By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
ICH
04/06/08 “Washington Post“

Drugging Detainees Is Among Techniques

Thirty pages into a memorandum discussing the legal boundaries of military interrogations in 2003, senior Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo tackled a question not often asked by American policymakers: Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner’s eyes poked out?

Or, for that matter, could he have “scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance” thrown on a prisoner? How about slitting an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb? What about biting?

These assaults are all mentioned in a U.S. law prohibiting maiming, which Yoo parsed as he clarified the legal outer limits of what could be done to terrorism suspects as detained by U.S. authorities. The specific prohibitions, he said, depended on the circumstances or which “body part the statute specifies.”

But none of that matters in a time of war, Yoo also said, because federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes by military interrogators are trumped by the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief.

The dry discussion of U.S. maiming statutes is just one in a series of graphic, extraordinary passages in Yoo’s 81-page memo, which was declassified this past week. No maiming is known to have occurred in U.S. interrogations, and the Justice Department disavowed the document without public notice nine months after it was written.

…continued

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see

Evidence Grows of Drug Use on Detainees

White House Query Led to Memo Advising Bush to Ignore Fourth Amendment

The Constitution, John Yoo, and You

The Green Light: Attorney Philippe Sands Follows the Bush Admin Torture Trail

April 3, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Memo: Laws Didn’t Apply to Interrogators

Dandelion Salad

By Dan Eggen and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Justice Dept. Official in 2003 Said President’s Wartime Authority Trumped Many Statutes

The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.

The 81-page memo, which was declassified and released publicly yesterday, argues that poking, slapping or shoving detainees would not give rise to criminal liability. The document also appears to defend the use of mind-altering drugs that do not produce “an extreme effect” calculated to “cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality.”

…continued

h/t: ladybroadoak.blogspot.com

March 17, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Bush Consolidates the National Security State

Dandelion Salad

by Tom Burghardt
Global Research, March 17, 2008
Antifascist Calling…

Editor, Antifascist Calling…

The Washington Post revealed Friday that the FBI is continuing its systematic violation of Americans’ Fourth Amendment guarantees against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

A Justice Department report concluded that the Bureau had repeatedly abused its intelligence gathering “privileges” by issuing bogus “national security letters” (NSLs) from 2003-2006. On at least one occasion, the FBI relied on an illegally-issued NSL to circumvent a ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain records the secret court deemed protected by the First Amendment.

While the Bush regime claims that the Bureau requires sweeping authority to invade the privacy of American citizens to “protect the homeland” from the Afghan-Arab database of disposable intelligence assets, al-Qaeda, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine determined that fully “60 percent of the nearly 50,000 security letters issued that year [2006] by the FBI targeted Americans,” according to Post reporter Dan Eggen.

Despite the FISA court twice rejecting Bureau requests to obtain sensitive private records, determining “the ‘facts’ were too thin” and the “request implicated the target’s First Amendment rights,” the FBI used an NSL as a “work around” and proceeded anyway.

The stunning disregard for all legal norms under the Bush regime is encapsulated by FBI general counsel Valerie E. Caproni’s statement to investigators that “it was appropriate to issue the letters in such cases because she disagreed with the court’s conclusions.”

Fine asserted in the Inspector General’s report that the Bureau has recklessly used NSLs to sweep-up vast quantities of telephone numbers and internet searches with a single request.

Jameel Jaffer, national security director at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Eggen,

“The fact that these are being used against U.S. citizens, and being used so aggressively, should call into question the claim that these powers are about terrorists and not just about collecting information on all kinds of people. They’re basically using national security letters to evade legal requirements that would be enforced if there were judicial oversight.”

Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesperson, said Fine’s report “should come as no surprise,” tendentiously claiming new “procedural changes” would ameliorate future problems.

According to FBI Assistant Director John Miller, a former correspondent and anchor for ABC News, NSL requests “are now reviewed by a lawyer before they are sent to a telephone company, Internet service provider or other target.”

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has quietly stripped the independent Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) of much of its authority to root out illegal spying activities by the intelligence “community,” Boston Globe journalist, Charlie Savage reports.

A little noticed February 29 executive order signed by Bush gutted the board’s mandate to refer illegal activities by an ever-expanding national security state to the Justice Department.

According to Savage,

Bush’s order also terminated the board’s authority to oversee each intelligence agency’s general counsel and inspector general, and it erased a requirement that each inspector general file a report with the board every three months. Now only the agency directors will decide whether to report any potential lawbreaking to the panel, and they have no schedule for checking in.

