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Federal prosecutors and investigators in Dallas acknowledged in court documents that they mistakenly gave defense lawyers information about the inner-workings of secretive counterterrorism investigations. It took federal officials four months to discover that in April they had turned over secret court applications for wiretaps, which often have sensitive information from U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, according to court papers that were unsealed this week. The materials were given to lawyers for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and seven of its senior officers, who have been indicted on charges they illegally funneled millions of dollars to support the...

Today on Fox News Channel, GOP Rep. Heather Wilson raised the previous wiretap on Martin Luther King during her discussion and answering questions about the President's Terrorist Surveillance Program. She seemed to use this as a reason that we needed more oversight of the president's program. She said something to the effect "...you know, a friend of mine sent me an email about Martin Luther King being wire tapped....".

Maybe we’re looking in the wrong direction on this whole NSA issue. I can’t help but think that for the Dems to go to such lengths, there has to be some campaign money in it for them. Just like they pander to the far left whackos I.E. Moveon.org, maybe they also have to protect themselves as well as pander to some of their big money supporters who may not want their overseas calls monitored by the Bush administration. This is just a first attempt to connect some dots, but it is interesting. Let’s start with Judge Robertson and the Clintons....

An odd thing happened in Washington this week. The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on whether the president has the authority to intercept international phone calls without first seeking a warrant. Very few people believe that the president has that authority -- which is different than asking whether he should have that authority -- but Gonzales, who is almost entirely a creation of George W. Bush, insisted the president does. He presented, by way of proving his point, this overwhelming piece of evidence: Bush has done it. The argument in favor of the National Security Agency intercepts...

No member of the Senate is more conservative than Sam Brownback of Kansas -- a loyal Republican,and a presidential hopeful for 2008.-snip- Brownback emerged as part of a potential majority that could insist that Bush come back to Congress for authority to continue the wiretaps -- but under court supervision. -snip- Gonzales, in his testimony, made an effective rhetorical point by citing examples going back to Washington, Lincoln, Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt of presidents ordering interception of wartime communications -- on their own authority. But as several senators pointed out, those actions all came before the Supreme Court applied...

Whatever happened to "impeachment"? Only two months ago, that was the word on leading Democratic lips as they assailed President Bush for "illegal" warrantless NSA wiretaps against al Qaeda suspects. But at Monday's Senate hearing on the issue, the idea never even made an appearance. The reason isn't because liberal critics have come to some epiphany about the necessity of executive discretion in wartime. The reason is they can read the opinion polls. And the polls show that a majority of Americans want their government to eavesdrop on al Qaeda suspects, even--or should we say, especially--if they're talking to one...

THE RECENT controversy over warrantless national security telephone taps, coupled with Martin Luther King's birthday, remind me of my time in the Department of Justice in the 1960s. It was a period of turbulent demonstrations, marches and sit-ins, many of them led by King in support of the constitutional rights denied by Southern law enforcement to black citizens. And it was a time of growing animosity between King and J. Edgar Hoover, who had created the Federal Bureau of Investigation and led it since 1924. That animosity created a growing problem for Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy and those of us...

(2006-02-07) — After a day in which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced tough questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee about the legality of America’s best-known secret terrorist surveillance program, the National Security Agency (NSA) said it would alter its wiretap protocol to reduce the threat to civil rights. Under the new procedures for intercepting a telephone call from an al Qaeda operative to a U.S. resident, the two parties engaged in conversation will hear a brief alarm bell every 30 seconds, followed by a recorded announcement that says: “In order to better protect the United States from devastating terror attacks,...

I hereby expressly consent to the NSA eavesdropping on any telephonic, Internet or other electronic forms of communications I may have -- whether I initiate or am on the receiving end of the communication -- with any person or persons the government has reasonable basis to conclude is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda.

In the days following Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush charted a course of action to respond to the worst attack on our homeland in history. He promised to use every tool available to defeat al Qaeda and pledged to take the fight to the enemy abroad as he worked to prevent another attack. As he said in the State of the Union address, "Our country must remain on the offensive against terrorism here at home." The president has the constitutional responsibility--and authority--to lead this response. After Sept. 11, Congress immediately confirmed the president's constitutional authority to "use all necessary and...

Ex-president Bill Clinton said Friday that "to the best of my knowledge," his administration always sought a court warrant before wiretapping terrorist suspects who might have been preparing to attack America. And he double-checked with disgraced former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, just to make sure his recollection was accurate. "To the best of my knowledge, all of the wiretaps we did were conducted in accord with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," Clinton told WCBS News Radio 880 in New York. "I called my former National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, about this," Clinton revealed. "And he said, you know, they...

