New report re: Patriot ActFollow

The upshot to the article being that, without the required documentation, we can't be sure the Patriot Act is only being applied to such suspects.

These things always get boiled down to "Oh, the government doesn't care if you bought an orange" and other such diminishments. The point is that it doesn't matter whether the government cares or not; they still should not have the capacity to check on it without there being dire need. And without accountability that there was dire need.

As I pointed out in the OP, I don't think that these were malicious attempts to spy on their old 5th grade teacher for kicks, but rather a frightening statement about the disregard with which our civil liberties are treated if the FBI can't even be bothered to file the paperwork before (or after) spying on someone.

Edited, Mar 11th 2007 2:07pm by Jophiel

The "T" at the end of PATRIOT is for terrorism. Wikipedia has it's title as: "The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001". However, the powers of the act aren't specifically limited to terrorists (or even potential terrorists). And of course the act isn't limited to the duration of the "war" or terrorism...not that that one is going to end anytime soon anyhow...(but say, to the destruction or effective dismantlement of, say, 75% of al qaeda or whatever - and renewed by vote any time as needed if another organization crops up).

In congressional testimony about how effective we've been with the act, large numbers of common criminals were trotted out as if that was any evidence of any reduction in terrorism.

I'm in agreement with the virtual unanimous voice of this forum that the patriotic thing to do is repeal this thing, immediately.

Yes, I'm willing to take that risk...freedom isn't free - and I'm willing to take an extra risk (or, for example, hire more attorneys for the government so they can actually file with the FISA court when they want to wiretap someone instead of just doing it without a warrent...oh how liberal of me).

To be fair Joph, when the NY Times says "enforce the law and defend the constitution", what they really mean is "take positions on issues that we agree with".

Kinda reminds me of an episode of NewsWatch I saw (this weekend I think?). Neal Gabbler (hard core liberal) made a couple salient points about the while Libby case and the outting of Plame. But then he made a statement that kinda stuck with me. They were talking about whether the case would have a chilling effect on journalists being able to protect their sources down the line, and he said something to the effect that this case was damaging because it would harm "legitimate whistleblowers" down the line. He then went on to say something about how journalists should be more careful to make sure that when they pursue a story about something that may be a "secret" that they only do so if it's in the "interests of the people".


And that last bit struck me. Because who decides whether something is in the interest of the public or not? If you are anti-war, you certainly would see Plames outting as a violation of the public good since you believe that the public good is to avoid going to war, and Plames outting is percieved to be an attack against someone who agrees with you on that issue. But if you truely believed (for example) that Iraq's pursuit of uranium from Africa represented a huge threat to the US (and a valid justificaiton for war) and that Joe Wilson's op-ed piece generated misinformation about what was really happening which would convince people that the threat was not as great as it was and therefor would undermine what you believe is in the public good, you might see Plames outting as a legitimate whistleblowing act.


Afterall, if you reversed the situation, and Al Gore had won the presidency, and his administration was downplaying Iran's attempts to purchase uranium, but a member of the CIA inserted her pro-war husband into an investigation so that he could write an op-ed challenging the position of the Gore administration, you can bet that if that relationship was revealed, I'm quite certain that we would be discussing it with terms like "whistleblowing", and not focused on the "outting" of the CIA agent.


It's just interesting how often these sorts of judgements depend much more on what "side" you happen to be on then on any real objective moral ruleset.

Shouldn't matter what side you're on in this one.

Valerie Plame was working on counterproliferation in the ME. Surely that is exactly the same thing that Bush and Cheney and Co were supposed to be doing when they illegally invaded Iraq. the very thing that they were trying to justify with their 'yellowcake' stories....


Plames outing was a vindictive act. Nothing more.

You are correct. It shouldn't matter. However, it is painfully obvious that for most people, it does matter.

Read the alternate scenario I presented. If that had been the set of circumstsances surrounding the "outting" of Plame instead of the ones that actually happened, do you really think it would be called an "outting", instead of a "whistleblowing"? How the media reacts to a story has a *huge* effect on hos the public percieves it. Who decided that the revelation that the CIA agent who sent Joe Wilson on his trip to Niger was his own wife was an act of "outting a CIA agent", instead of "whistleblowing on a case of falsified intelligence"?



