Bush on the defensive after revelations on domestic spying

Updated: 5:36 a.m. ET Dec. 20, 2005
Associated Press, MSNBC

WASHINGTON - Some Democrats say they never approved a domestic wiretapping program, undermining suggestions by President Bush and his senior advisers that the plan was fully vetted in a series of congressional briefings.

“I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities,” West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, said in a handwritten letter to Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003. “As you know, I am neither a technician nor an attorney.”

Rockefeller is among a small group of congressional leaders who have received briefings on the administration’s four-year-old program to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the United States with suspected ties to al-Qaida. [...] Read more at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10542545/


© Virginia Metze

Compromises on key bills in the Senate force GOP to face hard issues in an election year.

By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 23, 2005 edition

WASHINGTON – In the gray-suited halls of the US Senate, few days have produced more high drama than the one this Wednesday - which yielded no fewer than five major pieces of legislation, 11th-hour wheeling and dealing, and sober messages to some powerful senators that it is no longer politics as usual in terms of party solidarity.

Wrapping up work for the year, the Senate passed two key defense bills - dropping a plan in one of them to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling - and a six-month extension of the USA Patriot Act. Senators also approved a $601.6 billion social spending bill, and identified nearly $40 billion in spending cuts.

But before the final curtain, Democrats and a handful of moderate Republicans managed to ensure that some especially divisive issues, ranging from privacy rights to the fairness of the US tax code, come up early in 2006 - an election year. For Democrats, it's the high-water mark for minority clout since Republicans took control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. [...] Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/8ug25


© Virginia Metze

Shhhh! They Could Be Listening In On This Column!

by Steve Young
Dec. 22, 2005
American Politics Journal

Dec. 22, 2005 -- HOLLYWOOD (apj.us) -- Is there anything richer or more important a lesson for our children than to learn from one's failures? And has there been a year more filled with opportunities for one man to learn from than the failures that have has befallen one man's legacy than President Bush's 2005? Katrina, FEMA and Michael Brown... continued war... administration-connected indictments... social security reform... Veterans Administration deficit... torture revelations... paying for positive columns in Iraqi papers... Terry Schiavo... Harriet Miers... 9/11 Commission "F"s... plummeting popularity... and so much more!

But, wowzers -- talk about blundering!

This past week is one for the history (of "How To Crush The Bill of Rights") books. Or was it that with time running out on '05, George Bush wanted to put a lock on TIME's Man-of- the-Year cover (and this should not be perceived as a reminiscence of Hitler's TIME cover boy days -- though you have every right to do so).

It seems that for the past few years, the President secretly authorized National Security Agency taps into the homes and businesses of American citizens without court-approved warrants. [...] Read the rest of this article at http://tinyurl.com/89yvc


© Virginia Metze

RAW STORY
Originally published on Thursday December 22, 2005
Last Updated: 12/22/3905

John Conyers, Jr., (D - MI) ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and 26 other Congressmen today submitted a resolution of inquiry into warrantless wiretapping of citizens on U.S. soil.

The resolution would demand that Attorney General Gonzales turn over documents believed to be in his possession authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance. It would also request documents detailing any legal recommendations regarding the order.

Deadline for the hand-over would be 14 days. [...] Conyer's statement appears next. Here are some statements from the Conyer memo:

"These revelations raise some of the most serious legal and constitutional questions conceivable in our democracy - whether our own government is able to intercept our most private conversations without establishing to any independent party that such eavesdropping is in any way necessary or related to a possible crime. For 25 years under FISA we have created special procedures for obtaining intelligence information on U.S. soil. The standard for getting a wiretap warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is so low that only 5 out of the 19,000 applications have been denied since 1978. We even allow FISA orders to be obtained on a retroactive basis for the first 72 hours, in case the government needs to move with great speed. [...] Read it at http://tinyurl.com/da34v


© Virginia Metze

Ellen Goodman highlights the president's "whatever it takes" approach to post 9/11 counter-terrorism as "whatever the president says it takes," citing his continual division of the country, separating his supporters from his critics.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122405H.shtml


From Information Clearing House

While working under a US military contract, the newly formed Lincoln Group paid Iraqi journalists to place highly controversial pro-democracy stories in the media.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122405C.shtml


From Information Clearing House

Federal prosecutors are engaged in plea negotiations with former Enron Corp. official Richard A. Causey, working toward a deal that could provide crucial momentum for the government heading into the signature trial of the corporate scandal era.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122405B.shtml


From Information Clearing House

The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and web communications flowing in and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122405A.shtml

Frustrated by government and empowered by technology, Americans are filling needs and fighting causes through grass-roots organizations they built themselves - some sophisticated, others quaintly ad hoc. This is the era of people-driven politics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5502087,00.html


From Information Clearing House

IT WAS astounding enough for Washington’s political elite: last month they discovered that the man at the heart of a scandal over the planting of US propaganda in Iraqi newspapers was a dapper but unknown 30-year-old Oxford graduate who had somehow managed to land a $100 million Pentagon contract.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1958479,00.html


From Information Clearing House