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Like many in this country who were angered when Congress rushed to rubber-stamp a bill giving President Bush even more power to spy on Americans, we took some hope from the vow by Congressional Democrats to rewrite the new law after summer vacation. The chance of undoing the damage is slim, unless the White House stops stonewalling and gives lawmakers and the public the information they need to understand this vital issue.

For three days, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down. "This is the issue," said the plain-spoken retired vice admiral and Vietnam veteran, "that makes my blood pressure rise." snip...

CAMP DAVID, Md. - President Bush on Sunday signed into law an expansion of the government's power to eavesdrop on foreign terror suspects without the need for warrants. The law, approved by the Senate and the House just before Congress adjourned for its summer break, was deemed a priority by Bush and his chief intelligence officials. Bush signed the bill into law on Sunday afternoon at his retreat at Camp David, Md. "When our intelligence professionals have the legal tools to gather information about the intentions of our enemies, America is safer," Bush said. "And when these same legal tools...

Much has been said in the mainstream media about how the Bush presidency is essentially over, a lame duck mired in controversy. Thursday, however, George W. Bush demonstrated that when he does wish to use the bully pulpit, especially with powerful allies like Mitch McConnell in the United States Senate, he very much can move legislation through in a very timely fashion. Throughout this week in both houses of Congress, there has been consideration and negotiation on a piece of legislation submitted by Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, the National Director of Intelligence, who very clearly spelled out in Congressional testimony...

A divided federal appeals court yesterday dismissed a case challenging the National Security Agency’s program to wiretap without warrants the international communications of some Americans, reversing a trial judge’s order that the program be shut down. The majority in a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled on a narrow ground, saying the plaintiffs, including lawyers and journalists, could not show injury direct and concrete enough to allow them to have standing to sue. Because it may be impossible for any plaintiff to demonstrate injury from the highly classified wiretapping program,...

CINCINNATI: A U.S. appeals court on Friday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging President George W. Bush's domestic spying program, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to sue. The 2-1 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel was not on the legality of the surveillance program, but it vacated a 2006 order by a lower court in Detroit. That court had found the post-911 warrantless surveillance aimed at uncovering terrorist activity to be unconstitutional, violating rights to privacy and free speech and the separation of powers. The American Civil Liberties Union led the lawsuit on behalf...

MIAMI - A federal judge refused Friday to toss out FBI wiretap evidence in the Jose Padilla terrorism support case, rejecting an attempt by defense attorneys to prevent jurors from hearing conversations about Osama bin Laden and other well-known Islamic extremist leaders. U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ruled the two dozen telephone intercepts that drew objections from defense attorneys were relevant to the case. Cooke also rejected defense assertions that invoking bin Laden's name would make Padilla and his two co-defendants appear more guilty in the jury's eyes. "The mere fact that a name is mentioned, in and of itself,...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was so questionable that a top Justice Department official refused for a time to reauthorize it, sparking a standoff with top White House officials that culminated at the bedside of an ailing attorney general, a Senate panel was told Tuesday. Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he refused to recertify the program because Attorney General John Ashcroft had reservations about its legality just before falling ill with pancreatitis in March 2004. The White House, Comey said, recertified the program without the Justice Department's signoff, allowing it to...

A businessman pleaded guilty Tuesday to aiding and abetting charges linked to the wiretapping case against one-time private eye to the stars Anthony Pellicano. Daniel Nicherie, 46, was the seventh defendant to plead guilty in connection with sweeping allegations of a conspiracy involving wiretapping and digging up dirt on people, including celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone. Nicherie admitted in federal court that he authorized Pellicano to intercept the telephone conversations of a man he was in a business dispute with. Prosecutors alleged that Nicherie listened to the intercepted conversations and translated those talks at Pellicano's office. Under a deal with...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 — When President Bush went on national television one Saturday morning last December to acknowledge the existence of a secret wiretapping program outside the courts, the fallout was fierce and immediate. Mr. Bush’s opponents accused him of breaking the law, with a few even calling for his impeachment. His backers demanded that he be given express legal authority to do what he had done. Law professors talked, civil rights groups sued and a federal judge in Detroit declared the wiretapping program unconstitutional. But as Democrats prepare to take over on Capitol Hill, not much has really changed....

