the patience to watch the whole thing over at C-SPAN – or the stomach to listen to Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) kiss the administration’s backside. [...]
February 7th, 2006 at 12:10 pmI’ll tell you what…
…Watching Orrin Hatch fellate Gonzales made me wanna see if Brokeback Mountain is all it’s cracked up to be…
…I sure hope his kids weren’t watching….
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