Sen. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said Sunday that while President Bush's terrorist surveillance program is a "flat out violation" of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, it may be entirely legal because of powers granted the president by the Constitution. "There is an involved question here . . . as to whether the president's powers under Article 2, his inherent powers, supersede a statute." Specter told NBC's "Meet the Press." The Pennsylvania Republican said that if the FISA statute "is inconsistent with the Constitution, the Constitution governs and the constitutional powers predominate." Specter, whose committee is set to commence...

In the latest chapter of a still-unfolding investigation, FBI agents have quietly arrested a former music industry executive in connection with the wiretap and conspiracy prosecution of former Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano. Robert Joseph Pfeifer, 50, once president of Disney-owned Hollywood Records, was taken into custody Friday afternoon and held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, sources close to the investigation said Saturday. The sources added that more people could be charged by Monday, when authorities are expected to unseal a federal indictment against Pellicano and others. -snip- Also filed in the custody case was a...

The ABA is expected to weigh in on the hot-button issue of domestic surveillance, an issue stirring heated debate throughout the nation. ABA President Michael S. Greco assembled the new task force of lawyers, all with significant intelligence experience, in mid-January. The task force will examine the legal issues surrounding the federal government’s surveillance of Americans inside the U.S. Greco has asked the new group to prepare a preliminary report with recommendations for the House of Delegates for the ABA Midyear Meeting in Chicago on Feb. 13. "Recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program remind us that...

Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.) says President Bush should be impeached for authorizing spying on Americans. “There’s nothing worse than spying on Americans,” said Lewis. “It doesn’t matter whether these calls were coming from known al-Qaeda sources. Phone calls are not a crime. Until a crime has been committed, terrorists are entitled to their privacy.” Howard Dean reinforced Lewis’s charges. “These wiretaps are worse than 9-11,” said Dean. “Bush is the real threat to our freedom.” Ayman al-Zawahiri, second in command of al-Qaeda, complains that since news of the wiretaps became public his girlfriend, who apparently is living in America, broke...

 A bit over a week ago, President Bush and his men promised to provide the legal, constitutional and moral justifications for the sort of warrantless spying on Americans that has been illegal for nearly 30 years. Instead, we got the familiar mix of political spin, clumsy historical misinformation, contemptuous dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical attempts to paint dissents as anti-American and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big, dangerous lies.The first was that the domestic spying program is carefully aimed only at people who are actively working with Al Qaeda, when actually it has violated the rights of countless innocent...

Pre-911 Mindset: Dems Want To Take Terror Fighting Tools Away From President Bush; Falsely Accuse President Of Breaking Law:Former Vice President Al Gore: "[T]he President Of The United States Has Been Breaking The Law Repeatedly And Insistently. A President Who Breaks The Law Is A Threat To The Very Structure Of Our Government." (Fmr. Vice President Al Gore, Address To American Constitution Society And The Liberty Coalition, Washington DC, 1/16/06)Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): "I Agree That We Ought To Have A Special Council Investigate [The President] ..." (ABC's "This Week," 1/22/06)"Shortly After The President's Speech [On Monday], Senate Minority Leader...

IS THE New York Times a law unto itself? When the Times published its December 16 exposé of the secret National Security Agency electronic surveillance of al Qaeda-related communications, reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau noted that they had granted anonymity to the "nearly a dozen current and former officials" who were the sources for the story. Risen and Lichtblau stated that they had granted these sources anonymity "because of the classified nature of the program." Implicit in the Times's rationale is the recognition that leaks of such classified information are illegal.That recognition is, of course, correct. Section 793 of...

Democrats who criticize President Bush for using warrantless wiretaps to elicit information about potential terrorist activity should be aware that the American people strongly support his decision to do so. Believe it or not, they trust their own government and the president they elected to use the information wisely and for our own protection. The Fox News poll of Jan. 11 asked voters whether the president "should have the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor electronic communications of suspected terrorists without getting warrants, even if one end of the communication is in the United States?" By 58...

Do you watch the news on TV? Did you catch the story just a few days ago about the rather miraculous, rather wonderful event in Italy? How the Italian government foiled a horrific plot by extremists … to murder 10,000 innocent people in one cataclysmic explosion? And not only that, but to attack railways, ships and stadiums in America, as well? Did you hear the news anchors describe the anticipatory glee between the perpetrators, saying things like "this will be a much bigger 'party' than what happened to the World Trade Center in New York City"? Were you thrilled...