Ken Wainstein has been in the news lately as a suggested (who's the anonymous suggester?) replacement for some of the current (or upcoming) vacancies at USDOJ.

Yikes! What a terrible suggestion!

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070504-bush-administration-proposes-retroactive-immunity-for-phone-companies.html

Bush administration proposes retroactive immunity for phone companies

By Nate Anderson | May 04, 2007

Retroactive immunity from prosecution is a beautiful thing if you're a major telecommunications provider in the US, and phone companies are about to receive it if the Bush administration gets its way. The administration's new appropriations request for intelligence agencies was recently disclosed at a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and it includes a massive gift to the phone companies who have been (can we drop the "allegedly" at this point?) helping the NSA and other agencies. Prepare yourself for the longest single sentence you have ever read:

Notwithstanding any other law, and in addition to the immunities, privileges, and defenses provided by any other source of law, no action shall lie or be maintained in any court, and no penalty, sanction, or other form of remedy or relief shall be imposed by any court or any other body, against any person for the alleged provision to an element of the intelligence community of any information (including records or other information pertaining to a customer), facilities, or any other form of assistance, during the period of time beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on the date that is the effective date of this Act, in connection with any alleged classified communications intelligence activity that the Attorney General or a designee of the Attorney General certifies, in a manner consistent with the protection of State secrets, is, was, would be, or would have been intended to protect the United States from a terrorist attack.

That's from section 408 of the proposed bill, and it's buried beneath the innocuous headline "Liability Defense." As the government explains later in an analysis of the bill, "companies that cooperate with the Government in the war on terror deserve our appreciation and protection—not litigation." Any court case dealing with the issue would be thrown out of court, and the protection would include all phone company interaction with the intelligence community since September 11.

The issue of whether any of this behavior was legal is not important. The government has already argued that legality doesn't matter when it comes to the phone companies, since even a ruling that their actions were illegal would expose the existence of the intelligence-gathering program in question. Therefore, such cases should not even be considered by the courts.

Kenneth Wainstein, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, told the assembled Senators that this provision of the bill would simply "fill a gap in our laws" by allowing the phone companies to assist the government.

- - Nate Anderson | May 04, 2007

The lie is that phone companies need protection when they comply with legal wiretaps. Of course, the fact is that phone companies are already protected when they act legally.

Here, I fixed it for you :

"Dems in this country are to the right of the rightists (Tories, Christian Dems, etc.) in other industrialized countries."

At least, I think that's their strategy. They're ordering civil servants and military officers not to talk to Congress unless subpoenaed. Maybe the White House wants to boost the subpoena count, so they can criticize Congress for it.

And/or they just want to throw sand in the gears, and make it hard for Congress to function.

Or maybe the White House is just being stupid. Always a viable theory.

http://boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/10/pentagon_restricting_testimony_in_congress

Pentagon restricting testimony in Congress

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | May 10, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has placed unprecedented restrictions on who can testify before Congress . . . Robert L. Wilkie , a former Bush administration national security official who left the White House to become assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs last year, has outlined a half-dozen guidelines . . . The guidelines would not affect congressional subpoenas, which can compel anyone to appear before lawmakers.

. . . At a closed-door hearing a few days after Wilkie's memo was distributed, Defense Department lawyers sought to apply the guidelines to the testimony of three Army officers -- a captain, a major, and a lieutenant colonel -- set to testify about their first-hand experience training Iraqi security forces. A few minutes into the proceedings, a representative from the Pentagon's Office of General Counsel tried to apply the new provisions. Speaking from the audience, he declared that the officers could not participate . . .

. . . The memo has fueled complaints that the Bush administration is trying to restrict access to information about the war in Iraq. The special House oversight panel, according to aides, has written at least 10 letters to the Pentagon since February seeking information and has received only one official reply . . .

. . . David Golove , a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said there appears to be no legal basis for the Pentagon's limits on lower-level officers speaking directly to Congress . . .

- - Boston Globe, May 10, 2007