We are all familiar with the famous hospital confrontation between Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft. Like everybody else who heard that story I thought it referred to the well known terrorist surveillance program. Alberto testified in 2006 that there hadn't been any controversy about that program within the DoJ. Last week the the Justice Department said it wouldn't retract or revise that testimony. So what gives. Well Monday the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Gonzales a letter demanding all correspondence pertaining to the hospital room confrontation. The last paragraph of that letter says
If you do not consider the surveillance program that was the subject of discussion during the hospital visit and other events that former Deputy Attorney General James Comey described in his May 15, 2007 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee to be covered by the requests made above, please provide all documents described in those requests relevant to that program, as well.In other words, there might be another, completely unknown surveillance program out there. Gonzales and the highly politicized Republican DoJ is in charge of certifying that program. Feel safe? Me neither.
I am not sure loyal Bushies know the difference between al Qaeda, an editorial cartoonist or the Democratic party. Nor am I sure they care. For future reference only one of the three (al Qaeda) is an enemy of the state. Regardless of what Tom Delay or Karl Rove say the others are loyal Americans.
Laura McGann speculates over at TPMMuckraker. One of her readers who sounds pretty knowledgeable opines that the program is aimed at Internet traffic. He guesses the NSA can and does "read" every single email sent any where, by anybody, all of the time. Maybe they can find Karl Rove's missing emails?
We don't know, but it is interesting that George Bush who has proven himself utterly incompetent in every other respect, always gets his way with the Democratic Congressional leadership. It's like he reads their mail. Hummmmmmmm. I wonder.
