Judge Orders Action on Spying Documents
    By Pete Yost
    The Associated Press

    Thursday 16 February 2006

    Washington - A federal judge dealt a setback to the Bush administration on its warrantless surveillance program, ordering the Justice Department on Thursday to release documents about the highly classified effort within 20 days or compile a list of what it is withholding.

    US District Judge Henry Kennedy said a private group will suffer irreparable harm if the documents it has been seeking since December are not processed promptly under the Freedom of Information Act.

    The Justice Department failed to meet the time restraints under FOIA and failed to make a case that it was impractical to deal quickly with the request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

    Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said no determination has been made as to what the government's next step will be.

    At a court hearing a week ago, Justice Department lawyer Rupa Bhattacharyya said the government would respond starting March 3, but she said she had no information on when the process might be completed.

    Timing will depend on complexity, "and in this case there are a lot of complexities," Bhattacharyya said.

    Kennedy wrote that "courts have the authority to impose concrete deadlines on agencies that delay the processing of requests meriting expedition."

    Routine FOIA requests are to be handled within 20 days while expedited requests have no set time limit under the law, prompting the Justice Department to take the position that the amount of time for expedited requests could be longer than that for the routine 20-day handling.

    "Congress could not have intended to create the absurd situation enabling the government to unilaterally exceed the standard 20-day period," Kennedy wrote.

Wayne Madsen has posted the following update regarding alleged unlawful NSA surveillance of journalists:

Quote:

Feingold Proposes Bush Censure Over Spying
    By Douglass K. Daniel
    The Associated Press

    Monday 13 March 2006

    Washington - A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing censuring President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.

    "The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press in an interview.

    A censure resolution, which simply would scold the president, has been used just once in U.S. history - against Andrew Jackson in 1834.

    Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., called the proposal "a crazy political move" that would weaken the U.S. during wartime.

    The five-page resolution to be introduced on Monday contends that Bush violated the law when, on his own, he set up the eavesdropping program within the National Security Agency in the months following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

    Bush claims that his authority as commander in chief as well as a September 2001 congressional authorization to use force in the fight against terrorism gave him the power to authorize the surveillance.

    The White House had no immediate response on Sunday.

    The resolution says the president "repeatedly misled the public" before the disclosure of the NSA program last December when he indicated the administration was relying on court orders to wiretap terror suspects inside the U.S.

    "Congress has to reassert our system of government, and the cleanest and the most efficient way to do that is to censure the president," Feingold said. "And, hopefully, he will acknowledge that he did something wrong."

    The Wisconsin Democrat, considered a presidential contender for 2008, said he had not discussed censure with other senators but that, based on criticism leveled at Bush by both Democrats and Republicans, the resolution makes sense.

    The president's action were "in the strike zone" in terms of being an impeachable offense, Feingold said. The senator questioned whether impeaching Bush and removing him from office would be good for the country.

    In the House, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is pushing legislation that would call on the Republican-controlled Congress to determine whether there are grounds for impeachment.

    The program granted intelligence officers the power to monitor - without court approval - the international calls and e-mails of U.S. residents, when those officers suspect terrorism may be involved.

    Frist, appearing on ABC's "This Week," said that he hoped al-Qaida and other enemies of the U.S. were not listening to the infighting.

    "The signal that it sends, that there is in any way a lack of support for our commander in chief who is leading us with a bold vision in a way that is making our homeland safer, is wrong," Frist said.

    Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said on CNN's "Late Edition" that Feingold's announcement on a Sunday talk show was "political grandstanding. And it tends to weaken our president."

    A longtime critic of the administration, Feingold was the first senator to urge a withdrawal timetable for U.S. troops in Iraq and was the only senator to vote in 2001 against the USA Patriot Act, the post-Sept. 11 law that expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers. He also voted against the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq.

    Jackson was censured by the Senate in 1834 after he removed the nation's money from a private bank in defiance of the Whig Party, which controlled the Senate.

    On Feb. 12, 1999, the Senate failed to gain enough votes to bring a censure resolution against President Clinton. The Senate had just acquitted Clinton after the House impeached him in December 1998, accusing him of committing perjury and obstructing justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair.

    Impeachment is the only punishment outlined in the Constitution for a president. But the Constitution says the House and Senate can punish their own members through censure.

