Declan McCullagh
January 26, 2012
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57366443-281/hawaii-may-keep-track-of-all-web-sites-visited
Hawaii's legislature is weighing an unprecedented proposal to curb the privacy of Aloha State residents: requiring Internet providers to keep track of every Web site their customers visit.
Its House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing this morning on a new bill requiring the creation of virtual dossiers on state residents. The measure, H.B. 2288, says "Internet destination history information" and "subscriber's information" such as name and address must be saved for two years.
H.B. 2288, which was introduced Friday, says the dossiers must include a list of Internet Protocol addresses and domain names visited. Democratic Rep. John Mizuno of Oahu is the lead sponsor; Mizuno also introduced H.B. 2287, a computer crime bill, at the same time last week.
Last summer, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) managed to persuade a divided committee in the U.S. House of Representatives to approve his data retention proposal, which doesn't go nearly as far as Hawaii's. (Smith, currently Hollywood's favorite Republican, has become better known as the author of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.)
Democrat Jill Tokuda, the Hawaii Senate's majority whip, who introduced a companion bill, S.B. 2530, in the Senate, told CNET that her legislation was intended to address concerns raised by Rep. Kymberly Pine, the first Republican elected to her Oahu district since statehood and the House minority floor leader.
"I was asked to introduce the Senate companions on these Internet security related bills by Representative Kymberly Marcos Pine after her own personal experience in this area," Tokuda said. "I would defer to her on the origins of these bills as she has done the research and outreach, and been the main champion of this effort."
Pine, who did not immediately respond to queries, has been targeted by a disgruntled Web designer, Eric Ryan, who launched KymPineIsACrook.com and claims she owes him money, according to an article last summer in the Hawaii Reporter. Her e-mail account was also reportedly hacked around the same time. The article said Pine would advocate for "tougher cyber laws at the Hawaii State Capitol" as a result.
"We must do everything we can to protect the people of Hawaii from these attacks and give prosecutors the tools to ensure justice is served for victims," Pine said at the time.
Whatever its sponsors' motivations, the bill isn't exactly being welcomed by Hawaiian Internet companies.
"This bill represents a radical violation of privacy and opens the door to rampant Fourth Amendment violations," says Daniel Leuck, chief executive of Honolulu-based software design boutique Ikayzo, who submitted testimony opposing the bill. He adds: "Even forcing telephone companies to record everyone's conversations, which is unthinkable, would be less of an intrusion."
Mizuno's proposal currently specifies no privacy protections, such as placing restrictions on what Internet providers can do with this information (like selling user profiles to advertisers) or requiring that police obtain a court order before perusing the virtual dossiers of Hawaiian citizens. Also absent are security requirements such as mandating the use of encryption.
Because the wording is so broad and applies to any company that "provides access to the Internet," Mizuno's legislation could sweep in far more than AT&T, Verizon, and Hawaii's local Internet providers. It could also impose sweeping new requirements on coffee shops, bookstores, and hotels frequented by the over 6 million tourists who visit the islands each year.
"H.B. 2288 raises all of the traditional concerns associated with data retention, and then some," Kate Dean, head of the U.S. Internet Service Provider Association in Washington, D.C., which counts Verizon and AT&T as members, told CNET. "And this may be the broadest mandate we've seen."
Even the Justice Department has only lobbied the U.S. Congress to record Internet Protocol addresses assigned to individuals--users' origin IP address, in other words. It hasn't publicly demanded that companies record the destination IP addresses as well.
In Washington, D.C., the fight over data retention requirements has been simmering since the Justice Department pushed the topic in 2005, a development that was first reported by CNET. Proposals publicly surfaced in the U.S. Congress the following year, and President Bush's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said it's an issue that "must be addressed." So, eventually, did FBI director Robert Mueller.
Showing posts with label Robert Mueller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Mueller. Show all posts
Monday, January 30, 2012
Saturday, June 2, 2007
How extensive is police state spying in the US?
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/come-m18.shtml
World Socialist Web Site
Former Justice Department official’s testimony raises question:
How extensive is police state spying in the US?
By Joe Kay
18 May 2007
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.
In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey provided details of a confrontation in March 2004 between himself and top White House officials over a warrantless wiretapping program operated by the National Security Agency (NSA). Even in the form later acknowledged by the President, the program violates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Comey, backed by then Attorney General John Ashcroft and then FBI director Robert Mueller, refused to give Justice Department approval for the program’s reauthorization. He grounded his position on a finding by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that the program had no legal justification. Comey’s stance provoked a sharp conflict with the White House, particularly with then White House counsel and current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and then White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, backed by Vice President Cheney. (See “Former Justice Department official describes illegal actions by Bush administration in defense of domestic spying”)
According to Comey, certain changes were made in the program after he and others objected, and these changes were sufficient to allow the Justice Department to ratify the program’s legality. The unanswered questions, however, remain: what precisely were these changes, and what was it that Comey and others opposed? How expansive was the spying program authorized after the September 11 attacks? These are not simply historical questions. There can be little doubt that all these domestic spying operations continue today, even if in a different guise.