Testimony in the trial of Chicago resident Muhammad Salah and Abdelhaleem al-Ashqar of Northern Virginia, continued yesterday. FBI Agents gave testimony focusing on items found in Ashqar's home during a search of his Oxford Mississippi residence on December 26, 1993, in addition to wiretaps of his phone and fax lines. Special Agent Bradley Benabidez testified that the FBI acquired over 2400 hours of audio during the year that they maintained a wiretap. Benabidez further described the December 1993 search of Ashqar’s home where a team of agents from the FBI photographed over 1600 documents. A few of those documents which...

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked Democratic attempts to rein in President Bush's domestic wiretapping program today, endorsing a White House-supported bill that would give the controversial surveillance legal status. Under pressure from the Bush administration for quick action, the full Senate could take up the measure next week. Progress on a companion bill in the House was not as tidy, in part because GOP leaders and Bush are intensely negotiating restrictions it proposes on the surveillance program. Even as the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Chairman Arlen Specter's bill to the Senate floor on a party line vote, the same panel...

After listening extensively to the Sep 11th tapes, I'm annoyed, frustrated, and bitter. Listening to those tapes made me more proud than ever to be in the military. Those people in the towers pleaded for their lives while they choked on smoke and were burnt alive. The operators of the 911 systems in NY were powerless to do anything. Those innocent civilians, some 3000 of them, were literally tortured as they awaited their fate. As the oxygen was taken from their lungs, their deaths were prolonged. In agony, they called for someone, anyone, to help them. Sure, there were some...

Probably a duplicate post, but this is important: HICAGO -- Citing national security, a federal judge Tuesday threw out a lawsuit aimed at blocking AT&T Inc. from giving telephone records to the government for use in the war on terror. "The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities," U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly said. A number of such lawsuits have been filed around the country in the wake of news...

CHICAGO (AFP) - A federal judge heard arguments in a suit arguing that US President George W. Bush overstepped his authority when he authorized the use of warrantless wiretaps on Americans. The arguments came less than two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration overstepped its authority in setting up military tribunals to try war on terror detainees held at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The American Civil Liberties Union asked a judge in Detroit, Michigan to rule that the wiretaps are illegal because they circumvent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A divided federal appeals court Friday sided with the Bush administration over rules that make it easier for police and the FBI to wiretap Internet phone calls. In a 2-1 ruling, the court said the Federal Communications was correct when it decided that providers of Internet phone service and broadband services have legal obligations similar to those of telephone companies. The FCC was responding to Justice Department complaints that companies must ensure their equipment using new technologies can accommodate police wiretaps under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, known as CALEA. "We cannot set aside...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and conservative members of his panel have reached agreement on legislation that may determine the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance program, GOP sources say. Specter has mollified conservative opposition to his bill by agreeing to drop the requirement that the Bush administration seek a legal judgment on the program from a special court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. Instead, Specter agreed to allow the administration to retain an important legal defense by allowing the court, which holds its hearings in secret, to review the...

WE ARE IN the first war of the Information Age, and we have a critical advantage over our enemy: We are far better at gathering intelligence. It's an advantage we must utilize, and it's keeping us safe. But every time classified national security information is leaked, our ability to gather information on those who would do us harm is eroded. We suffered a setback Thursday when USA Today ran a front-page story alleging that the National Security Agency was collecting domestic phone records. This article hurt our efforts to protect Americans by giving the enemy valuable insights into the Terrorist...

US spy agency 'monitoring calls' Land lines and mobiles are both reportedly being logged A United States intelligence agency has been collecting data on the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans, a report in USA Today has alleged.The country's three biggest phone companies have been handing over call records to the National Security Agency (NSA) since 2001, the newspaper says. President Bush refused to confirm or deny the existence of the programme. He said he had authorised intelligence gathering in the wake of 9/11, adding that the activities were "lawful". "Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaeda and...

Valerie Plame should be the next Director of Central Intelligence, not Gen. Mike Hayden. Now that the CIA's Praetorian Guard has -- with the connivance of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte -- rid itself of Porter Goss, the CIA is confidently preparing to march back into the intelligence dark ages that preceded 9/11. Gen. Hayden -- former head of the National Intelligence Agency and most famous for his strong defense of the NSA terrorist surveillance program -- is slated to be nominated for the DCI post today. Hayden, now Negroponte's deputy and choice for DCI, will face tough questioning in...