DOJ: NSA Could've Monitored Lawyers' Calls 
    By Katherine Shrader 
    Associated Press 

    Saturday 25 March 2006 

    Washington - The National Security Agency could have legally monitored ordinarily confidential communications between doctors and patients or attorneys and their clients, the Justice Department said Friday of its controversial warrantless surveillance program. 

    Responding to questions from Congress, the department also said that it sees no prohibition to using information collected under the NSA's program in court. 

    "Because collecting foreign intelligence information without a warrant does not violate the Fourth Amendment and because the Terrorist Surveillance Program is lawful, there appears to be no legal barrier against introducing this evidence in a criminal prosecution," the department said in responses to questions from lawmakers released Friday evening. 

    The department said that considerations, including whether classified information could be disclosed, must be weighed. 

    In classified court filings, the Justice Department has responded to questions about whether information from the government's warrantless surveillance program was used to prosecute terror suspects. Defense attorneys are hoping to use that information to challenge the cases against their clients. 

    Since the program was disclosed in December, some skeptical lawmakers have investigated the Bush administration's legal footing, raising questions including whether the program could capture doctor-patient and attorney-client communications. Such communications normally receive special legal protections. 

    "Although the program does not specifically target the communications of attorneys or physicians, calls involving such persons would not be categorically excluded from interception," the department said. 

    The department said the same general criteria for the surveillance program would also apply to doctors' and lawyers' calls: one party must be outside the United States and there must be reason to believe one party is linked to al-Qaida. The department's written response also said that these communications aren't specifically targeted and safeguards are in place to protect privacy rights. 

    Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the House Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, complained about the department's evasiveness in answers to questions from the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, submitted to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. All but two of 45 answers to the House Judiciary Democrats were vague and unresponsive, Conyers said. 

    He found the response regarding doctor-patient and attorney-client privilege particularly troublesome. More generally, the "need for oversight is especially glaring," he said in a statement. 

    Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department "has been extremely forthcoming and clear about the administration's legal analysis through multiple briefings with Congress, three hearings with the Attorney General, multiple letters to Congress, a 42-page white paper and dozens of questions for the record." 

    Responding in 75 typed pages, the department clarified some points in the three-month-old debate over the program. But it also left many questions unanswered, citing the need for national security. 

    The House Democrats asked if any other president has authorized wiretaps without court warrants since the passage of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs intelligence collection inside the United States. 

    Choosing its words carefully, the department said, "if the question is limited to 'electronic surveillance' ... we are unaware of such authorizations." 

    The department also made clear that the program - as confirmed by President Bush - has never been suspended since it began in October 2001. That would include 2004, when reports indicate serious doubts about the program were raised by Justice Department officials. 

    But the department refused to discuss, or even confirm, a meeting in 2004 at then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital bed. News reports indicated that White House Chief of Staff Andy Card and Gonzales, then White House counsel, needed his help to quell dissent about the program. 

    Lawmakers also asked whether federal judges on a secretive intelligence court objected to the program and, if so, how the administration responded. 

    The department wouldn't answer, citing the need to protect classified information. "We assure you, however, that the department keeps the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court fully informed regarding information that is relevant to the FISA process," the response said. 

    The department also avoided questions on whether the administration believes it is legal to wiretap purely domestic calls without a warrant, when al-Qaida activity is suspected. The department wouldn't say specifically that it hasn't been done. 

    "Interception of the content of domestic communications would present a different legal question," the department said. 

USA Today reports that the NSA, with the assistance of AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth, has been compiling a database of all customer calling records:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

With such a database, it would be possible, among other things, to find out who has called reporters and whom reporters have called. Similarly find out who has called and left a message on AntiPolygraph.org's voice mail.

To all concerned;

A federal judge just shutdown the program. Chalk one up for the 4th Amendment and privacy rights. NSA just got flushed.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14393611/

Article:
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Federal judge orders end to wiretap program
Says governments listening in without warrant is unconstitutional


DETROIT - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it. 

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy. 

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. 

George:

Why in the hell is this a victory.  Anyone living in the U.S.A. who thiks so has a deaht wish. Her ruling is an absolute disgrace and indirectly places our country in great danger.  You make it sound as if wtaps are put on any citizen fro the hell of it .That is not the case.  In any event this case will quickly go to the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal wheremore resposible judges using better "judgement" will overturn it.