In other words, we’ll police ourselves. Move along!

The IOB was created in 1976 by president Gerald Ford following congressional revelations that a panoply of U.S. intelligence entities including the CIA, FBI, NSA and DIA, had engaged in illegal domestic spying operations, organized the assassination of foreign leaders, incited coups and other destabilization campaigns around the world to advance U.S. geopolitical goals during America’s anticommunist Cold War jihad.

On the domestic front, the FBI’s COINTELPRO, the CIA’s Operation CHAOS, the NSA’s Project SHAMROCK and the DIA’s domestic operations under control of various Military Intelligence Groups, conducted illegal surveillance of antiwar, socialist, feminist and black liberation groups targeted for “disruption and neutralization” during the 1960s and ’70s.

Federal intelligence agents, in addition to conducting illegal surveillance and infiltration of domestic dissident groups, worked closely with local police “red squads” and actually financed and controlled far-right terrorist gangs such as the Minutemen, the San Diego-based Secret Army Organization and the Legion of Justice in Chicago. Dozens of attacks, including fire-bombings, physical assaults and attempted “targeted assassinations” of vocal antiwar activists and socialist organizers were the result.

Even after the “COINTELPRO era” presumably ended with the 1971 Media, PA raid by the “Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI” that exposed the Bureau’s illegal operations, abuses continued–and multiplied.

* In 1979, five members of the Communist Workers Party were murdered by a combined Ku Klux Klan/American Nazi Party hit team in Greensboro, NC. The anticommunist death squad had been recruited, organized and led by an FBI infiltrator, Edward Dawson. Dawson was also a paid informant for the Greensboro Police Department.

* During the 1980s, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), opposed to U.S. intervention in support of El Salvador’s death squad state, was infiltrated by FBI informants and far-rightists’ associated with Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP). The ultra-right wing Council for Inter-American Security, working as public relations apologists for death squad leader Roberto D’Aubuisson, compiled a dossier on CISPES that was subsequently passed to the FBI. The Bureau then recommended “active measures” be taken to destroy the group.

* In May 1990, Earth First! leaders Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were targets of a politically-motivated assassination attempt. A bomb was detonated in their car by unknown assailants. At the FBI’s instigation, Oakland Police immediately arrested the pair and charged them with terrorist crimes. After two months of adverse media publicity targeting the victims, charges were dropped. Twelve years later, the environmentalists were awarded $4.4 million in a federal civil suit when a jury determined the FBI had acted recklessly in their handling of the case. The FBI was doomed when their own forensic lab specialist testified the bomb was under the car seat not on the floorboard behind Bari as Bureau counterterrorism “experts” alleged.

* Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) is another in a long-line of corrupt Pentagon “public-private partnerships.” Initially authorized by president William Clinton’s Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-75, CIFA and its associated TALON/CORNERSTONE database provide “threat assessments” for DoD facilities and personnel. One CIFA-supported database project, managed by defense giant Northrop Grumman was designated “Person Search.” It was designed to “provide comprehensive information about people of interest.” Its intended use included the ability to search government and commercial databases “to track and monitor activities of suspect individuals.” However, numerous reports and internal memoranda published by the National Security Archive clearly document that CIFA’s military and private contractors systematically conducted surveillance and data-mining operations against the antiwar movement. The Archive has posted 9 TALON reports collected by the 902nd Military Intelligence Group documenting CIFA’s repressive activities. Originally falling under the purview of Stephen A. Cambone, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, CIFA’s intelligence and data-mining programs are being spun-off to private contractors. Cambone has since gone on to an executive position with QinetiQ North America. QinetiQ signed a $30 million Pentagon contract in January 2008 for unspecified “security services” to CIFA, according to CorpWatch investigative reporter, Tim Shorrock.

* CISPES is again a target of the Justice Department. Citing the Foreign Registration Act of 1938, Bush’s DOJ is questioning the organization’s relationship with the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), a legal political party in El Salvador. With elections looming in 2009, the Bush regime is terrified that another Latin American country will elect a leftist government, thus further weakening U.S. regional domination and control over its shrinking imperialist empire. The Bush plan? Target solidarity activists in an attempt to smear the group as “foreign agents,” or worse.

The gutting of the Intelligence Oversight Board’s authority to investigate criminal activities by the Bush administration comes at a time when domestic spying operations have multiplied exponentially.

Last week The Wall Street Journal exposed the NSA’s data-mining capabilities and revealed that the agency was targeting millions of Americans in its electronic driftnet and has compiled terabytes of data on every aspect of lives.

