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Interesting date, isn’t this the month of CIA leak activities by certain high officials in the White House, and the smear campaign initiated toward former Ambassador Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame?
United States Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence
John D. Rockefeller IV ViceChairman
July 17, 2003
Dear Mr. Vice President,
I am writing to reiterate my concern regarding the sensitive intelligence issues we discussed today with the DCI, DIRNSA, Chairman Roberts and our House Intelligence Committee counterparts.
Clearly, the activities we discussed raise profound oversight issues. As you know, I am neither a technician nor an attorney. Given the security restrictions associated with this information, and my inability to consult staff or counsel of my own, I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities.
As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter’s TIA project sprung to mind, exacerbating my concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance.
Without more information and the ability to draw on any independent legal or technical expertise, I simply cannot satisfy lingering concerns raised by the briefing we received.
I am retaining a copy of this letter in a sealed envelope in the secure spaces of the Senate Intelligence Committee to ensure that I have a record of this communication.
I appreciate your consideration of my views.
Most respectfully,
Jay Rockefeller
Copy handwritten letter pdf file
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Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., right, accompanied by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., gestures during a Capitol Hill news conference to respond President Bush, where the president said he approved domestic spying on suspected terrorists without court orders. 'Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?' said Levin. AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke
John D. Rockefeller IV | VP Cheney | John Poindexter | TIA project | “Jeb Bush” MATRIX |
Daschle and Pelosi recently backed Robert Lenhard, associate general counsel of ASCME and one of the lawyers who opposed the BCRA in federal court, to replace Scott Thomas on the Commission. Counsel Robert Lenhard is spouse of Time Magazine reporter Viveca Novak.
- We’d occasionally meet for a drink – he didn’t like having lunch – at Café Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, near the National Cathedral and on my route home. In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on.
I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation. “Well,” he said, “You’re sitting next to Karl Rove’s lawyer.” I was genuinely surprised, since Luskin’s liberal sympathies were no secret …
Newsweek by Jonathan Alter
The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security.
Dec. 19, 2005 — Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate–he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda–but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.
Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-WV):
REACTS TO REPORTS OF NSA INTERCEPT PROGRAM IN UNITED STATES
For the last few days, I have witnessed the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General repeatedly misrepresent the facts.
“The record needs to be set clear that the Administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove the NSA program. …. Read all at the Senator’s site.
In researching the constitutional crisis precipitated by George Bush’s claim to absolute power under the Commander in Chief language of the first clause of Article II, Section 2 of The Constitution of the United States of America …
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY
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When you are personally briefed on intelligence and you can’t act on it, to perform task of scrutiny and oversight, take this advice: don’t accept the secretive briefing. You’ll be compromised in the future for having been informed in a timely manner.
Basics I learned long time ago, working with a Workers Council in hi-tech company in Europe.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
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Rockefeller was one smart cookie when he decided to make a copy of that letter. Do you think he knew this would come out eventually? He knew that they would say that they briefed him later down the road? Could he have been the one to leak to NYT?
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I would answer affirmative on your first three statements and I am certain, as Jay Rockefeller knows the reach of NSA and Echelon, he would never be the person leaking classified information to the media.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY
Laws, to Bush are technicalities, clutter to work around and sweep out of the way.
He is so swept up in that mindset that he is openly disdainful of attempts to reign him in.
“I will continue this program”, he said.
“Of course I will broaden it to domestic citizens, if I think it is necessary. I can do that”, he said.
I heard him.
This open disregard of the President of the United States for the most basic of civil rights for his fellow citizens, is a crisis like we’ve never seen before.
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“They misunderestimated me.”–Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000
“The legislature’s job is to write law. It’s the executive branch’s job to interpret law.”–Austin, Texas, Nov. 22, 2000
“I am mindful of the difference between the executive branch and the legislative branch. I assured all four of these leaders that I know the difference, and that difference is they pass the laws and I execute them.” –Washington, D.C., Dec. 18, 2000
“We’ve had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I’ve spoken out consistently against them, and I want to know who the leakers are.”–Chicago, Sept. 30, 2003
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
for bringing up the word Impeachment in resonse to John Dean saying this is illegal. I wrote her the following:
Dear Senator Boxer,
I wanted to thank you for bringing up the issue of Impeachment. There are too many offenses to list that this Cabal has committed but we just may finally have them “red” handed. This administration continues to display their total disrespect for the Constitution of the United States of America. To say “I have the authority to spy on Americans” is dead wrong of this President. He has broken more laws than any other President in history.
Please Barbara, continue to beat this drum. The American people deserve so much more than what this administration is giving us. He is trying with all his arrogance to dismantel our democracy and Constitution while promoting the likes in Iraq where he took us to an illegal occupation based on lies, lies and more lies. I will do whatever you ask(and there are millions of us Barbara) in order to change the direction this administration has taken our country in.
While you are at it you may ask about John Bolton’s “secret” papers they would not release about his intercept requests during his confirmation hearings. They may just hold the “smoking gun” you will need to nail these SOBs.
Respectfully,
Me
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Senator Barbara Boxer and/or Democrats.com
Donkey Kicks Ass This WeekCongressional Proceedings
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
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Conyers’s excellent job and keeps the coverage actual until Congress retakes power to “We The People”.
John Conyers Jr.
Senate Speech Robert E. Byrd – Dec. 19
:: No President Is Above the Law
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
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