Letters to the Editor
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TIME: "There are no scandalous examples of the White House using the Patriot Act powers."
The broader the absurd generalization, the easier it is to contradict it.
For instance, not directly about espionage powers, but certainly providing a scandalous example of the White House abusing the Patriot Act powers:
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002635
[...] Of George W. Bush’s cohort of U.S. Attorneys, one of the most highly regarded—perhaps even the most highly regarded—was John McKay, who headed the office in Seattle. He was included in the December 7 massacre. McKay has now authored a law review article that examines the history of the scandal, reviews the legal issues that it raises, and provides some observations on the trajectory the matter is likely to take going forward. It’s called “Train Wreck at the Justice Department,” and it was published in volume 31 of Seattle University Law Review. Here are some key elements of the article, which really merits being read in its entirety. [...]
After a flurry of phone calls among the U.S. Attorneys who had been ordered to resign, many of those former U.S. Attorneys concluded that the Attorney General was lying to the Senate about the intent of the Justice Department to seek Senate confirmation of their prospective replacements. In Seattle, for example, no known efforts had been underway by either the White House or the Justice Department to recruit or interview candidates for my replacement. In spite of my frequent requests for guidance, Justice officials had not revealed their plans, and no internal candidates had been contacted by the Justice Department or the White House. With only a few days remaining before our departures, it was clear the Justice Department planned to name their own interim U.S. Attorneys under the new powers granted them in the amendments to the USA PATRIOT Act. Other fired U.S. Attorneys confirmed similar patterns in San Francisco and San Diego, and we also knew that an interim U.S. Attorney had been serving in Kansas City for many months.