Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet: Via Threat Level.

The biggest threat to the open internet is not Chinese government hackers or greedy anti-net neutrality ISPs, it’s Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence.

McConnell’s not dangerous because he knows anything about SQL injection hacks, but because he knows about social engineering:  McConnell is the nice-seeming guy who is willing and able to use fear-mongering to manipulate the federal bureaucracy for his own ends, while coming off like a straight shooter to those not in the know.

When he was head of the country’s national intelligence, he scared President Bush with visions of e-doom, prompting the president to sign a comprehensive secret order that unleashed tens of billions of dollars into the military’s black budget so they can start making firewalls and malware into military equipment. And now McConnell, back safely in civilian life as a vice president at the secretive defense contracting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, is out in front of Congress and the media, peddling the same Cybaremaggedon! gloom.

And now he says we need to re-engineer the internet. [ Read more ... ]

Author of Torture, Spy Memos Was Just Doing His Job: Via Threat Level.

The government lawyer who wrote memos authorizing the Bush administration to engage in torture and warrantless surveillance says he was just doing his job, according to a recent interview.

Asked by the New York Times if he regretted writing the torture memos, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo replied, “No, I had to write them. It was my job. As a lawyer, I had a client. The client needed a legal question answered.”

Yoo, whose memos offered the government legal justification for its actions, said his client was former President Bush and the U.S. government as a whole. The Times asked whether it wasn’t the case that the U.S. people was his client, and not the president. Yoo replied, “If there’s a conflict between the president and the Congress, then you have to pick one or the other.” [ Read more ... ]

Salon Radio: Critical state secrets hearing today: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

(updated below w/transcript - Update II)

[link to recorder fixed]

The case of Mohamed v. Jeppesen -- brought by five victims of Bush's torture/rendition program against the Boeing subsidiary that shipped them to be tortured -- was the Obama DOJ's first test of its commitment to restore basic accountability and the rule of law.  Back in February, it resoundingly failed that test when they demanded that the case be dismissed in its entirety by invoking the same radicalized version of the "state secrets" privilege which the Bush DOJ, to great controversy, repeatedly invoked.  That was the first sign that things would go terribly awry with Obama's rule of law and civil liberties record.  This warped rendition of the "state secrets" doctrine transforms it from a long-standing, simple evidentiary privilege (i.e., this specific document is too sensitive to use in the litigation) into a sweeping, dangerous shield of immunity for government lawbreaking (i.e., courts have no right to review the legality of the crimes we commit in secret). 

The Obama administration now insists that courts must dismiss lawsuits alleging presidential lawbreaking whenever the CIA Director claims the lawsuit would jeopardize state secrets; or, as the ACLU Brief puts it, "torture victims must be denied a day in court based on an Affidavit submitted by their torturers."  The Obama DOJ has gone on to invoke that same Bush-created version of the secrecy theory to demand dismissal of numerous other cases alleging various types of lawbreaking by the Executive Branch. [ Read more ... ]

Is Obama's civil liberties record understandable?: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

Earlier this week, Kevin Drum said that "nine times out of ten" Obama's policies are "pretty much what [he] expected" but that "the biggest one-time-out-of-ten where he's not doing what [he] expected is in the area of detainee and civil liberties issues."  Similarly, Andrew Sullivan cited "accountability for war crimes and civil rights" as among the very few issues on which he finds fault with Obama.  Matt Yglesias objects to those observations as follows:

Both Kevin Drum and Andrew Sullivan say they think most people are too hard on Obama, but express disappointment at his record on civil liberties issues. I agree that the civil liberties record hasn’t been exactly what I would have wanted, but I'm continually surprised that people are disappointed in this turn. Of all the things for an incumbent President of the United States to take political risks fighting for, obviously reducing the power of the executive branch is going to be dead last on the list. If you want to see civil liberties championed, that’s going to have to come from congress.

