Therefore, I am concerned whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific authorization from der fuehrer for the operations you are conducting. Until I understand better the legal ...... blah, blah, blah ....... "cover my ass", etc.

India today released its "dossier of evidence" on the Mumbai terror attacks, as part of having handed them over to Pakistani Security. The Hindu has them available online as PDFs (I am having trouble with the downloads, traffic may be high).

http://www.hindu.com/nic/dossier.htm

The reason why this isn't really OT is because one factor in the tracing of the cell phone calls between "mentors" and terrorists in the Taj Tower and Palace Hotel, according to the person from The Hindu interviewed by NPR All Things Considered, was NSA monitoring of VoIP calls in New Jersey, and connecting them to payments made in Pakistan.

Let's hope those taps were done with warrants and FISA court involvement. Otherwise, they represent a success story for lawless Bush Administration government and out of control surveillance. Sorry to bear confusing news.

Let's hope those taps were done with warrants and FISA court involvement. Otherwise, they represent a success story for lawless Bush Administration government and out of control surveillance. Sorry to bear confusing news.

-- ondelette

I doubt if anyone is going to brag about tapping phones (with or without a warrant) and then NOT stopping a terrorist attack.

If Mr. Greenwald were the scrupulous and wholehearted defender of the law that he fashions himself, I would have expected his position regarding Thomas Tamm to have been something like this:

"It is a pity that the law-breaking of the Bush administration could only be addressed by more law-breaking on the part of Mr. Tamm. Let us hope that his act of conscience, however misguided, will be sentenced lightly, as it served the nation's interests."

That would be a consistent position. That's not what Mr. Greenwald gives us, though, and consequently we know his scruples are a sham. In calling Thomas Tamm "hero" but George Bush "law-breaker," he demonstrates that he's more interested in partisan advantage than he is in law.

The law is the law. Either every violation of it is in some way objectionable, or defenses like "this is necessary for the protection of the nation" are valid defenses, and cannot be dismissed by simple resort to the letter of the law. Apply the letter universally, or not at all.

The ordeal went on for three days. They were tapped during the attack.

Is it worth my time worrying where Plumb Bob has been for the past 8 years?

President Clinton cannot be remolded into a "bad guy" very easily, but he did tread on the Constitution many times during his Presidency.

"President Clinton is apparently seeking to free his administration from any potential judicial interference with its wiretapping plans. There is a problem, of course, with the power that the president desires: it is precisely the sort of unchecked power that the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause was designed to curb."

According to a 1995 report by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts

Janet Reno also made a public comment about her new surveillance capability. Something to the effect that, "J. Edgar Hoover would never contemplate what we can do today"

sorry, I can't find that particular citation.

The Clinton administration claims that it can bypass the warrant clause for "national security" purposes. In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes." According to Gorelick, the president (or his attorney general) need only satisfy himself that an American is working in conjunction with a foreign power before a search can take place.

R. Jeffrey Smith, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches," Washington Post, July 15, 1994,p. A19

I think we have been moving away from our Constitutional protections for some time now, this was not a Bill Clinton original idea by any stretch. Whether Bill Clinton knowingly broke down those protections, or was valiantly pursuing crime and his government attorneys fouled up, remains to be argued.

The real bad guy here is George W. Bush, but I must pose, is this why there will be no prosecutions? just how many Presidents would be dragged into a hearing over this? or will it end up like Abu Ghraib, where a handful of yeoman get pilloried and the real culprits get to write their memoirs?

While I have always enjoyed calling him The Dick, in honor of all of Glenn’s great work, I will endeavor heretofore, to call him TUH. Better yet, except for his criminal trial or death, I won’t have to read or see him very often after Jan. 20.

Cheney: I'm actually 'lovable'

Politico, Andy Barr – 2 hrs 41 mins ago (see sig)

Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that his image has gotten a bad rap in the press and that he is in fact “a warm, lovable sort.”,

Cheney conceded in an interview with CBS radio that he sometimes expresses himself “rather forcefully toward some of my compatriots, like Pat Leahy from Vermont” but dismissed as a caricature the idea that he is a “Darth Vader-type personality.”

“I think all of that’s been pretty dramatically overdone,” the vice president said. “I’m actually a warm, lovable sort.”

Cheney also insisted that his influence within the Bush administration was overstated throughout the past eight years. “The notion that somehow I was pulling strings or making presidential-level decisions. I was not,” he said.

“There was never any question about who was in charge. It was George Bush. And that’s the way we operated. This whole notion that somehow I exceeded my authority here, was usurping his authority, is simply not true. It’s an urban legend, never happened."

Courtesy of CBS Radio:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090107/pl_politico/17189

"this is necessary for the protection of the nation" are valid defenses, and cannot be dismissed by simple resort to the letter of the law. Apply the letter universally, or not at all.

-- Plumb Bob

So you don't see a difference between exposing law breaking as opposed to breaking the law?

We don't know if Tamm broke the law. There is such a thing as the 'Whistleblower protection law". There is no such thing as the "Let Dick and George do anygawdamned thing they please' law.