The Next Hurrah

Who Has Been Lobbying Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell?

by emptywheel

McConnell doesn't want you to know, no doubt fearing there will be the same kind of firestorm when we learn who has been schmoozing him as there was when we learned who was schmoozing Jello Jay Rockefeller. Thankfully, a Federal Judge thinks we ought to know this information before Congress passes its amendment to FISA (h/t Mad Dog for the heads up).

The Director of National Intelligence must quickly release documents relating to 2007 meetings with telecoms concerning proposed amnesty bills for companies that helped government's secret domestic spying program, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. The Northern California District Court judge ruled that the government must produce the documents by December 10 so that the public can be informed about the extent of telecom lobbying before Congress votes on immunity.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is leading a lawsuit against AT&T for the telco giant's alleged cooperation with internet monitoring and call record data-mining, asked for the documents in September via a government sunshine request.

The group asked for documents detailing meetings between telecoms and the nation's top spy office, as well as meetings between the spies and legislators. The government agreed to the civil liberties request to 'fast-track' the request.

But months later the DNI still hadn't released any of the 250 unclassified pages of documents or the 65 pages of classified material, prompting the EFF to ask for a judge to force a document dump before Congress finishes work on bills amending the nation's spy laws.

Now, frankly, we may not get those documents before the final debate on this bill. Reid originally had the Senate debate scheduled for Tuesday; it has been rescheduled, but the new date has not been announced (and in any case, it sounds like it'll be in the next week or so, so almost certainly before the 10th). That's rather troubling, because it seems that McConnell was stalling the production of these documents precisely for this purpose: he originally said he could have the initial release on November 30. But somehow, it has taken another court hearing to reinforce even that deadline. And originally, McConnell wanted to hand over the documents on December 30--which was almost certain to be after the passage of the bill.

Also note--it's not just the telecom lobbyists that McConnell has to release. It's also his meetings with Congress. You know, the big long luncheon with DiFi?

So what do you think McConnell is trying to hide?

The Infintite Recursion of Asset Seizures

by emptywheel

Steven Aftergood must have had an extra dose of turkey over the weekend, because it seems like Steven Aftergood week here at TNH. Today, he has a liberated CRS report on the implementation of Bush's EO 13438, which authorizes the seizure of the assets of people determined to "threaten stabilization efforts in Iraq." At least according to the Congressional Research Service, the EO allows for incredibly broad application, since it allows for the asset seizure of people who financially support people who financially support people who financially support the destabilization of Iraq--you get the idea.

The scope, objectives and precedents of the order -- Executive Order 13,438, "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" -- were examined in a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

"The broad language of this executive order has been the subject of a degree of criticism as potentially reaching beyond insurgents in Iraq to third parties, such as U.S. citizens, who may unknowingly be providing support for the insurgency," the CRS report noted, citing prior reports in the Washington Post, TPM Muckraker, and elsewhere.

In fact, the potential application of the order appears to be technically unlimited since it includes a recursive clause that has no defined endpoint.

Thus, section 1(b) of the Order states that any person who provides goods or services to a person whose actions are proscribed under section 1(a) is himself subject to section 1(a). But then, anyone who provides similar support to that person could likewise be swept up in the expansive terms of the order. And so on, without end. [my emphasis]

Now, if the Administration's standards for this kind of thing were rational, it might not be a problem. But its behavior in similar circumstances has proven to be anything but. Consider this story from the LAT. It describes how a businessman who had long been blacklisted as a financial backer of terrorism got magically removed from the list recently--with no explanation.

"I Was Under Sedation"

by emptywheel

That was the answer John Ashcroft gave to Kathleen when she asked him whether David Addington called Ashcroft's wife to pressure her to let Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card into Ashcroft's hospital room, or whether Dick Cheney called personally.

I asked Former Attorney General John Ashcroft EW's question "did President Bush call your wife directly to tell her that Gonzales and Andrew Card were on the way to the hospital" I then asked "or was it Vice President Cheney or David Addington" He answered as he peered down at the stage "I was under sedation".

His talk at the Univ of Colorado was focused on 9/!!, terroist and how we will deal with this "paradigm" shift in the threat to the U.S. He was still pushing we are the best country in the world "we're number one" propaganda. Repeating that the reason that they hate us is due to our liberty. Sure the opposite of what Micheal Scheuer(the resigned head of the Osama bin Laden unit who has said they hate us because of our policies, military bases and the unbridled support of Israel no matter what they do.

Ashcroft and Scheuer's thinking are miles apart.

The Univ of Colorado audience were rowdy and disrespectful at times.  This left less time for pertinent questions.

" I was under sedation"  Yeah right      

Give Ashcroft credit for this--it's a new twist on that old favorite: "No Comment."

But real kudos to Kathleen for asking the question we all want answered...

And Speaking of Missing Emails

by emptywheel

So far the RNC has spent $231,615 looking for Turdblossom's missing emails.

The Sleuth has learned, the hunt for those missing gigabytes has cost the RNC more than $250,000.