While administration apologists claim such sweeping and intrusive spying is necessary to “keep America safe,” if history is any judge of past intelligence abuses these practices are designed instead, to “keep America in line,” ever-fearful and obedient servants of our capitalist masters.

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military “Civil Disturbance” Planning, distributed by AK Press.

The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author’s copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com
© Copyright Tom Burghardt, Antifascist Calling…, 2008
The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8372

see

FBI Found to Misuse Security Letters By Dan Eggen

Executive Order: President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and Intelligence Oversight Board

March 14, 2008 by dandelionsalad

FBI Found to Misuse Security Letters By Dan Eggen

Dandelion Salad

By Dan Eggen
ICH
Washington Post Staff Writer
03/14/08 “Washington Post”

2003-06 Audit Cites Probes of Citizens

The FBI has increasingly used administrative orders to obtain the personal records of U.S. citizens rather than foreigners implicated in terrorism or counterintelligence investigations, and at least once it relied on such orders to obtain records that a special intelligence-gathering court had deemed protected by the First Amendment, according to two government audits released yesterday.

The episode was outlined in a Justice Department report that concluded the FBI had abused its intelligence-gathering privileges by issuing inadequately documented “national security letters” from 2003 to 2006, after which changes were put in place that the report called sound.

A report a year ago by the Justice Department’s inspector general disclosed that abuses involving national security letters had occurred from 2003 through 2005 and helped provoke the changes. But the report makes it clear that the abuses persisted in 2006 and disclosed that 60 percent of the nearly 50,000 security letters issued that year by the FBI targeted Americans.

…continued

see

Stunning New Report on Domestic NSA Dragnet Spying Confirms ACLU Surveillance Warnings

Fed Judge Rules Parts of Patriot Act Unconstitutional By Manila Ryce

August 31, 2007 by dandelionsalad

Nader Calls on President Bush to Select New AG Who Respects the Constitution

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader

August 30, 2007

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Bush,

As you evaluate candidates to replace Alberto R. Gonzales as Attorney General it would be appropriate for you to consider all the things Mr. Gonzales has done that have tarnished the reputation of the Justice Department and undermined the rule of law in our country. Mr. Gonzales will be spared from impeachment because of his resignation, but repairing the damage he has done to the integrity of the Justice Department can only begin if you rise above partisan and personal considerations in selecting his replacement. First and foremost, the next Attorney General must truly embrace the importance of the Constitution and the rights it establishes for the citizenry and the responsibilities it imposes on government employees.

The oath of office taken by Attorney General Gonzales and previous Attorneys General reads:

“I, (Name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” 5 U.S.C. §3331

When Mr. Gonzales was installed as the eightieth Attorney General of the United States on February 14, 2005, he said, “So, I rise today to reassure you that I understand the special role of this office, and to commit to do my best on behalf of the American people to fulfill the confidence and trust reflected in my appointment.” Unfortunately, Mr. Gonzales has shattered the trust and confidence that the citizens of the United States have in the Justice Department.

Mr. Gonzales repeatedly misled Congress — and the American people — and likely perjured himself, in seeking to cover up an astonishing array of policies and practices that contravened the Justice Department’s historic independence, violated core Constitutional protections and authorized violations of fundamental international proscriptions against torture and abuse. And, in his role as Attorney General and previously as White House Counsel, he played an instrumental role in advancing policies that shredded longstanding American civil liberties and human rights protections.

After reviewing the following questions and comments, even you might be willing to concede that Mr. Gonzales has shamed the Justice Department and darkened our country’s reputation.

1. Did Mr. Gonzales mislead Congress about his role in the firing of federal prosecutors?

Mr. Gonzales insisted that each of the attorneys had been fired for “performance” reasons and stated that, “I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it.”¹

The New York Times reported six of the eight prosecutors had, however, recently received good performance reviews between 2003 and 2006.²

Mr. Gonzales testified that “this focus has been on the eight United States attorneys that were asked to resign last December 7th and June 14th.”³

Published reports, however, show that D. Kyle Sampson, then Attorney General Gonzales’s chief of staff, considered more than two dozen U.S. attorneys for termination, according to lists compiled by him and his colleagues.⁴

2. Did Mr. Gonzales mislead Congress about whether the President could authorize warrantless wiretapping?

Mr. Gonzales said that “It is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.”⁵

The Washington Post reported, “In fact, the president did secretly authorize the National Security Agency to begin warrantless monitoring of calls and e-mails between the United States…”⁶