Court Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging Unconstitutional Spying Law: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Today, a federal court today dismissed our lawsuit challenging the unconstitutional government spying law known as the FISA Amendments Act (FAA). Congress passed the law last year, effectively legalizing the secret warrantless surveillance program approved by President Bush in late 2001. The FAA also gave the government new, sweeping spying powers, including the power to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international emails and phone calls.

We filed our lawsuit last July — less than an hour after it was signed into law by then-President Bush on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose ability to perform their work, which relies on confidential communications, is greatly compromised by the FAA. [ Read more ... ]

House Passes Spy Bill, Rejects Telcom Amnesty Despite Veto Threat - Via Threat Level:

Democrats continued their defiance of President Bush on Friday over his secret wiretapping program, passing a spying bill that calls for a commission to investigate the program, and refusing to give amnesty to telecoms that collaborated with the warrantless surveillance.

House Democratic leaders secured passage of the spying bill known as the FISA Amendments Act by a vote of 213 to 197, four weeks after a similar measure was defeated by a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats. That defeat led to the expiration of a temporary spying measure, setting off a week-long Republican effort to scare the American people with phantoms of lost wiretaps.

Republicans were championing a Senate bill that includes amnesty for telecoms and gives the nation's spies wide powers to wiretap using facilities inside the United States with little court oversight. [ Read more ... ]

Bush's State of The Union: Give Me Spy Powers Now - Via Threat Level:

President Bush's final State of the Union speech touched on but did not dwell on Congress' ongoing debate over how much unilateral spying power to hand over to the nation's spooks and whether to grant the nation's telecoms retroactive immunity for helping the government's warrantless spying on Americans. [ Read more ... ]

Unsung Hits of the FISA Debate: A Blank Check for Bush's Spy Program - Via ACLU Blog - Government Spying:

Congress will be back in session next Tuesday, and one of the top orders of business is debating the FISA Amendments Act of 2007 in the Senate. Every day until Congress returns, we'll be blogging on the best and most overlooked FISA-related news stories in our DailyKos Diary.

Today's hit: Telecom immunity could protect President Bush from accountability for authorizing the warrantless wiretapping program. [ Read more ... ]

The dismal legacy of Bush's top yes man: "Alberto Gonzales' successor will face a heckuva job rectifying the damage the attorney general did to American justice.

[...]

Aug. 28, 2007 | What will President Bush do without Alberto Gonzales around to tell the president he can do whatever he wants? Maybe he'll finally get some good legal advice. For someone who held the top two legal jobs in the country (and possibly the world) for almost seven years -- first as White House counsel and then as attorney general -- Gonzales' track record as a legal advisor is stunningly poor. Despite taking an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, Gonzales seemed to see his job instead as pleasing his boss. That may be a good strategy for bureaucratic success, but shouldn't we demand more from the nation's top law enforcement officer? Gonzales' yes-man strategy has left the reputation of the Justice Department -- and the United States -- in tatters. If we are to have any chance or restoring the credibility of the Justice Department and our standing as a nation committed to the rule of law, Gonzales' replacement needs to have the independence and integrity that Gonzales sorely lacked. [ Read more ... ]

Attorney General Gonzales resigns, officials say - CNN.com: WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned, senior administration officials told CNN Monday.

President Bush is expected to make a statement about Gonzales at 11:50 a.m. from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he has been vacationing.

Gonzales aides at the highest level and other top-level officials knew nothing about the announcement in advance, Justice Department sources indicated to CNN.

They were not informed until a meeting this morning, sources said, when Gonzales acknowledged he would be reading a statement at 10:30 a.m. ET. [ Read more ... ]

Bush Signs Law to Expand Eavesdropping: President Bush signed into law yesterday an expansion of the government's power to eavesdrop on foreign terrorism suspects without warrants.

The law, which updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was deemed a priority by Bush and his chief intelligence officials. [ Read more ... ]

Tell Congress Not to Cave in to Fear: "As the tide turns against his Attorney General and his NSA wiretapping program, the president has launched a 'fear offensive' -- a desperate push to change the laws that govern spying."

