I wonder how long Glenn "The War is Irretrievably Lost" Greenwald can maintain his curious silence on the raft of good developments coming out of Iraq over the past few weeks.

His silence on the topic is thunderous.

...For a slick lawyer I'm sure that [using FISA to hamstring legit investigations] would be easy to do in the service of a Saudi prince, don't you think? -- shooter242

I would be more concerned about this if my government exhibited some tendency to pursue investigations into the financial activities of Saudi princes. However even if it does, there isn't much FISA can do to aid investigations of financial activity that never makes it into the electronic world. Handshakes, kisses and cash still make much of this world go round.
FISA, by contrast, seems to protect the comparatively legitimate business activities of America's very wired, mainstream middle class........ and, coincidentally, the activities of our representatives. Subversion of democracy -- it is always the heart of our concerns shooter242. There is too good a likelihood that the present administration has used the cover of national security to spy on and hamstring its political opponents.

“I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right.”

Yes Joe, we understand. We know you’ve been under a lot of pressure lately.

What with all the nitpicking at truthiness, insistence on facts and the lack of respect for “serious” journalists, “spitballs aimed at” you and Glenn’s “bizarre obsession” with you. Combine that with the liberal extremist nonsense going on over at Swampland and surely there should be a way for you to get some relief.

Not to worry….

I understand that Chris Crocker is now available for Public Relations Rescue missions. Crocker suggested this could be done easily and would be happy to put something together for you.

This is a preview video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

Only the name of the persecuted would need to be changed. If interested, you can contact Crocker directly.

For bookings:

bookchriscrocker@gmail.com

To contact personally:

contactcrocker@gmail.com

Damned if I know. Maybe because he often speaks of heading off to the course? Of course, knowing shooter, it could be just a goat-getting ploy. If that were the case, though, I'd think that polo would his choice. More Republican, don't you know, although, come to think of it, I have heard of at least one public polo field where, if you have the wherewithal, pony-wise, and can afford the fee, you're free to have at it.

The truth is, golf had its origins in a shepherd's game much like some of the marble-chase games we used to play when I was a kid. Shepherds weren't exactly royalty. Shorn of its country-club trappings, it's still a great game, with qualities similar to those which earned Zen archery its reputation as a test of self-discipline. You don't gotta wear chartreuse plus fours, ride in a cart, or lie about your handicap if you don't want to, even in these distressing times.

The agents in Minnesota were concerned that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minneapolis would find insufficient probable cause of a crime to obtain a criminal warrant to search Moussaoui's laptop computer.94 Agents at FBI headquarters believed there was insufficient probable cause. Minneapolis therefore sought a special warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to conduct the search (we introduced FISA in chapter 3).

To do so, however, the FBI needed to demonstrate probable cause that Moussaoui was an agent of a foreign power, a demonstration that was not required to obtain a criminal warrant but was a statutory requirement for a FISA warrant.95 The case agent did not have sufficient information to connect Moussaoui to a "foreign power," so he reached out for help, in the United States and overseas.

The FBI agent's August 18 message requested assistance from the FBI legal attaché in Paris. Moussaoui had lived in London, so the Minneapolis agent sought assistance from the legal attaché there as well. By August 24, the Minneapolis agent had also contacted an FBI detailee and a CIA desk officer at the Counterterrorist Center about the case.96

The FBI legal attaché's office in Paris first contacted the French government on August 16 or 17, shortly after speaking to the Minneapolis case agent on the telephone. On August 22 and 27, the French provided information that made a connection between Moussaoui and a rebel leader in Chechnya, Ibn al Khattab. This set off a spirited debate between the Minneapolis Field Office, FBI headquarters, and the CIA as to whether the Chechen rebels and Khattab were sufficiently associated with a terrorist organization to constitute a "foreign power" for purposes of the FISA statute. FBI headquarters did not believe this was good enough, and its National Security Law Unit declined to submit a FISA application.97...

...The FBI office in London raised the matter briefly with British officials as an aside, after a meeting about a more urgent matter on September 3, and sent the British service a written update on September 5. The case was not handled by the British as a priority amid a large number of other terrorist-related inquiries.98

On September 4, the FBI sent a teletype to the CIA, the FAA, the Customs Service, the State Department, the INS, and the Secret Service summarizing the known facts regarding Moussaoui. It did not report the case agent's personal assessment that Moussaoui planned to hijack an airplane. It did contain the FAA's comment that it was not unusual for Middle Easterners to attend flight training schools in the United States.99...

...There was substantial disagreement between Minneapolis agents and FBI headquarters as to what Moussaoui was planning to do. In one conversation between a Minneapolis supervisor and a headquarters agent, the latter complained that Minneapolis's FISA request was couched in a manner intended to get people "spun up." The supervisor replied that was precisely his intent. He said he was "trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center." The headquarters agent replied that this was not going to happen and that they did not know if Moussaoui was a terrorist.101...

...On August 23, DCI Tenet was briefed about the Moussaoui case in a briefing titled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly."103 Tenet was also told that Moussaoui wanted to learn to fly a 747, paid for his training in cash, was interested to learn the doors do not open in flight, and wanted to fly a simulated flight from London to New York. He was told that the FBI had arrested Moussaoui because of a visa overstay and that the CIA was working the case with the FBI. Tenet told us that no connection to al Qaeda was apparent to him at the time. Seeing it as an FBI case, he did not discuss the matter with anyone at the White House or the FBI. No connection was made between Moussaoui's presence in the United States and the threat reporting during the summer of 2001.104

On September 11, after the attacks, the FBI office in London renewed their appeal for information about Moussaoui. In response to U.S. requests, the British government supplied some basic biographical information about Moussaoui. The British government informed us that it also immediately tasked intelligence collection facilities for information about Moussaoui. On September 13, the British government received new, sensitive intelligence that Moussaoui had attended an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. It passed this intelligence to the United States on the same day. Had this information been available in late August 2001, the Moussaoui case would almost certainly have received intense, high-level attention.

9/11 Commission Report Section 8.1

As is obvious from the report, there was not a requirement that he belong to a nation state, only to a terrorist organization to be an "agent of a foreign power". In point of fact, they didn't know he had an association with al Qaeda until after the attacks. Joseph Heller wrote about the absurdity of those who order others to war. Would you care to comment?