Did you know that there were a total of three nations approached by Iraq for the purpose of trying to buy uranium during the time period in question?

Did you know that Joe Wilson was only one (and the least "official" one at that) person sent to investigate just one of those three cases?

Did you know that Joe Wilson's op-ed piece didn't actually debunk GWB's famous "16 words" about Iraq seeking to obtain uranium from Africa?

Did you know that Joe Wilson's op-ed piece was so full of holes (including from his own report to the CIA on the subject) that it could have been trivially debunked if the White House had simply sat any press secretary with a couple slides in front of a room of reporters?

Shouldn't you be asking yourself why the White House would choose to out Plame instead of simply showing Wilson's op-ed to be a steaming pile of ridiculous falshoods?



While just a pet theory of mine I've been mulling around, but how about this for a conspiracy theory:

Plame's outting occured in order to provide smokescreen for Joe Wilson's op-ed piece. Anyone who was anti-war liked what Wilson said, but it was clear that it could not and would not stand up to any sort of scrutiny. The innuendo in it was too vague and too easily debunked. The evidence that Iraq had in fact attempted to purchase uranium on multiple occasions from multiple nations was overwhelming. However, if it were to be revealed to the public that Wilson was sent to Niger from his own wife (working for the CIA) in such a way as to make it look like the administration did this to get back at Joe Wilson for writing his piece, then it would strengthen Wilson's op-ed. If it could then be insinuated that Plame was an undercover operative with the CIA and that this outting might just violated national security, then you can create a *huge* hoopla over the whole thing, point the finger at the Bush admininistration, and make it impossible for them to *ever* bring up the subject of Wilson's op-ed again. This means that the last word the public hears on the subject is what Wilson said in his op-ed, giving anti-war folks a strong bit of rhetoric to use for their cause.


Think about it. Who "won" from all of this? Bush? Cheney? Libby? Nope. The only victory here was for those who were opposed to the war and wanted to convince the public that Iraq really was never any sort of threat. By making it appear that Wilson'd op-ed was true. So true that the only recourse the Bush administration had was to attack him through his wife, it silences any other evidence to the contrary, effectively convincing the public that Bush lied about the threat from Iraq, which in turn leads right into the argument that we shouldn't be in Iraq, the war is illegal, etc... We could make the argument that this one bit of misdirection had a *huge* effect on changing people's opinions about the pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Had the public at large learned the actual number of overtures Iraq made to various nations while trying to obtain uranium, they might not buy the whole "Iraq wasn't doing anything wrong" argument nearly as easily.


Sure. It's a theory. There's no way to prove it. But it absolutely makes no sense for the White House to do this. They could have easily presented the evidence they'd been collecting on Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium. The *last* thing they would want is a huge media blowout going in another direction. The Plame outting would only provide smokescreen for Wilson. It would not debunk or disprove his op-ed at all.

And the fact that the leak actually occured as a result of a State Department official (Richard Armitage) who was opposed to the Iraq war, talking to a reporter (Bob Novak) who was *also* opposed to a war in Iraq, kinda seems "odd", don't you think? How is the White House involved in any of this? How is Libby involved in any of this? Why were so many of the arguments made in the case against Libby about Plame, her outting, and innuendo about more "conspiracy" involving more senior members, when Libby was not charged with leaking her identity, nor did he leak it (known fact now), and in fact the prosecutor knew that he wasn't the leaker *before* the interviews which resulted in the purgery charges were conducted?


The whole thing is whitewash. Armitage leaked her identity. Oddly, he's not been charged with any crime. Why is that? Anyone got any ideas?...

But he did reveal the identity of Valery Plame, right?

I could have sworn that's the crime that Fitzgerald was supposed to investgate, right? Why then ignore the guy who actually did it, and instead go after everyone in the Bush administration staff until he got one to make conflicting statements?


That doesn't strike you as odd?

Or perhaps investigating a fishy real estate deal, having evidence appear that your suspect has been having an affair, then allowing the entire investigation get sidetracked over whether he did or did not "have sex with that woman".

Yeah. Sounds like more Liberal smokescreen.

Again. Ask youself who benefited from Starr's sidetrip into Bill's *******? Ever consider that Clinton would rather get raked over the coals over an affair (an issue he knew would not really get him in any trouble), or over his very questionable (and very very illegal) business dealings?

