At 11 a.m. Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will argue for the release of court orders supposedly authorizing the government's electronic domestic surveillance program that intercepts and analyzes millions of Americans' communications.
The White House first acknowledged the surveillance program's existence in 2005, claiming that surveillance could be conducted without warrants or judicial authorization of any kind. But in January of this year, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) had authorized collection of some communications. He said the surveillance program would now operate under its approval.
EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the FISC orders and other records concerning the purported changes in the program. When the justice department
did not comply, EFF filed suit in federal court.
Thursday's hearing before Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, will include oral arguments from both EFF and the DOJ. For more information about EFF's lawsuit, go here.
Those White House subpoenas
On June 27 the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney, the Department of Justice and the National Security Council for documents related to the National Security Agency's spying program. Last Wednesday, the committee agreed to extend the deadline for the administration to respond.
Disclosure of the requested documents could be a critical step toward revealing the full extent of the NSA's illegal spying and the role that telecommunications companies like AT&T played in it. The American public deserves to know the truth about the program and Congress should, to the fullest extent of its powers, make the Executive Branch comply.
In a letter accompanying the subpoenas, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said the committee had previously made "no fewer than nine formal requests to the Department of Justice and to the White House, seeking information and documents about the authorization of and legal justification for this program. All requests have been rebuffed," Leahy wrote. " Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection.”
To read the four subpoenas, go here.
I'm starting to wonder if Orwell was a prophet...I sincerely hope not - but the rights of the citizens in our country seem to be sliding down an increasingly slippery slope. What frightens me, too - once a freedom is lost, is it ever fully recovered? Is our right to privacy soon to be non-existent? It's a truly frightening prospect. Keep shining the light, my friend. We need to wake up over here.
Posted by: tinker | 31 July 2007 at 01:40
Unbelievable!!! Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I'll have to look into this a little further. I wonder what's going on here in Canada.
Posted by: Carla | 26 July 2007 at 10:22
On a brighter note, I hope you will have a nice evening Tara.
Posted by: rochambeau | 25 July 2007 at 22:21
How can this happen in the United States? Sneaky stuff is happening because people are not paying attention out of ignorance and propaganda.
Posted by: rochambeau | 25 July 2007 at 22:20
Two things hit me: How did it all get to this point? Because Congress and the Senate allowed it. They had no trouble screaming impeachment over Clinton's pecadillo and spending a fortune investigating him only to come up with zilch. But in issues that really matter, they have allowed Buch & Co to become dictators.
The other thing: All that money being wasted analyzing everyone's emails could have had New Orleans on its feet and thriving by now.
Where are the protesters? Where are "we the people"? they had guts and ideals in the 1960s.
Posted by: Colette | 25 July 2007 at 22:08
This is an example of the times we live in putting us in....such a hard place. I don't know how to feel about this! On one hand, it pisses me off if my rights are being violated, but then honestly,I don't want anyone who might be trying another 9/11 to know what the government knows about them. Both my brother and Kory's brother work in Homeland Security, and I don't want to make their jobs an harder when it come to protecting us.
I don't know what the right thing is, when it comes to this. Part of me feels like we can't live like we did before, because the world has changed forever. But, I also know that anyone "who would give up freedom for security deserves neither"...
But Bush. What a dick he is. He makes it impossible to trust him. I just read where he has "ruled" that mercury can continue to be used in children's shots-- even though he said he would have it taken out because of it's link to Autism. Hmmm....I wonder if any Big Pharmaceutical companies might be making any donations, so they can keep their costs down at the risk to our kids? Hmmm....
:/
Posted by: amber | 25 July 2007 at 19:28
Let's see how much Bush & Co. can stall and evade and obstruct. They're getting away with so much it isn't even funny. Have you caught any of the Gonzales testimony? He's practically laughing in their faces. He just down right refuses to answer their questions. As the Brits would say, they're just sticking two fingers up and shitting all over the constitution. Well - the Brits wouldn't say that last thing... that was me.
Posted by: Kim | 25 July 2007 at 17:23
Reading the subpoenas really drives home the severity of the situation ... the Bush Administration's flagrant evasion of accountability and lawfulness needs to be severely dealt with ... I hope that Congress can really see this through. ~JP
Posted by: JanePoe (aka Deborah) | 25 July 2007 at 16:51