There is clear and definitive evidence of deliberate lawbreaking. In addition to Congressional investigations, there is simply no excuse for anything other than the immediate commencement of a criminal investigation by a Special Prosecutor.

Yes--absolutely. But I asked this question yesterday, and didn't see an answer--If the AG is the one who appoints the Special Prosecutor, how does one make this happen? He and his boss have shown they have no shame, otherwise he would have been gone--fired--long ago. There is no way I can see the AG making such an appointment.

It is one thing to call for a Special Prosecutor. But how does one actually make that happen?

The NYT broke the NSA story on the Friday before Christmas week:

"The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted."

If I'm not mistaken, FISA Court (FISC) Judge James Robertson resigned "in protest" on the following Monday--only three days later.

Did Robertson learn something new in the reporting? Did he resign because the media reporting revealed that he had been misled or lied to by the administration or NSA?

What did the NYT reporters learn that they didn't report on in the article that broke the story?

Now that Comey's and other testimony is public, seems like Leahy might want to follow up with both the FISA judge and NYT reporters.

PaulR, fine by me, I'd love to see it. But I doubt this congress is going to impeach anyone

Superb. But what really amused me was that Mr. Greenwald, the mad liberal blogger, was totally usurped in that role by another guest on the show. Bruce Fein, a former deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan. Mr. Fein is just spitting, barking mad about this Administration and its assault on civil liberties.

Recommend the show highly.

I agree that while Ashcroft and Comey might rise a notch or two in many folks view (certainly mine), GG's point is well taken. I applaud them both (but have redoubled hate for Gonzales for making me think more highly of Ashcroft). But clearly they remained cogs in the machinery that allowed this abomination to become established and to be maintained.

From the editorial:

"To state the facts plainly: In a significant number of cases, our intelligence agencies must obtain a court order to monitor the communications of foreigners suspected of terrorist activity who are physically located in foreign countries."

This is not my understanding of FISA, and perhaps someone can help me out here. My understanding is that warrants have never been required for surveillence of foreign nationals overseas. I had thought that FISA only pertained to spying within the US. Am I wrong? Can someone explain what McConnell is referring to here?

My opinion:

1. Technology is a red herring in this issue.

2. What they actually want is unrestricted spying within the US, on US citizens and legal residents. They want to use the "driftnet" approach, as recently documented on PBS Frontline.

3. Given the many documented abuses within DOJ, including abuse of NSLs, congress should not widen FISA any further. Rather, it should be investigating FISA violations, and those conducting those violations should be prosecuted with vigor.

4. I suspect that our security apparatus is focused as much on homegrown targets--US citizens--as it is on foreign sources. Perhaps moreso.

Why do otherwise intelligent people continue to fall for the same trolls--day after day, week after week, month after month? I just don't understand this.

Bryan sed:

For the whole press release - summary: “We’d like to spy on anyone, anytime, for no reason at all.”

I think it's important to highlight that they can already legally spy on anyone, any time, except US citizens. They have also been sweeping up domestic calls (illegally)--with no international link--as documented recently by Frontline. And as GG and others constantly stress, this is simply what we know about. It seems highly likely that other programs are also working and have been for some time.

So this new 'marketing effort' by the admin is aimed solely at domestic spying. Because that's the only thing they don't yet have completely unfettered access to.

Not arguing with you--just trying to boil this down.

What a superb post. There are at least two answers to your closing question "What is to be done?"

One is deep, profound, complex, subtle. In other words, totally beyond my capacity.

But another is pretty simple, and might be overlooked: Insist on compliance with the law.

There is a bridge in Boston across the Charles River, very close to MIT. At one time the bridge was adorned with markings and numbers that had resulted from a late-night prank, or experiment, by some enterprising MIT students.

What they did was to take a victim (a fellow student), and use him as a unit of measure for the length of the bridge--a yardstick. I don't remember his name but let's call him Melvin. The experimenters hoisted Melvin up, and carried him across the bridge, carefully measuring the span of the bridge in 'Melvin-lengths'. They then recorded that number on the bridge itself, for all to see. It became a bit of a local landmark and an amusing item of contemporary Boston history.

For several years now we have been doing the same thing, but we have been marking time, rather than distance. Tom Friedman is the guy we've hoisted up as our yardstick.

September is important because it is One Friedman Unit from the surge. We are marking our own bridge. In contrast to the first "Bridge to Nowhere", this one is not in Alaska, it has a much higher toll.

Wonderful name! Many thanks Jayacroyd.