The Five Star Hotel Was on the Taypayer’s Dime

That five star hotel that Tommy K was staying in in Greece? You and I are paying for it, it looks like.

A federal judge allowed a New York man who has admitted bribingformer North County U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to remain free onbond, after an Assistant U.S. Attorney said at a hearing this morningthat the man’s recent trip to Greece was at the direction of federalagents.

U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns had called thehearing to learn whether the man, Thomas Kontogiannis, had traveledoverseas without permission. Any such trip requires prior approvalbecause Kontogiannis pleaded guilty earlier this year on a moneylaundering charge.

At today’s hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Forge said the trip was made at the government’s behest.

                  

 

                  

"Myunderstanding is that everything Mr. Kontogiannis did was not just’with permission,’ but at the direction of agents and otherrepresentatives of the government," Forge said.

Or maybe the FBI is forcing Tommy K to use his ill-gotten gains on such luxury.

TPMM also notes that Judge Burns is going to give John Michael a peek at what his uncle gave the government in exchange for the plea deal.

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Why Keisler

Wildarseguess here. But I have a hypothesis for why Bush pulled his Clement-Keisler headfake this morning.

Recall that, just last week, BushCo made an unusual intervention into the FCC’s deliberations over Net Neutrality.

Well, a lot of people have noted that Keisler’s most notable achievement at DOJ was his role in spiking the tobacco settlement. Now, combine what that says about Keisler’s personality: that he’s willing to abuse the legal process to help out big corporate donors, with this case that he argued for AT&T back when he worked for Sidley & Austin, where Keisler worked in Telecom law.

The Second Circuit recently held in AT&T v. Conboy that transfers of personal information collected by a company do notnecessarily cause injury or give rise to cognizable damages. PeterKeisler of Sidley & Austin argued the case on behalf of AT&T.The decision was announced on February 26, 2001.

AT&Tprevailed over plaintiffs who claimed AT&T had improperly distributed theircustomer proprietary network information (�CPNI�) to AT&T�s former creditcard branch, Universal Card Service (�UCS�), in order to assist in credit-carddebt collection. The Conboys accusedAT&T of obtaining the information through its role as their long-distanceservice provider. The informationallegedly disclosed consisted of their names, unlisted telephone number,billing address, and details Read more

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McConnell and Lieberman

Isikoff and Hosenball tell us what we already know–McConnell is a liar (only the crack headline artists at Newsweek call this "an error"). But here’s an odd detail in their story about McConnell’s petulant confession.

After questions about his testimony were raised, McConnell calledLieberman to clarify his statements to the Senate Committee on HomelandSecurity and Governmental Affairs, an official said. (A spokeswoman forLieberman confirmed that McConnell called the senator Tuesday but couldnot immediately confirm what they spoke about.)

Usually, when someone lies to Congress and "realizes" it, the process for clarifying testimony is simple. You write a written clarification. But that’s not what McConnell did. He talked to Lieberman personally, on the phone, leaving no public record of their conversation.

Now here’s the original exchange:

MCCONNELL: [The new FISA law] was passed, as you well know, andwe’re very pleased with that. And we’re better prepared now to continueour mission; specifically Germany, significant contributions. Itallowed us to see and understand all the connections with –

LIEBERMAN: The newly adopted law facilitated that during August?

MCCONNELL: Yes, sir, it did.

Maybe I just have lost all trust in Lieberman, but the original exchange sure seems like a set-up to me. "Hey Joey," McConnell says, "Why don’t you Read more

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I’d Love to See Conyers and Pelosi in a Spat

That may not be a mature sentiment, wanting to see Conyers and Pelosi in a spat. But after reading that Pelosi knee-capped Conyers on his subpoena of Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten, I have marginal hopes that this will piss off Conyers and escalate things in HJC, rather than bury them as Pelosi seems content to do.

House Democratic leaders have decided to postpone a vote on a criminalcontempt resolution against White House chief of staff Joshua Boltenand former White House counsel Harriet Miers for several weeks, andpossibly longer, according to top lawmakers and aides.

[snip]

But the slowdown, approved by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) andher top lieutenants, is also stirring objections among Democrats.House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) saidhe is uncomfortable with the delay and worries the House will be seenas toothless unless it moves quickly to hold top officials in contemptfor failing to provide documents and testimony in congressional probes.

[snip]

Conyers said it was critical for Congress to enforce its subpoenasagainst executive branch officials, including senior White House aides.

“Otherwise, we just become a [social] club,” Conyers said, adding that he would be reviewing the issue with Pelosi soon.

You see, after a long history of noting the importance Read more

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Whose Credibility Is Declining Faster?

Mike McConnell or General Petraeus?

Petraeus has become Fox’s latest pundit, while McConnell is claiming the amended FISA is responsible for those German terror arrests last week.

The government’s ability to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects overseasallowed the United States to obtain information that helped lead to thearrests last week of three Islamic militants accused of planning bombattacks in Germany, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told senators on Monday.       

Butanother government official said Mr. McConnell might have misspoken.Mr. McConnell said the information had been obtained under a newlyupdated and highly contentious wiretapping law, the ForeignIntelligence Surveillance Act. But the official, who has been briefedon the eavesdropping laws and the information given to the Germans,said that those intercepts were recovered last year under the old law.The official asked for anonymity because the information is classified.

It’d be nice if we actually started holding government officials accountable for the lies they tell during oversight hearings, huh?