3. Did Mr. Gonzales mislead Congress on April 27, 2005, when he testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that “The track record established over the past three years has demonstrated the effectiveness of the safeguards of civil liberties put in place when the act was passed. There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse.”⁷

The Washington Post reported Mr. Gonzales was in possession of at least six FBI reports detailing unlawful surveillance, searches and improper use of national security letters.⁸

Later, again under oath, Mr. Gonzales testified that his statement had been truthful because they were not “intentional” abuses of the Patriot Act.⁹

4. Did Mr. Gonzales mislead Congress when on July 24, 2007 he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the subject of an emergency meeting with the hospitalized then Attorney General John Ashcroft on March 10, 2004, was not the surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval?

Mr. Gonzales said, “The disagreement that occurred, and the reason for the visit to the hospital, Senator, was about other intelligence activities. It was not about the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced to the American people.”¹⁰

A four-page memorandum dated May 17, 2006 from the National Intelligence Director’s office, obtained by The Associated Press, shows that the briefing was about the surveillance program.¹¹

5. Did Mr. Gonzales mislead Congress when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 18, 2007, about the appointment of “interim” U.S. Attorneys?

A provision quietly added to the Patriot Act in 2005 allowed the President to appoint “interim” U.S. attorneys for an indefinite period of time, without Senate confirmation. Mr. Gonzales testified under oath that “I am fully committed, as the administration’s fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney.”¹²

The Washington Post reported, “Justice officials discussed bypassing the two Democratic senators in Arkansas, who normally would have had input into the appointment, as early as last August. By mid-December, [D. Kyle] Sampson [former chief of staff to Attorney Gonzales] was suggesting that Gonzales exercise his newfound appointment authority to put [Tim] Griffin in place until the end of Bush’s term.”¹³

President Bush, the next Attorney General must respect the Constitution and the rule of law.
Our country cannot afford and does not deserve an Attorney General who puts political loyalty above his sworn obligation to respect and defend civil liberties and civil rights.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader
P.O. Box 19312
Washington, DC 20036

¹Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. January 18, 2007.
²Johnston, David. “Dismissed U.S. Attorneys Praised in Evaluations.” The New York Times. February 25, 2007. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/washington/25lawyers.html
³Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. May 10, 2007.
⁴Eggen, Dan and Amy Goldstein. “Justice Weighed Firing 1 in 4.” The Washington Post. May 17, 2007. Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/
⁵Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. January 6, 2005.
⁶Leonnig, Carol D. “Gonzales Is Challenged on Wiretaps.” The Washington Post. January 31, 2006. Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/
⁷Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. April 27, 2005.
⁸Solomon, John. “Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations.” The Washington Post. July 10, 2007. Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/
⁹Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. July 24, 2007.
¹⁰Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. July 24, 2007.
¹¹The Associated Press. “Documents Dispute Gonzales’ Testimony.” The New York Times. July 26, 2007.
¹²Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. January 18, 2007.
¹³Eggen, Dan and John Solomon. “Firings Had Genesis in White House.” The Washington Post. March 13, 2007. Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/

July 20, 2007 by dandelionsalad

Broader Privilege Claimed In Firings – White House Says Hill Can’t Pursue Contempt Cases By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein

Dandelion Salad

By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 20, 2007; Page A01

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

The position presents serious legal and political obstacles for congressional Democrats, who have begun laying the groundwork for contempt proceedings against current and former White House officials in order to pry loose information about the dismissals.

Under federal law, a statutory contempt citation by the House or Senate must be submitted to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, “whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action.”

But administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege. Officials pointed to a Justice Department legal opinion during the Reagan administration, which made the same argument in a case that was never resolved by the courts.

“A U.S. attorney would not be permitted to bring contempt charges or convene a grand jury in an executive privilege case,” said a senior official, who said his remarks reflect a consensus within the administration. “And a U.S. attorney wouldn’t be permitted to argue against the reasoned legal opinion that the Justice Department provided. No one should expect that to happen.”

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, added: “It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, the constitutional prerogatives of the president would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys.”

Continued…

h/t: RAW STORY

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Dandelion Salad

Eggen-Dan

Permissible Assaults Cited in Graphic Detail By Dan Eggen

Memo: Laws Didn’t Apply to Interrogators

Bush Consolidates the National Security State

FBI Found to Misuse Security Letters By Dan Eggen

Nader Calls on President Bush to Select New AG Who Respects the Constitution

Broader Privilege Claimed In Firings – White House Says Hill Can’t Pursue Contempt Cases By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein