Feingold Challenges A.G. on Eavesdropping
In a hopeful sign of things to come, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) is accusing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales of trying to put one over on the Senate during his confirmation hearings.
Feingold's staff, displaying foresight that borders on foreknowledge, prepared a question for Gonzales about warrantless surveillance.
In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales where the president's authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.
Gonzales said that it was impossible to answer such a hypothetical question but that it was "not the policy or the agenda of this president" to authorize actions that conflict with existing law. He added that he would hope to alert Congress if the president ever chose to authorize warrantless surveillance, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Sounds like Gonzales was "disassembling", to borrow a term from President Bush.
Gonzales was White House counsel at the time the program began and has since acknowledged his role in affirming the president's authority to launch the surveillance effort. Gonzales is scheduled to testify Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the program's legal rationale.
The Senate should ream him out for perjury.
The program, publicly revealed in media reports last month, was unknown to Feingold and his staff at the time Feingold questioned Gonzales, according to a staff member. Feingold's aides developed the 2005 questions based on privacy advocates' concerns about broad interpretations of executive power.
This is simply too convenient to be mere "coincidence." Something tells me that the illegal eavesdropping was more widely known than has been yet revealed.
Besides, there is no such thing as coincidence.
Jungian "synchronicity" definitely, but "coincidence"-- never.
Feingold's staff, displaying foresight that borders on foreknowledge, prepared a question for Gonzales about warrantless surveillance.
In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales where the president's authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.
Gonzales said that it was impossible to answer such a hypothetical question but that it was "not the policy or the agenda of this president" to authorize actions that conflict with existing law. He added that he would hope to alert Congress if the president ever chose to authorize warrantless surveillance, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Sounds like Gonzales was "disassembling", to borrow a term from President Bush.
Gonzales was White House counsel at the time the program began and has since acknowledged his role in affirming the president's authority to launch the surveillance effort. Gonzales is scheduled to testify Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the program's legal rationale.
The Senate should ream him out for perjury.
The program, publicly revealed in media reports last month, was unknown to Feingold and his staff at the time Feingold questioned Gonzales, according to a staff member. Feingold's aides developed the 2005 questions based on privacy advocates' concerns about broad interpretations of executive power.
This is simply too convenient to be mere "coincidence." Something tells me that the illegal eavesdropping was more widely known than has been yet revealed.
Besides, there is no such thing as coincidence.
Jungian "synchronicity" definitely, but "coincidence"-- never.
posted by Effwit at 10:38 AM
7 Comments:
"...over-worked and under-informed"
That 'over-worked' comment is the Americana truth. It's a full-time job to keep up with just a fraction of what's really going on out there. And it helps to have been a bad guy one's self.
What gainfully employed Joe Blow has even an hour to spend on-line per day to catch a glimpse of the truth that has been relegated to the subcultures of the ridiculed lesbo-vegans or Berkely academicians.
The truth ain't out there in any immediate way anymore for anyone with bills to pay.
Didn't Maslow say that a dude trying to keep up with his HMO payments doesn't have time not to believe in UFOs?
Darn it...posted the above comment in the wrong post. That's what I get for being eager like the eternal nerd I am.
Meatball One:
"...over-worked and under-informed"
That 'over-worked' comment is the Americana truth. It's a full-time job to keep up with just a fraction of what's really going on out there.
The Powers That Be intend it that way. Bread and Circuses, you know.
And it helps to have been a bad guy one's self.
;-)
P.S.: If you want to cut and paste your comment to another post, please do. You can delete the wrong message if you want. But it doesn't matter. No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.
I tell ya...I'm so lazy at times that it hurts. It really hurts. It seemed less-expensive to post the Notice de Woops than cut n paste my way to a correction.
Imagine being married to me.
Meatball One:
No worries.
The over-worked and under-informed observation applies just as well to this post, i.e. the people who cannot understand all the fuss about the illegal spying.
The "I don't care if they listen to my calls, I'm not doing anything wrong" crowd.
Well, the Times certainly already knew about it in January of 2005, so it's possible that others had at least some inkling of its existence. It's also possible that the small handful of Senators and Reps who were...ahem...briefed on the program leaked info to colleagues.
Nevertheless, Gonzalez's testimony does seem troubling, to say the least.
Drew L:
There were plenty of people who knew about the program, it seems.
I just found it strange that the potentially damaging secret would be shared with a "freedom hatin' liberal" like Feingold.
I hope the Congress treats AG like anybody else who is caught lying in sworn testimony.
I somehow doubt it.
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