Nothing to Hide? Then Show Me Your Guns

Glenn Greenwald has a superb post on Salon about the invasive and pervasive American surveillance state.

Read the whole thing, but don't miss the comments, in which we find a few extremely useful gems.

Dan of Steele wrote:

I've done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide.
You can't imagine how many times I hear this.

Glenn responds:

Ask those people, then, if they would let you set up a camera in their bedroom and a constantly running recording device on their phones, and ask them to give you all the passwords to their email accounts and bank and phone records.

Pedinska adds another pertinent question.

...how many, and what kind of, guns they own.

At that point, the cognitive dissonance sets in so rapidly and violently that it either shuts their brains down completely or creates imminent stroke conditions.

And Magritte's pipe reminds us of a pertinent quote.

A suitable response to those people would be a quote that another reader posted a few days ago:

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged" -Cardinal Richelieu

If those same people heard about the same pervasive surveillance happening in, oh, let's say, Iran, China or Russia, I'm willing to bet lots that they would be outraged.

And when all else fails, memorize and recite the bottom fucking line:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

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White House Continues to Stall on Subpoenas

Just three days before the latest deadline, the Bush administration asked the Senate Judiciary Committee for more time to produce subpoenaed information about Bush's warrant-less domestic spying program.

Committee Chair Patrick Leahy had set Monday as the deadline to provide the documents and testimony the committee had subpoenaed June 27th. Leahy had agreed to postpone the original July 18th deadline until August 20th at the request of the White House.

Subpoenas had been sent to the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents relating to the legal justification for the warrantless wiretapping program.

In an August 8th note to the White House counsel, Leahy said he was setting a new deadline of Aug. 20 because he could not wait any longer.

"You have rejected every proposal, produced none of the responsive documents, provided no basis for any claim of privilege and no accompanying log of withheld documents," wrote Leahy, D-Vt.

But White House Counsel Fred Fielding Friday asked for another extension until after Labor Day:

In a letter to Leahy, White House counsel Fred Fielding argued that the subpoenas called for the production of "extraordinarily sensitive national security information," and he said much of the information — if not all — could be subject to a claim of executive privilege.

Fielding's response to Leahy said that while the White House had identified a core group of documents in response to the subpoenas, the work is "by no means complete" and could not be completed by Monday.

He suggested further conversations with the panel, saying the White House did not want the issue to interfere with the administration's desire to make more permanent the new powers Congress just gave NSA to monitor communications entering the United States involving foreigners who are the subjects of a national security investigation.

In response, Leahy spokeswoman Erica Chabot said:

"In requesting that last extension, the White House counsel suggested that the administration would be ready to respond by Aug. 1. The new deadline is three weeks past the time the White House counsel had estimated was needed. The committee looks forward to the administration complying with the subpoenas."

Of course, the "new powers Congress just gave NSA" are not limited to monitoring "communications entering the United States involving foreigners who are the subjects of a national security investigation."

The "Protect America Act" (sic) excludes from FISA's requirements any and all "surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States."

There is no requirement that the surveillance be conducted outside the U.S.; that the surveillance be "directed at" a person in any way connected to terrorism or other wrongdoing; or that the surveillance excludes communications of U.S. citizens. In fact, the new law excludes from FISA any surveillance that is "directed at" persons overseas or "directed at" persons in the U.S.

The key term is "directed at." The law includes no definition of it.

The president now has the authority to spy on you at any time, in any place, for any reason. And now he doesn't want to explain the legal justification for this power.

Add to this the announcement Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security is set to begin using spy satellites for domestic surveillance, turning its "eyes in sky" inward. The plotline of the Will Smith/Gene Hackman movie Enemy of the State no longer seems fictional, or even outlandish.

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The Jokes Write Themselves, II

Abu G is off to Iraq to teach the Iraqi Justice Department how to spy on Iraqis, loosen the definition of torture, and purge of federal prosecutors who refuse to fix elections:

The Justice Department said that Gonzales arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for his third trip to Iraq to meet with department officials who have been there to help fashion the country's legal system.

"I am pleased to see firsthand ... the progress that the men and women of the Justice Department have made to rebuild Iraq's legal system and law enforcement infrastructure," Gonzales said in a statement released by the department.

His optimistic assessment came despite the frequent sectarian lawlessness and killings in the country.

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Gonzales Attempted to Bully John Ashcroft Into Authorizing An Illegal Domestic Spying Program As Ashcroft Lay Seriously Ill In Intensive Care

Dan Eggan and Paul Kane of the Washington Post have filed a chilling report detailing a confrontation between Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft over the administration's domestic surveillance program, a program the justice department had determined was illegal. During yesterday's testimony before the senate judiciary committee James B. Comey told the panel that on the night of March 10, 2004, Ashcroft lay seriously ill in intensive care. Comey, who was then acting Attorney General, learned that Gonzales and Andy Card were on their way to the hospital to have Ashcroft overrule Comey's decision not to reauthorize the program.

(Comey) alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left.

The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that, according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said.

Read the entire story. It is like something out of a political potboiler. Apparently the President signed off on the program without ever receiving approval from the Department of Justice. According to David Johnston of The New York Times after approving the illegal program, the President directed the justice department to take necessary, but undisclosed, steps to bring it into compliance with the law.

"The story is a shocking one. It makes you almost gulp," Schumer said. "The incident shows that Gonzales holds the rule of law `in minimum low regard,'" the senator said, adding, "It's hard to understand after hearing this story how Attorney General Gonzales could remain as attorney general."

Laurie Asseo of Bloomberg reports

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee's ranking Republican, said the confrontation ``has some characteristics of the Saturday Night Massacre'' during the Nixon administration when top Justice Department officials resigned rather than fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

Specter also said yesterday's announcement that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty will resign provided ``evidence that the department really cannot function with the continued leadership or lack of leadership of Attorney General Gonzales.'' . . .

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said Gonzales is doing an ``abysmal job'' and the Justice Department is ``being run like a political arm of the White House.''

Ashcroft declined to comment on Comey's testimony.

Feel safer because people in the Department of Justice stood tall for our rights? Well, the good guys in this story have all left government. The bad guys are still there. Now do you feel safer?

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