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The Warrantless Wiretap Program Was Illegal

When Jim Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he refused to say the warrantless wiretap program was illegal.

SPECTER: Well, you don’t have to.

If the certification by theDepartment of Justice as to legality is required as a matter of law,and that is not done, and the program goes forward, it’s illegal. Howcan you — how can you contest that, Mr. Comey?

COMEY: Thereason I hesitate is I don’t know that the Department of Justice’scertification was required by statute — in fact, it was not, as far asI know — or by regulation, but that it was the practice in thisparticular program, when it was renewed, that the attorney general signoff as to its legality.

There was a signature line for that.And that was the signature line on which was adopted for me, as theacting attorney general, and that I would not sign.

So itwasn’t going forward in violation of any — so far as I know –statutory requirement that I sign off. But it was going forward eventhough I had communicated, "I cannot approve this as to its legality."

Jack Goldsmith doesn’t say so directly, either. But in this excerpt from his book, he makes it very clear that Alberto Gonzales should have no authority to investigate leaks about FISA–and particularly shouldn’t subpoena Goldsmith–since Gonzales had had to be get bailed out of an illegal program in the first place.

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Communities of Interest

This Eric Lichtblau article provides a lot of dots that have been, heretofore, missing in our picture of the surveillance they’ve got us under. It’s no surprise the government has been using data mining on not just suspects themselves, but also on their friends and associates–a virtual "Friends and Families" plan of surveillance.

The documents indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation usedsecret demands for records to obtain data not only on individuals itsaw as targets but also details on their “community of interest” — thenetwork of people that the target in turn was in contact with.

But given the description, it’s more clear now why the Administration refused all meaningful oversight of the minimization they’re doing on their warrantless wiretapping. You can’t really collect a "community of interest" and at the same time be claiming you’re eliminating all data on those not directly targeted.

Further, the article explains why Alberto Gonzales got all squirmyearly this year when SJC asked him for information on National SecurityLetters. They were still trying to hide these communities of interest,so Gonzales didn’t want to provide much information on the program. Andmeanwhile, they were trying to bury the program.

The government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said theF.B.I. recently stopped asking the telecommunications companies for thecommunity of interest data. The exact time of and reason for thesuspension is unclear, but it appears to have been set off in part bythe questions raised earlier this year by the inspector general’sinitial review into abuses in the use of national security letters.

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“The White House Needs to Hire an Archivist”

WTF is the Administration doing, claiming it has briefed members of Congress on the warrantless wiretap program when it hasn’t?

After the domestic surveillance program was revealed in 2005, formerSenate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL) said thatWhite House briefings that he attended in the Vice President’s office failed to disclose that the administration was spying on Americans:

There was no reference made to the fact that we weregoing to…begin unwarranted, illegal — and I think unconstitutional —eavesdropping on American citizens.

Shortly thereafter, Cheney fired back at Graham, arguing, “Well that’s not true. [Graham] knew.” The White House accused him of “misremembering the briefings.”

In a recent interview with ThinkProgress, Sen. Graham told us that,after the controversy erupted in late 2005, the White House providedhim with dates when they alleged Graham had been briefed. Graham saidhe consulted his famous spiral bound notebooks and determined he had not been briefed on these dates:

I mean, I’m not surprised they didn’t brief members of Congress fully (or at least, the Democratic MOCs). But why claim you had when you hadn’t? Particularly when one of them (as TP points out) is a notoriously anal note-taker?

Most interesting is the Administration’s claim that Graham was briefed on April Read more

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What Indictments Did Schlozman Speak to Elston About?

Brad Schlozman remains unresponsive on a few of the questions he (finally) returned to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Take this question that asks for very specific details about any conversations he had with Mike Elston about indictments in WD MO:

Did you speak with Michael Elston regarding any other indictments filed while you were U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri? If so, which indictments?

Mr. Elston, who is a former federal prosecutor and appellate chief in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, and I are personal friends and we spoke about various cases from time to time. I am certain that, given his position as chief of staff to the Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Elston spoke with many U.S. Attorneys about their cases and other matters affecting U.S. Attorneys’ Offices.

I guess Shorter Schloz doesn’t understand what the question "If so, which indictments" means. Because he sure dodged answering that very specific question.

Unfortunately, when they get around to asking Schloz about indicting Democratic politician Katheryn Shields, they only ask Schloz about whom he consulted on the timing of the indictment–not the indictment in general.

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Get Your Satellite Out of My Backyard

This will be interesting. The Dems are trying to prevent Chertoff from implementing his big brother satellite domestic spying program on October 1.

We are so concerned that, as the Department’s authorizing Committee,we are calling for a moratorium on the program until the manyConstitutional, legal and organizational questions it raises areanswered.

Today’s testimony made clear that there is effectivelyno legal framework governing the domestic use of satellite imagery forthe various purposes envisioned by the Department. Without this legalframework, the Department runs the risk of creating a program that –while well-intended – could be misused and violate Americans’Constitutional rights. The Department’s failure to include its PrivacyOfficer and the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer before thisJuly, almost two years after planning for the NAO began, only heightensour sense of concern. Privacy and civil liberties simply cannot remainan afterthought at the Department.

We ask that you provide theCommittee with the written legal framework under which the NAO willoperate, the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the NAO –particularly those SOPs that will be used for requests by State, local,and tribal law enforcement, the privacy and civil liberties safeguardsthat will accompany any use of satellite imagery, and an analysis ofhow the program conforms with Posse Comitatus. Read more

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