Those of us who wanted the idiot to investigate the actual thing he was supposed to investigate were and are still pissed off about this.



Um... Okaaaaay. Since you mentioned it twice, I've got to ask: Where on earth do you get the idea that Libby "volunteered" that he was a source of the leak? IIRC, the most he ever said was that he did talk about it with a couple reporters, but only after the subject had been brought up to him by reporters.

That's not exactly the same thing. He never said that he was the leak. In fact, he argued constantly that he was *not* the source of the leak.



No. He should have been investigating the guy who actually leaked the information. You know. The reason he was conducting the investigation in the first place?

Libby was charged with perjury because his testimony to the FBI did not match that which he gave to Fitzgerald about 8 months later. However, the questioning of Libby by Fitzgerald occured *after* Fitzgerald had already learned who the leaker was. He already knew who was responsible, so why continue questioning others about it?

Why indeed? Unless the point wasn't to find and prosecute the person responsible for the leak, but to use the leak as an excuse to get as many administration officials under oath as possible and see what sort of fruit would fall out of the tree.


Seriously. I'll ask again. Why hasn't Armitage been charged with a crime?

Why hasn't Armitage been charged with a crime?

Because he didn't commit one. It's not ******* rocket science.

Could have been worse, I guess. White House wanted to fire all 93 of 'em.



So who's on the hook for this? The aide who carried out the hatchet job, of course.

Gonzales and Miers, the oh-so-eminently qualified toady.

Could have been worse, I guess. White House wanted to fire all 93 of 'em.

Would have been a much better idea. Non prejudicial. The problem was only firing some of them, seemingly only for political reasons.

Before Gbaji whines in, let me mention that Clinton fired them all when he took office, because he realized that exactly this type of problem could occur if he only fired certain ones.

Um. Armitage was "the leak". He spoke directly to Novak, and Novak wrote the article in question. He had direct access to the information in question (state department). There is no evidence at all that the White House itself was involved in any component of that particular leak.

Libby, by contrast may or may not have provided the same information to Miller (he claims he didn't, she originally claimed he didn't, but then changed her story and said that he did once she was asked to make a sworn statement). In any case, since Miller never wrote any story about this that reached public eyes or ears during the time in question, this cannot have been "a leak", let alone "the leak".



Sure. After the fact. He testified twice. Once to the FBI and again about 8 months later as part of the Fitzgerald investigation (notably, after Fitzgerald already knew that Armitage was the one who passed the information to Novak). The perjury charges stem essentially from two assumptions:

1. That since Libby's statement do not match those of the two reporters involved, he must have been the one lying.

2. Since he was lying, his earlier testimony to the FBI must *also* have been a lie.


Much of the reason for believing the reporters over Libby is due to some inconsistencies in statements made in the two testimonies. But that's not really unusual when asked to provide statements under oath 8 or so months apart. Essentially, Libby appeared to be less truthful, not because anyone could show that he lied, but because he was put under oath twice, while the reporters only had to provide statements once. It's easy to be consistent when you only do it once. It's really hard to be consistent when you do it twice with a large gap of time in between. Thus, his statements appeared less consistent, giving the impression of falshood, making the reporters statements appear more truthful by comparison, and the whole thing snowballs from there.

The point being that you can almost always find evidence of perjury if you look hard enough and question enough people. Libby just happened to be the unlucky guy.

Much of the reason for believing the reporters over Libby is due to some inconsistencies in statements made in the two testimonies. But that's not really unusual when asked to provide statements under oath 8 or so months apart. Essentially, Libby appeared to be less truthful, not because anyone could show that he lied, but because he was put under oath twice, while the reporters only had to provide statements once. It's easy to be consistent when you only do it once. It's really hard to be consistent when you do it twice with a large gap of time in between. Thus, his statements appeared less consistent, giving the impression of falshood, making the reporters statements appear more truthful by comparison, and the whole thing snowballs from there

Yeah, you still have no idea what happened. It's amazing. How hard is it to spend 5 minutes finding out.

Mesmerizing.

You realize that your argument is that a reporter went to federal prison to protect Libby's anonymity as a source, and then lied about what he told her after he waived his anonymity to get he out of jail.

Right. Plausible as hell.