Attorney General Says Wiretap Lawsuit Must Be Thrown Out

Mr Pink Eyes writes with news about comments from US Attorney General Eric Holder, who said a San Francisco lawsuit over warrantless wiretapping should be thrown out, since going forward would compromise "ongoing intelligence activities." From the AP report: "In making the argument, the Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration's position on the case but insists it came to the decision differently. A civil liberties group criticized the move Friday as a retreat from promises President Barack Obama made as a candidate. Holder's effort to stop the lawsuit marks the first time the administration has tried to invoke the state secrets privilege under a new policy it launched last month designed to make such a legal argument more difficult. ... Holder said US District Judge Vaughn Walker, who is handling the case, was given a classified description of why the case must be dismissed so that the court can 'conduct its own independent assessment of our claim.'"

Comments

From www.BarackObama.com

[eldavojohn]

From his own site (PDF) a fact sheet (page 6 under "Restoring Our Values"):

Eliminate Warrantless Wiretaps. Barack Obama opposed the Bush Administration’s initial policy on warrantless wiretaps because it crossed the line between protecting our national security and eroding the civil liberties of American citizens. As president, Obama would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability to the congressional intelligence committees to prevent future threats to the rule of law.

Also, I thought he was assembling a cabinet critical of warrantless wiretapping?

Re:From www.BarackObama.com

[Abcd1234]

To be clear, I'm not trying to apologize for Obama, but you should pay very close attention to what that says:

Eliminate Warrantless Wiretaps. Barack Obama opposed the Bush Administration's initial policy on warrantless wiretaps because it crossed the line between protecting our national security and eroding the civil liberties of American citizens. As president, Obama would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability to the congressional intelligence committees to prevent future threats to the rule of law.

Note, there is nothing in there about allowing existing lawsuits to go forward in order to punish those who violated the rights of Americans during the previous administration. In fact, Obama has stated, time after time, that he feels we should all just, you know, move on and get over it...

Re:From www.BarackObama.com

[Xest]

Us Brits were already aware that Obama follows Bush era policies.

One of the Britons detained in Guantanamo bay, Binyamin Mohamed, was finally released to the UK earlier this year. Since then he's been trying to prove that he was tortured by, or at the behest of British agents. The courts recieved documents from US intelligence that would back his claim, however their release was blocked by our foreign secretary.

Now, our foreign secretary is an idiot, and part of it is ass covering for sure, but the reason he has cited for blocking their release is that the US has threatened to cut intelligence ties with the UK meaning we could be left vulnerable to attack (as could the US) if this data were released. Originally this threat came from the Bush administration, but it seems since then the Obama administration has been asked with the same threats. Journalists and politicians here have contacted the white house to confirm this and have found that the Obama administration does in fact support this policy.

The fact is, the Obama administration has no interest in accountability for it's security services, it knows and has admitted they were complicit in torture, but it seems the extent to which they were is such a problem that they are willing to put the national security of an ally and their own national security at risk to cover this up and keep that evidence secure.

It's not like we're not used to this attitude from the US, as when a US airforce pilot was guilty of strafing British troops in an A10 in a friendly fire incident in Iraq they refused to release the pilots name for questioning and the gun camera videos etc. (which were later leaked anyway) for our enquiry into how it happened. We expected this kind of attitude of coverups from the Bush adminsitration, but the Obama administration? It did come as a suprise I'll admit.

The original story is here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/04/guantanamo-torture

An update is here, the court reversed it's decision and stated the documents can be released pending the outcome of an appeal by the British government. Hopefully they'll lose it and we'll be able to see if Obama really is willing to do as he says and damage security of both countries over it:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-britain-gitmo17-2009oct17,0,2433061.story

Change? Not from what we can see over this side of the Atlantic, the only difference here in Europe is instead of a US president having his leg humped by Tony Blair, we've now got a US president having his leg humped by Sarkozy and Berlusconi instead.

Re:From www.BarackObama.com

[demachina]

I think you are the thick one here. He was implying that the current Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, are already socialist in practice if not in name. and he has a pretty viable argument.

Here is a chart from Wikipedia of the size of the Federal budget for the last 14 years:

* 2010 United States federal budget - $3.60 trillion (submitted 2009 by President Obama)
* 2009 United States federal budget - $3.10 trillion (submitted 2008 by President Bush)
* 2008 United States federal budget - $2.90 trillion (submitted 2007 by President Bush)
* 2007 United States federal budget - $2.77 trillion (submitted 2006 by President Bush)
* 2006 United States federal budget - $2.7 trillion (submitted 2005 by President Bush)
* 2005 United States federal budget - $2.4 trillion (submitted 2004 by President Bush)
* 2004 United States federal budget - $2.3 trillion (submitted 2003 by President Bush)
* 2003 United States federal budget - $2.2 trillion (submitted 2002 by President Bush)
* 2002 United States federal budget - $2.0 trillion (submitted 2001 by President Bush)
* 2001 United States federal budget - $1.9 trillion (submitted 2000 by President Clinton)
* 2000 United States federal budget - $1.8 trillion (submitted 1999 by President Clinton)
* 1999 United States federal budget - $1.7 trillion (submitted 1998 by President Clinton)
* 1998 United States federal budget - $1.7 trillion (submitted 1997 by President Clinton)
* 1997 United States federal budget - $1.6 trillion (submitted 1996 by President Clinton)
* 1996 United States federal budget - $1.6 trillion (submitted 1995 by President Clinton)