According to an RNC filing with the Federal Election Commission, the committee paid $231,615 in October to Stroz Friedberg, a forensics firm chock full of former FBI agents hired to retrieve the lost electronic data. The report shows the committee also paid $41,217 in October to Covington & Burling, the law firm representing the RNC on the missing e-mail controversy.

[snip]

But now that we know the RNC has paid Stroz Friedberg nearly a quarter million dollars, does that mean they've found the missing e-mail messages?

The RNC isn't saying, nor is Stroz Friedberg.

So add that $231,615 to the $90,000 that Congressman Tom Feeney has paid to FTI to (apparently) recover his own missing emails.

This habit of deleting emails is beginning to cost the Republicans. How long do you think it'll be before they start a special kind of defense fund, the email reconstruction fund (and celebrity golf tournament)?

What Is It about those GOP Appointees and their Email Computer Files?

by emptywheel

In the latest episode in the ongoing saga of disappearing GOP emails, the WSJ reports that Scott Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, invited Geeks on Call in last year, apparently to delete a bunch of emails computer files.

The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove's White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.

[snip]

Recently, investigators learned that Mr. Bloch erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said.

Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS for Geeks on Call, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In an interview, the 49-year-old former labor-law litigator from Lawrence, Kan., confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer.

Now, this happened last year, well before Bloch incurred the wrath of Ranking Member on the House Oversight Committee, Tom Davis, for being mean to Lurita Doan (Bloch's meanness started in January, according to Davis). But it is, perhaps, worth noting that as of August, Davis was demanding all of Bloch's emails pertaining to Doan--or to any Member of Congress.

It's not unreasonable to imagine that someone in OSC is leaking this material to try to incriminate Davis himself. After all, Davis is conducting a campaign against Scott Bloch, demanding all of Bloch's political emails.

Davis previously had been a Bloch defender and had praised the OSC for dramatically cutting back its backlog of personnel cases. But at the hearing, the congressman blew up at the witness, explaining that he’d obtained a personal e-mail by Bloch describing Davis as “acting like Doan’s defense counsel” when she testified before the Oversight committee.

Davis then promised to wage what might be called a Blochian crusade: He announced his intention to corral all politically sensitive e-mails Bloch may have sent from his personal account that referred in any manner to Doan or other federal lawmakers. Davis’ chief of staff, David Marin, says his boss will punish any failure to comply by urging the committee to pursue contempt-of-Congress charges. In other words, Scott Bloch, the Bush administration’s in-house Hatch Act enforcer in the U.S. attorneys scandal, could wind up facing the same charges now confronting the high-profile noncompliant congressional witnesses in the case, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

As I point out in this post, Davis' demand for Bloch's email--including any emails that reference federal lawmakers--would net emails that refer in any manner to Davis himself. Even if those emails referring to Davis as part of Bloch's investigation into Rove's asset deployment teams!!! If the WaPo story came from leaks from Bloch, the leaks may have been an effort to get Waxman--or someone else--to pick up an  investigation stymied by Davis' collection of Bloch's emails.

There's no reason to think these two are related. But there is a good deal of interest in Scott Bloch's personal email account computer files.

That's What I Like in a Financial Advisor

by emptywheel

He opines, from deep inside the Beltway, that "real America" is doing just peachy in this economic crisis.

"We obviously have problems in the housing sector and we have problems in the financial sector, but ... real America is doing just fine," he said.

From which I assume he means those "real Americans" who have neither investments nor a house nor a low income.

And then, he gets out while there are still lifeboats available.

Top White House economic adviser Allan Hubbard is expected to leave his post at the end of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday in its on-line edition.

That way, he doesn't have to share his lifeboat with any "real Americans."

Update: Attaturk seems to like these kind of financial advisors, too.

Time Gives Up on the Truth

by emptywheel

The whole Joe Klein affair is another of the things I'm hoping to return to on Monday. But for now, take a look at their "correction."

In the original version of this story, Joe Klein wrote that the House Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would allow a court review of individual foreign surveillance targets. Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don't.

Never mind that the entire offending paragraph remains intact:

The Democratic strategy on the FISA legislation in the House is equally foolish. There is broad, bipartisan agreement on how to legalize the surveillance of phone calls and emails of foreign intelligence targets. The basic principle is this: if a suspicious pattern of calls from a terrorist suspect to a U.S. citizen is found, a FISA court warrant is necessary to monitor those communications. But to safeguard against civil-liberty abuses, all records of clearly nontargeted Americans who receive emails or phone calls from foreign suspects would be, in effect, erased. Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee's bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that — Limbaugh is salivating — House Republicans believe would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only. (Democrats dispute this interpretation.) In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid.

Never mind that there are a number of errors, and this "correction" addresses just one.

What does it say that Time, one of the leading news outlets in this country, refuses to try to determine which side is correct in this debate? What does it say that, with the existing bill as the presumed unquestioned arbiter of the debate, they cannot discern truth? What does it say that they continue to refer to human sources--Republicans and Democrats--rather than the text?

I dunno, but I guarantee you, the next time I attend a conference on journalism and blogging, I will take no prisoners.

