Just as we saw in Bush's mad dash to have the MCA passed after receiving the massive WWE judicial smack-down of Hamdan v Rumsfeld, the push to have the new FISA Bill passed before August recess had to do with the fact the not one, but two judges on the FISA court told the Bush Admin that their program was flat out illegal.
A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the Bush administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by congressional lawmakers this week to expand the president's spying powers.
So naturally what they decided to do about it, rather than y'know perhaps abide by the law they've been ignoring for the last several years, was instead - to change it
Following defeats in twin lawsuits filed by the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the administrations attempts to bypass the FISA court in conducting telephonic surveillance the Administration decided that they would actually start using the court after one of it's judges agreed to approve the program this past January.
I am writing to inform you that as of January 10, 2007 a Judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued orders authorizing the Government to target for collection international communications into and out of the United States where there is probable cause to believe that one of the communicants is a member or agent of Al Qaeda or an associated terrorist organization.
As a result of these orders, any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," [Alberto] Gonzales wrote [in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee], a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
"Accordingly, under these circumstances, the President has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires," the attorney general wrote.
As a side note there is some suspicion (on Thinkprogress) that the Judge who authorized the program to function under the FISA court may have been John D. Bates who replaced the Judge who had resigned from the court in protest of the TSP.
Bates is a staunch conservative, who had previously ruled that the President could sign legislation into law that had not passed both houses of congress. He dismissed a suit against Dick Cheney requiring him to disclose the members of his 2001 Energy Task Force. And although he had previously served as Deputy Counsel in Ken Starr's Office during the Whitewater investigation and attempted Impeachment of President Bill Clinton, he dismissed the Plame Suit arguing that "such efforts (to rebut criticizm of their policies by disclosing the identity of a covert CIA operative) are a natural part of the officials' job duties, and, thus, they are immune from liability."
If anyone on the FISA is likely to have been the one to give Bush the green light to spy on international calls without a specific warrant - this is probably the guy.
Fortunately the court isn't completely chock full of wingnuts like this one. Just two months after the program had been moved under the umbrella of the FISC, it was tossed back out in the rain again - not just once, but a second time in May.
In May, a judge on the same court went further, telling the administration flatly that the law's wording required the government to get a warrant whenever a fixed wire is involved.
The rulings — which were not disclosed publicly until the congressional debate this month — represented an unusual rift between the court and the U.S. intelligence community. They led top intelligence officials to conclude, a senior official said, that "you can’t tell what this court is going to do" and helped provoke the White House to insist that Congress essentially strip the court of any jurisdiction over U.S. surveillance of communications between foreigners.
"All of a sudden, the world flipped upside down," said a senior administration official familiar with the rulings.
Yeah, all of a sudden the rubber stamp court said they had to get a warrant for each and every wiretap. Heaven forfend - all that paperwork!? Oh, the cruel Zumanity.
So much for this program being "Very Limited in Nature". And it's not like all that surveillance might have been of completely innocent people causing thousands of man-hours to be wasted on wild goose chases, or anything. And it's not like every plot they've claimed was stopped via this program, were actually stopped via other means.
Uh huh.
Anywho...
The decisions had the immediate practical effect of forcing the NSA to laboriously ask judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court each time it wanted to capture such foreign communications from a wire or fiber on U.S. soil, a task so time-consuming that a backlog developed. "We shoved a lot of warrants at the court" but still could not keep up, the official said. "We needed thousands of warrants, but the most we could do was hundreds." The official depicted it as an especially "big problem" by the end of May, in which the NSA was "losing capability."
Hey man, if you really need "thousands of warrants" I don't think your doing this right. Do we really have thousands of members of Al Qeada making phone calls into the U.S.? According to the General Abizaid there are only about a thousand members of al Qaeda in Iraq, are they all calling at once?
And brother, they must sure have a ton of cell and satelite phones in those Pakistani caves and mountains. Just how do they get decent reception up there anyway? Think they've got Verizon?
"Yeah, you bet We can Hear you NOW!"
Personally, I think only being able to do hundreds of warrants is probably a good thing, it might help these guys focus on the important stuff rather than mess around with knuckle-heads like the Liberty City Seven.
Congress at first resisted changing FISA, until they pulled the old oogey-boogey trick that we were in imminent danger of an attack... .
A critical moment for the Democrats came on July 24, when McConnell met in a closed session with senators from both parties to ask for urgent approval of a slimmed-down version of his bill. Armed with new details about terrorist activity and an alarming decline in U.S. eavesdropping capabilities, he argued that Congress had days, not weeks, to act.
"Everybody who heard him speak recognized the absolute, compelling necessity to move," Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), vice chairman of the intelligence panel, said later of the closed session.
Democrats agreed. "At that time, the discussion changed to 'What can we do to close the gap during the August recess?' " said a senior Democratic aide who declined to be identified because the meetings were classified. As delivered by McConnell, the warnings were seen as fully credible. "He's pushing this because he thinks we're in a high-threat environment," the senior aide said.
Following this afternoon Fright Night feature enough spineless Dems backed down from their objections to hand Bush his Blank Spying Check. But hey, didn't we go this before with Colin Powell at the UN with the mobile labs, and the aluminum tubes with the anondyne coating?
All of it, every allegation and assertion - dead wrong.
Yeah, thought so.
This entire process seems very interesting to me since Bush so often declared that we couldn't amended the FISA laws (even though it already had been amended) because it would "Show the enemy our playbook") Yeah, right.
So Al Qaeda has experts in American Constitutional Law, the FISA Act and USSID 18 on the payroll now? Do tell.
Oh, and let just remember this golden oldie from Arlen of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, if the president did break the law or circumvent the law, what’s the remedy?
SPECTER: Well, the remedy could be a variety of things. A president — and I’m not suggesting remotely that there’s any basis, but you’re asking, really, theory, what’s the remedy? Impeachment is a remedy. After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution, but the principal remedy, George, under our society is to pay a political price.
At this point we've had three judges, two on the FISA Court as well as Federal Judge Ann Diggs Taylor who have all declared that Bush's Domestic Spying Program is illegal and unconstitutional!, not to mention an an additional lawsuit filed by the Gitmo Attorneys. The fact is that this New FISA Bill is an act of desperation so blatant that it almost explains why Gonzo is so willing to lie his face off before Congress.
It's not about fighting terrorism, not with more and more Conservatives saying "We Need Another 9/11" (So they can make this country even more Fascist than it already is) it's about Bush legally covering his well exposed ass.
Not a pleasant image to end a diary on, but talking politics and protecting our freedoms are often dirty jobs. They could have a show on the Discovery Channel called "Dirty Politics."
"I'm Mike Rowe, and this is how you pass a bill through the colon of Congress..."
Oh wait, that's everything on Faux isn't it?
Vyan
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