Its more than doubled in 14 years and its been done by both Democrats and Republicans. Bush, supposedly the small government Conservative nearly doubled it all by himself in eight years. He not only doubled spending but cut taxes to create staggering deficits. They would have been really staggering earlier if it hadn't been for the housing bubble generating fantasy tax revenue. We don't have that bubble any more which is why deficits are going to be running more than a trillion until we gin up a new bubble(Ponzi scheme).

The U.S. GDP is maybe 14 trillion so the Federal budget alone is more than 20% of the economy. If you count secondary effects from all that spending it could easily be half our GDP now.

The budget deficits are now projected to run over a trillion a year indefinitely which is nearly as much as the ENTIRE federal budget in 1996. Of course the Fed and Treasury have also destroyed the dollar in the same period so a dollar in 1996 was worth a lot more than it is now which is why Gold is now over $1000. Gold has actually out performed the stock market the last couple decades thanks to the last couple years of economic devastation.

And of course in the last two years under both Democrats and Republicans there has been MASSIVE intervention in the economy to bail out Wall Street and Detroit. In so doing they have created massive moral hazard, by allowing giant corporations to do truly awful, incompetent, sometimes criminal things in the mortgage and auto market and just have the government step in to clean up their mess at the expense of ordinary Americans. Banksters pocketed billions and billions of dollars in the process and with collusion of their shills in government like Paulson have completely shredded free market capitalism in this country. They then turned around and have completely gutted all recent attempts to regulate them to keep them from doing it again... and they will do it again.... probably alread

Let Mr. Holder

[Anonymous Coward]

know how you feel:

Leadership
Eric Holder
Attorney General
Contact
Office of the Attorney General
(202) 514-2001

Re:Rabid issue people - anit gay and abortion

[DaHat]

Actually the opposition to her comes more from her being pro-stimulus and pro-cardcheck and generally being more aligned with the Democrat party than it does from those who are "rabid anti-abortionists and bigoted anti-gay people don't mind having their civil rights and freedoms taken away (except the guns!) as long as the "fags" and those "baby killers" are controlled" as you put it... but no doubt her pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage stance didn't help her with the republicans.

So which is it? Is she really more of a Democrat who happens to anti-gun control... or more of a Republican who is pro-card check, pro-same sex marriage, pro-stimulus, and pro-abortion?

One is far easier to believe than the other personally... but mostly because I've known more of the latter than the prior over the years.

Re:It's official...

[ptbarnett]

if Ron Paul were president, I guarantee you that he'd keep the new surveillance powers, too.

If Ron Paul were President, he might change his mind.

But as a Congressman, he opposes it. He didn't vote on the FISA bill, reportedly because he was unavailable to do so after a last-minute change to the calendar.

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2008/06/24/ron-paul-on-the-wiretap-bill/

Mr. Speaker, I regret that due to the unexpected last-minute appearance of this measure on the legislative calendar this week, a prior commitment has prevented me from voting on the FISA amendments. I have strongly opposed every previous FISA overhaul attempt and I certainly would have voted against this one as well.

The main reason I oppose this latest version is that it still clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the federal government to engage in the bulk collection of American citizens' communications without a search warrant. That US citizens can have their private communication intercepted by the government without a search warrant is anti-American, deeply disturbing, and completely unacceptable.

In addition to gutting the fourth amendment, this measure will deprive Americans who have had their rights violated by telecommunication companies involved in the Administration's illegal wiretapping program the right to seek redress in the courts for the wrongs committed against them. Worse, this measure provides for retroactive immunity, whereby individuals or organizations that broke the law as it existed are granted immunity for prior illegal actions once the law has been changed. Ex post facto laws have long been considered anathema in free societies under rule of law. Our Founding Fathers recognized this, including in Article I section 9 of the Constitution that "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." How is this FISA bill not a variation of ex post facto? That alone should give pause to supporters of this measure.

Mr. Speaker, we should understand that decimating the protections that our Constitution provides us against the government is far more dangerous to the future of this country than whatever external threats may exist. We can protect this country without violating the Constitution and I urge my colleagues to reconsider their support for this measure.

I'm not particularly enthusiastic about Ron Paul, but claiming he would support warrantless wiretapping is a misrepresentation of his public statements on the subject.