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Monday, September 15, 2008 12:00 AM

What illegal "things" was the government doing in 2001-2004?

A book on the Cheney vice presidency by a Washington Post reporter sheds new light on the extreme surveillance lawbreaking that took place, and how little we still know about it.
Glenn Greenwald

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  • Tuesday, September 16, 2008 07:04 AM

    Hayden confessed the program(s) achieved nothing.

    The Washington Post's first installment of excerpts from the Gellman book contains this revealing paragraph:

    This program, Cheney said, was vital. Turning it off would leave us blind. Hayden, the NSA chief, pitched in: Even if the program had yet to produce blockbuster results, it was the only real hope of discovering sleeper agents before they could act.

    So Hayden confessed the program(s) had achieved substantially nothing. So why was it so necessary to break the law?

    —lysias Read lysias's other letters

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