So now its official, the Regime spied on just about everyone, suspected terrorist or NOT {10/26/06}. As spymaster Michael Hayden [NYT photo, r] cryptically told Congress members, the President's surveillance program was "bigger than a bread box". Inspector generals of the nation's intelligence agencies have completed the report required by the 2008 FISA amendments and the news is shocking, if that emotion is still operative after eight years of an authoritarian government installed by a conservative supreme judiciary. The former chief executive directed that the considerable signals intelligence resources of the National Security Agency be used to detect and prevent acts of terror in the US. The agency previously had been prohibited from conducting domestic collection activity. As the report pointed out in its conclusion, it was "inappropriate and extraordinary" that a single Department of Justice attorney, John Yoo {The Naked Yoo, 3.5.09}, was relied on to provide the initial analysis of the legality of the program without the oversight and review that is customarily the practice at DOJ. The result was a legal analysis "that at a minimum was factually flawed". DOJ's inspector general concluded Yoo's analysis was legally deficient to the extent that it presented a "serious impediment" to re-certifying the program. Nevertheless the collection effort became "unprecedented" in scope and went beyond the warrantless wiretapping authorized by the Charlatan. Those other programs are still secret[1]. The pregnant question Team 44 has been dodging since it took office, is what will 44 do about the rampant violation of our civil rights? Nothing less than criminal investigations and prosecutions are in order. But 44's only response so far as been to threaten a veto of legislation in the House intended to expand access to secret intelligence briefings.
[1] the latest revelation is 'Darth' Cheney ordered the CIA to keep the existence of a secret assassination program from Congress. If the story is substantiated, then Cheney could be prosecuted for yet another violation of federal law. How many apparent violations it will take before he is indicted remains to be seen.