FBI involved in domestic spying?
FBI involved in domestic spying?
Laura Rozen asks, “Why were FBI director Mueller and the FBI so involved in Comey’s decision-thinking on the NSA warrantless domestic spying program? Was this about a separate component of the program, that involved the FBI spying without warrants on Americans? Not just the NSA?” And does this explain why Alberto Gonzales claimed in 2006 that the questions of legality raised by Comey were not related to the NSA spying program?
UPDATE: Just out from the Washington Post: the Justice Department responds to the letter about Gonzales’ 2006 testimony we reported on earlier:
The Justice Department said yesterday that it will not retract a sworn statement in 2006 by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that the Terrorist Surveillance Program had aroused no controversy inside the Bush administration, despite congressional testimony Tuesday that senior departmental officials nearly resigned in 2004 to protest such a program.
The department’s affirmation of Gonzales’s remarks raised fresh questions about the nature of the classified dispute, which former U.S. officials say led then-Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey and as many as eight colleagues to discuss resigning.
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Whose side are you liberals on?
May 17th, 2007 at 12:22 amWell let me take a wild stab at it – they wanted to spy on Democrats?
May 17th, 2007 at 12:23 amAmerica and our Constitution. Why? What side are you on?
May 17th, 2007 at 12:24 amWhatever side you are on, Mikey? Count me as on the opposite.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:25 amWe will never know unless the Congress stands-up to investigate it.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:25 amI’m not on the side of a who, I’m on the side of a what: Justice.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:34 amThis administration is really unraveling now….
It’s a sad spectacle, from Wolfowitz and his girlfriend at the World Bank, to the newly minted “war czar”, to the never-ending Gonzales saga, to the ongoing Iraq debacle, etc., etc., etc.
But the Bush cultists have a man-crush on their Dear (mis)Leader that trumps all loyalty to the institutions and the nation.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:35 amComment by michael — May 17, 2007 @ 12:22 am
On the side of the law, stupid.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:35 amThe scandals of the Bush administration are worse than Watergate. I can’t believe we’re going through it all over again.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:36 amWhose side are you liberals on?
Comment by michael
Do you know what Rule of Law means, and it’s signifigance in the History of the United States?
Didn’t think so.
May 17th, 2007 at 1:30 amI guess locking that one in the closet wasn’t the best way to go…..
May 17th, 2007 at 1:31 amComment by Michael’s Mother — May 17, 2007 @ 1:31 am
It would have been, had you kept him there.
May 17th, 2007 at 1:38 amComment by Gregor Samsa — May 17, 2007 @ 1:38 am
Or just sealed up the crack.
Heh.
May 17th, 2007 at 1:42 amAll the wire tapping is an impeachable offence, starting with bush/cheney and gonzales….We have to push Palosi and reid to do their job, get the investigation’s going immediately and work for impeaching these nut job’s….After that we can try them for their crime’s…The most corrupt administration in our history…Blessings
May 17th, 2007 at 3:26 amJust a question?
The FBI is an arm of the Department of Justice, headed by the Attorney General. Why then did Comey, acting AG need to ask Mueller to give instructions to the FBI agents not to evict him from Ashcroft’s hospital room.
It would seem that the WH has a policy of giving direct orders to the Feebs.
May 17th, 2007 at 6:25 ammichael- the answer to that loaded question is – the U.S. Constitution.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:16 ammichael, we only have the word of Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rove/Gonzales that these warrantless wiretaps were against potential terrorist suspects. However, do we trust these goons? Have they ever lied to us before? Would they ever consider wiretapping the DNC –say, like in Watergate– or various Democratic Party candidates, etc.? Would they ever consider wiretapping company CEOs to find out insider information? Have they ever seemed vengeful or capable of drafting an enemies of the GOP list?
This was the real danger of Watergate. Once the FBI, CIA, and NSA are corrupted by the White House and the DoJ you can kiss democracy and freedom and rights goodbye. Welcome to a One Party state where mysteriously GOP candidates polling 5% behind wind up 5% ahead in the final tally. And the GOP always seem to know what the opposition is thinking.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:26 amFBI involved in domestic spying? Under these Stalinists, that’s like asking if the Pope is a Catholic. We have become the Soviet Union, thanks to the zipperheads who are such cowards they’ll sacrifice fundamental rights because of the threat of some flea-bitten camel jockey thousands of miles from here. In doing so, of course, the terrorists win.
Panty-waist little girls that they are, they’re the same ones crowing for escalation of our occupation for oil but they’ll never pick up a weapon and stand the post. Cowards. Nor would they consider asking the uber-wealthy to help pay for the war to provide gasoline for their SUVs. Oh, no, that’d be a redistribution of wealth, and not considered as one’s patriotic duty to sacrifice in proportion to what one has gained from the nation in order to “defend” it.
The good news for America (at least the sane, reality-based America most live in) is that the zenith of the zipperheads is past. Even beer-swilling NASCAR-watching tobacco-chawing inbred wife-beating gun-totin’ banjo-bangin’ hillbillies are getting hip to the con game. Some are even finally taking down the Bush/Cheney 04 campaign poster that has been covering up the bedroom window in their trailer and buying curtains instead, which will be great for the economy — the economy of some third world child labor sweat shop where Wal-Mart gets them from, that is. Ain’t free trade grand?
(God, sometimes I just depress the living sh!t outta myself just thinking about our condition.)
May 17th, 2007 at 8:43 amI’ll bet this is about the FBI’s own publicly-aired scandal about abuse of national security letters (NSL’s). I suspect they gave a single NSL to each of the big phone companies asking for ALL of their records so the NSA could sift through them. This may be the piece Comey and Ashcroft had a problem with. What do you think?
May 17th, 2007 at 9:19 amGood question, Rozen.
J. Edgar Hoover would be proud that spying on Americans continues to be a focus of the FBI.
May 17th, 2007 at 9:45 amokay — i am attempting
a bit of a round-up of the
most-credible legal commenters’
theories on what exactly the
wa po quote, and the comey
testimony — put together — will
yield, in the way of new revelations. . .
feel free to add your theory in
my comments, or here, as well. . .
“the truth — it seems — will always
May 17th, 2007 at 10:05 ambe far stranger. . . than anything
we could make up. . .“
For Gonzales to retract his statement would be an admission that he lied to Congress. Time to stop playing games, and start the impeachment process immediately against Gonzo.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:37 amThe paranoid left fails to focus on facts again!
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010084
May 17th, 2007 at 12:58 pmhttp://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010084
May 17th, 2007 at 12:59 pmIs there really any doubt that the FBI had other programs? Just go back and look at news reports for February, 2004. There were plenty of articles about the FBI watching antiwar groups. There was also the Drake Univeristy case, where the DOJ finally dropped it’s subpoenas for student records.
May 17th, 2007 at 4:35 pmWhat steams me is that they are getting away with this.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:51 pm