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Internet Archive's NSL Challenge

FBI Withdraws Unconstitutional NSL Served on Internet Archive On November 26, 2007, the FBI served a National Security Letter NSL on the Internet Archive, a digital library. The letter sought personal information about one of the Archive s users, including the individual s NAME, address, and any electronic communication transactional records pertaining to the user. The NSL also included a gag order, prohibiting the Archive and its counsel from revealing the existence of the letter.

Top court rejects ACLU domestic spying lawsuit

The American Civil Liberties Union wanted the court to allow a lawsuit by the group and individuals over the wiretapping program. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs could not prove their communications had been monitored.

Phone companies and the surveillance state

The US Senate is set to vote on giving phone carriers retroactive immunity for surveillance of US citizens. Just a little something to make life easier for the National Security Agency (NSA).

Vast data mining programs behind 2004 dispute within Bush administration

A New York Times article published Sunday reports that a dispute within the Bush administration over its domestic spying programs in 2004 centered on so-called data mining operations. These programs involve accessing massive databases of communications logs both foreign and domestic to search for links and associations between tens of millions of people.

James Comey’s testimony raises question: How extensive is police state spying in the US

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey s testimony before a Senate panel May 15 raises a number of important questions about the extent of domestic spying in the United States. Comey s testimony gives further credence to reports that the monitoring programs set up by the American government to spy on telephone calls and e-mails are far more expansive than anything that has been officially acknowledged.

White House, NSA staffers bought fake diplomas from Spokane Web site

A White House staff member and National Security Agency employees were among 6,000 people who bought bogus online college degrees from a diploma mill, a federal judge has been told.

Judge rebukes wiretap program

Bush probably thinks she hates America and is with the terrorists.

U.S. threatens suit if Maine probes Verizon ties to NSA

"Verizon may have broken the law, and the Department of Justice is overstepping its bounds in trying to intimidate the state PUC from investigating the potential violation," said Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union. "And I do think it sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent for the federal government to threaten to sue the state, (which is) merely doing its job."

NSA risking electrical overload

The demand for electricity to operate its expanding intelligence systems has left the high-tech eavesdropping agency on the verge of exceeding its power supply, the lifeblood of its sprawling 350-acre Fort Meade headquarters, according to current and former intelligence officials. William Nolte, a former NSA executive who spent decades with the agency, said power disruptions would severely hamper the agency. "You've got an awfully big computer plant and a lot of precision equipment, and I don't think they would handle power surges and the like really well," he said. "Even re-calibrating equipment would be really time consuming -- with lost opportunities and lost up-time."

Specter's NSA Plan Hits Snag

A White House-endorsed plan to formally legalize the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program ran into more political problems yesterday in the Senate, as Democrats successfully maneuvered to block a committee vote on the proposal. In addition, three of the committee's leading Democrats announced that they would block the confirmation of a senior Justice Department official in protest of a recent move by President Bush.

Blumenthal: The neocons' next war

By secretly providing NSA intelligence to Israel and undermining the hapless Condi Rice, hardliners in the Bush administration are trying to widen the Middle East conflict to Iran and Syria, not stop it.

Bush Would Let Secret Court Sift Wiretap Process

After months of resistance, the White House agreed Thursday to allow a secret intelligence court to review the legality of the National Security Agency s program to conduct wiretaps without warrants on Americans suspected of having ties to terrorists. The plan, brokered over the last three weeks in negotiations between Senator Arlen Specter and senior White House officials, including President Bush himself Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said she saw the Specter-White House agreement as an end run around the FISA law requiring the approval of individual wiretapping warrants.

Ignoring the Obvious Meaning of Hamdan

McCain's suggestion that Hamdan has no bearing on the President's other controversial programs is entirely disingenuous. Unfortunately, I expect others will soon follow his lead, if they haven't already. The goods new, though, is that federal judges--who will be the first to hear challenges to these other programs--are bound by the reasoning of Hamdan, not the illogical pontifications of Republican flacks. Thank goodness for that.

Lawmakers: NSA database incomplete

Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees confirm that the National Security Agency has compiled a massive database of domestic phone call records. But some lawmakers also say that cooperation by the nation's telecommunication companies was not as extensive as first reported by USA TODAY on May 11.

Look Out, David Addington's Head Just Exploded

The Hamdan decision represents, in my opinion, a fatal blow to the Addington/Yoo theory of executive power. For the last four years, the Bush administration has been advancing the theory, both publicly and in its internal legal memoranda, that, as Commander in Chief, the president has the sole discretion to make all decisions regarding war-related issues, even when a duly enacted statute purports to limit his authority. This legal theory serves as the basis for not only the system of military tribunals at Guantanamo, but also the NSA program and the interrogation methods endorsed by the administration.