More Intriguing than a Boy-for-Hire

by emptywheel

There was a rumor floating the Toobz yesterday that Trent Lott got out of the Senate in a hurry because of boy trouble--perhaps something that Larry Flynt dug up. That rumor has since been denied by the boy in question.

But Scott Horton points us to something that is rather more intriguing: The fact that Trent's brother-in-law's law office is presently being raided.

Sources in Mississippi law enforcement inform No Comment that FBI agents are now raiding the law office of Richard “Dickie” Scruggs in Oxford.

Horton has covered the non-indictment of Dickie Scruggs before. You see, Scruggs was the apparent mastermind of a plan behind loans to some Mississippi judges--loans for which Democratic lawyer Paul Minor is now doing time.

As Minor recounts it, and other lawyers with whom I spoke confirm, the idea of rushing in to support the judges who came under fire from the Chamber of Commerce started with Richard Scruggs, probably the best known and wealthiest member of the Mississippi trial lawyers bar. Scruggs, like Minor, made loans to Mississippi judges and came under investigation in the original study launched by the FBI. However, there was a critical difference. Scruggs tends to support the Republicans, not the Democrats. In 2000, for instance, he gave $250,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign and to the G.O.P., and only $20,000 to Democratic candidates.  And more significantly, Scruggs was the brother-in-law of Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, who at the time was the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate.

If the conduct that Minor engaged in was unlawful, then Scruggs should also have been charged. Indeed, an outsider looking over the file would come pretty quickly to expect to see Scruggs as the lead defendant in the case. But that’s not the way U.S. Attorney Lampton and Public Integrity section head Noel Hillman saw things, and several people who have asked to remain anonymous have told me that that Lott was aggressive in acting to protect Scruggs.

Well, I gotta say, it'd be awfully encouraging if, just weeks after Michael Mukasey started as AG, what appears to have been another politicized prosecution was addressed.

It certainly raises questions, though, about what else might be out there.

Enigmatic Terms

by emptywheel

Luckily, Harry Reid has put off the Senate vote on the FISA amendment, because I never finished my series showing that the current amendment will legalize data mining. Man oh man oh man, am I looking forward to meeting the deadline I'm on, celebrating a late Turkey Day with friends this weekend, then going into a blog and bill paying frenzy next Monday.

In the meantime, I direct you to Marty Lederman's latest post, which notes that as far back as Poppy's day, they were deliberately obfuscating the purpose of their FISA amendments.

Seventeen years ago, the very first Bush (41) Administration was considering whether to ask Congress for an amendment to FISA very similar to the one the current Administration is now seeking. Mary Lawton, the FISA guru within DOJ at the time (she tragically died shortly thereafter), wrote a memo to Daniel Levin in the Deputy's Office (yes, that Daniel Levin) discussing why such a proposal might not be such a good idea. That memo has recently been released under FOIA. (Hat tip to David Kris for obtaining it and bringing it to my attention.)

The most important sentence in the memo, I think, is this one, in the penultimate paragraph:

"It should also be noted that the proposed amendment to FISA to resolve the NSA problem . . . is certain to be written in such enigmatic terms that only those who have been briefed in executive session will understand them."

Truer words were never written. And that's why it is, indeed, almost impossible to have a serious, informed legislative and public debate about proposed FISA reforms -- because the public (and most legislators) can never be let in on what the amended statute would actually do:  it's secret law. [my emphasis]

I think little details of what the new FISA amendment entails have slipped out here and there. But the fact remains, not all legislators know what they're doing here, and almost no citizens know what they're doing. And then there are people like Joe Klein obfuscating what little is know, because he can't be bothered to read the public documents about the program.

Well, until I return to all this Monday, I'll leave you with one other passage from the Poppy-era memo.

When FISA was initially considered there were strong dissents opposing its enactment on grounds of separation of powers. The Administrations of Presidents Ford and Carter backed the legislation, however, because of the practical imperative of continuing to collect foreign intelligence in the face of growing resistance from the communications common carriers whose cooperation was essential.

Had Junior asked Poppy, perhaps he wouldn't have gotten the telecoms into the legal fix they're currently facing in the first place.

Christian Forgiveness

by emptywheel

Remember how Dick Cheney very charitably forgave Harry Whittington, the old man who had the audacity to get hit by Dick Cheney's birdshot?

Well, Aravosis catches Bush doing Cheney one better: Bush has the kindness to forgive Gore for winning the the 2000 election.

Bush forgives Gore for Bush stealing the 2000 election. What a mensch. From the NYT:

Mr. Bush made no comment when the Nobel was announced, and today, the two stood silently, and a bit awkwardly, during the photo opportunity.

But the president did personally telephone Mr. Gore to extend the invitation, and the White House changed the date of the event so Mr. Gore could attend. Mr. Bush’s press secretary, Dana Perino, told reporters the president is willing to let bygones be bygones.

“This president does not harbor any resentments,” she said. “He never has.”

No word on whether Bush also forgives Gore for believing the earth is round, and other crazy scientific theories.