Entries by emptywheel

McConnell’s Earmarks

I’m less interested in the local angle on Mitch McConnell’s placement of earmarks to benefit BAE in this year’s defense appropriations bill than what it says about our military industrial complex.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is pushing $25 million in earmarkedfederal funds for a British defense contractor that is under criminalinvestigation by the U.S.

Patrick Philbin

SJC will meet on Wednesday to take up SSCI’s FISA Amendment. We’ll get to see whether the Administration has sufficiently satisfied Scottish Haggis and Patrick Leahy to get the bill through committee with the telecom immunity still attached.

But there may be other reason to tune in, something I noticed on Selise’s weekly Congressional hearing schedule:

Panel I:

Kenneth L.

Funny Money

Atrios provides some crack former econ professor analysis on the dollar …

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Dollar sinking.Thedollar fell as low as $1.4426 per euro, the weakest since theintroduction of the 13-nation common currency in 1999, before tradingat $1.4420 as of 6:29 a.m. in Tokyo from $1.4393 in late New York onOct. 26.

Update on Gaming Intelligence to Justify War

I wasn’t so disturbed by the news that DNI Mike McConnell had decided to reverse the recent practice of producing unclassified Key Judgments from an NIE … until I read Scott Horton’s take on it.

Michael McConnell started his first two months on the job with asolid record for candor and accuracy.

The Dodge on Retroactive Immunity

Okay. This will serve as a summary of my analysis of the SSCI report on their FISA bill and to show how the SSCI managed to convince themselves to give retroactive immunity to the telecoms. Thus far, I have shown that:This report suggests that the Authorization to Use Military Force was central to the enactment of Bush’s illegal warrantless wiretap program.The report claims they need to give telecoms immunity because, since

Minimization, the Whitehouse Way

Back from my pancake and sausage-inducted coma! Mmm pancakes. I’ve got just two more points about this SSCI report, then I’ll let it drop and go clean the house.

A lot of people have been asking why Sheldon Whitehouse voted for the SSCI bill on FISA, even though it offers the telecoms retroactive immunity.

Why Do They Need to Spy on Americans Overseas without a Warrant?

Mr. emptywheel has started on the pancakes, finally, but I’ve got time for one more post.

According to public reports, Bush has threatened to veto SSCI’s FISA bill as written. That’s because of an amendment submitted by Ron Wyden which requires the Administration to obtain a FISA warrant if they want to wiretap an American overseas.

Shorter SSCI: The Immunity Is Really for Qwest

Nope. Mr. emptywheel hasn’t made me my pancakes yet.

SSCI’s report on the FISA Amendment uses remarkable logic for their justification for retroactive immunity.
It argues that, because the Administration has invoked State Secrets in all the suits against the telecoms, the poor telecoms cannot mount any kind of defense–cannot even prove their innocence, in the case of companies that refused to participate in the warrantless wiretap program.

They’re Using AUMF in Their Justification for Warrantless Wiretapping

I’m going to have a whole slew of posts on this SSCI report on their FISA bill(you’ll all be hoping mr. emptywheel gets up and distracts me withpancakes, no doubt). In this post, I want to show the language thereport uses to privilege the Authorization to Use Military Force. In it’s description of the basis for the program, the report depicts the warrantless wiretapping program as distinctly military.

TheNSA program was described

The FISA Report

Laura links to a CQ story based on this SSCI report on FISA. As Starks noted in his CQ article, the report reveals that the telecom companies did not have the requisite approval from the Attorney General for the period following the hospital confrontation; rather, they had White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales’ approval.

The committee’s published report on legislation (S 2248) that wouldrewrite the rules for government surveillance states thattelecommunications companies participating

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