Tell your representative:

Please vote NO on any legislation that modifies the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act this week.

If you feel you must do something, please act as narrowly as possible and do not approve wiretaps without individualized warrants under any circumstances, or grant immunity to telecom companies.

Here are additional talking points you can use. We encourage you to pick the talking points you like best and use as many as you can during your call: [ Read more ... ]

Bush's torture ban is full of loopholes: "The president has issued an executive order to stop the CIA from using torture, but the ban is unenforceable.

[...]

July 23, 2007 | Once upon a time, a U.S. official's condemnation of torture was a statement of moral principle. Today, it is an opportunity for obfuscation. We have learned that when President Bush says, "We don't torture," it's important to read the fine print. So it was once again on July 20, when Bush issued a long-awaited executive order purporting to regulate interrogation tactics used by the CIA in the "war on terror." According to a White House press release, the order provides "clear rules" to implement the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of detainees in wartime -- rules the administration insisted did not even apply to the "war on terror" until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise last summer. But while the new rules reflect a significant retreat by the administration from its initial torture policies, they are anything but "clear," come far too late in the day, and in any event are unenforceable. [ Read more ... ]

Bush and Cheney's tortured secrecy: "Can the White House win a constitutional showdown with Congress over executive privilege after shredding the nation's trust?

The Bush administration, already arguably the most aggressive advocate of unchecked executive power in the history of the American presidency, has done it again. President Bush has defied a congressional subpoena for testimony and documents related to his politically and legally suspect firing of a group of U.S. attorneys. Invoking "executive privilege," Bush directed two former White House employees -- Sara Taylor, who was his political director, and Harriet Miers, who was his White House counsel -- not to testify about any "White House consideration, deliberations or communications" on the matter. [ Read more ... ]

Imperial presidency declared null and void: "Bush may ignore the 4th Circuit's stinging rebuke of his war paradigm. But his policies are losing the cloak of legality.

In private, Bush administration sub-Cabinet officials who have been instrumental in formulating and sustaining the legal "war paradigm" acknowledge that their efforts to create a system for detainees separate from due process, criminal justice and law enforcement have failed. One of the key framers of the war paradigm (in which the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chief makes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutional system of checks and balances), who a year ago was arguing vehemently for pushing its boundaries, confesses that he has abandoned his belief in the whole doctrine, though he refuses to say so publicly. If he were to speak up, given his seminal role in formulating the policy and stature among the Federalist Society cadres that run it, his rejection would have a shattering impact, far more than political philosopher Francis Fukuyama's denunciation of the neoconservatism he formerly embraced. [ Read more ... ]

'Signing Statements' Study Finds Administration Has Ignored Laws - washingtonpost.com: "President Bush has asserted that he is not necessarily bound by the bills he signs into law, and yesterday a congressional study found multiple examples in which the administration has not complied with the requirements of the new statutes.

Bush has been criticized for his use of 'signing statements,' in which he invokes presidential authority to challenge provisions of legislation passed by Congress. The president has challenged a federal ban on torture, a request for data on the administration of the USA Patriot Act and numerous other assertions of congressional power. As recently as December, Bush asserted the authority to open U.S. mail without judicial warrants in a signing statement attached to a postal reform bill. [ Read more ... ]

Spying on Americans - New York Times: "For more than five years, President Bush authorized government spying on phone calls and e-mail to and from the United States without warrants. He rejected offers from Congress to update the electronic eavesdropping law, and stonewalled every attempt to investigate his spying program. [ Read more ... ]

Ex-C.I.A. Chief, in Book, Assails Cheney on Iraq - New York Times: "George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a 'serious debate' about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

The 549-page book, 'At the Center of the Storm,' is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president's inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.

'There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,' Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, 'was there ever a significant discussion' about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion. [ Read more ... ]