Editorials in the New York Times and the Washington Post on Thursday touched on these matters. The Times wrote, “The really big question ... is what exactly the national Security Agency was doing before that night [when Comey refused to reauthorize the program], under Mr. Bush’s personal orders. Did Mr. Bush start by authorizing the agency to intercept domestic e-mails and telephone calls without first getting a warrant?”
In December 2005, after an article appeared in the Times describing aspects of the NSA program, Bush acknowledged the existence of an operation he insisted only involved communications that either came from or were sent to someone residing outside the United States. The Times is suggesting that prior to the confrontation with Comey, the program may have included warrantless spying on communications entirely within the United States—an even more flagrant violation of FISA.
The nature of the dispute with Comey is illuminated by Congressional testimony given by Gonzales in February 2006, after he had assumed the post of attorney general. In that testimony, which the Bush administration insisted not be conducted under oath, Gonzales said that there had been no “serious disagreement” from Comey or other administration officials “about the program that the president has confirmed.” He said, however, that there had been “disagreements about other matters regarding operations, which I cannot get into.”
It its editorial Thursday, the Times noted that Gonzales must have been referring in this testimony to the program that included the modifications after an agreement had been reached with Comey. This is the same program whose existence has been acknowledged by Bush.
The Post raised the same point in its editorial on Thursday, asking, “What was the administration doing, and what was it willing to continue to do, that its lawyers concluded was without a legal basis?”
The very fact that both these newspapers of the political establishment raise these questions is a good indication that they have information that the spying programs are in fact much more expansive than has been acknowledged.
Vast databases of information gathered
There are a number of possible elements of the program that might have been the source of opposition within the Justice Department. One relates to the power claimed by the administration to justify the program even though it violates FISA.
The rationale favored by Gonzales, Cheney and top Justice Department aids in power following the attacks of September 11—figures such as John Yoo and Jay Bybee—was that the President has virtually unlimited powers as commander in chief to carry out the “war on terror.”
In 2003, a new group of officials came into the Justice Department, including Comey and Jack Goldsmith, the new assistant attorney general. According to a number of media reports (including a February 6, 2006 article in Newsweek, “Domestic Spying: Bush Appointees Revolt”), these officials resisted the blanket executive power argument, which gave the President essentially dictatorial powers to override the law. They favored basing the rationale for the spying program on the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress following the September 11 attacks.
To use AUMF as a rationale for warrantless spying, however, was not only a groundless application of that resolution (which says nothing about spying), but it would also constrain the targets of the actions to “those nations, organizations, or persons [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorists attacks” of September 11.
This would imply that prior to March 2004, the program involved spying on broad sections of the American population, without even the pretense of restricting targets to associates of Al Qaeda. The new program as acknowledged by the President would have to be at least nominally more restrictive, though the additional powers could be shifted to other programs that have not been acknowledged.
Another possibility is that suggested by the Times, namely that the communications monitored included those entirely within the US. One reason to suppose that purely domestic spying was involved was the close involvement of Mueller, the head of the FBI, in the dispute between Comey and the White House. The FBI is involved primarily in domestic spying, while the NSA and CIA spy internationally. According to Comey, Bush met personally with Mueller to help work out a compromise. The NSA was apparently not involved at all in these discussions. Why was Mueller involved? Was he upset about the encroachment of the NSA into the FBI’s traditional field of operations?
Most likely, the basis of the disputes was a combination of these factors—the program was so expansive and unconstrained that it encompassed virtually anyone. It is worth recalling the description given by the Times in its original December 2005 article revealing the program’s existence. Citing “senior government officials,” the newspaper reported that: “when the special operation first began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight outside the NSA. The agency can choose its eavesdropping targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or other Bush administration officials.”
The newspaper wrote at the time that these unnamed officials were “apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation.”
Moreover, the press itself has reported the existence of programs extending far beyond what has been officially acknowledged. The Times reported on December 24, 2005, that “The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged ... It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries.”
In 2006, a former technician at AT&T, Mark Klein, produced documents showing that the telecommunications giant was routing large amounts of internet communications directly to the NSA “Based on my understanding of the connections and equipment at issue,” Klein said at the time, “it appears the NSA is capable of conducting what amounts to vacuum-cleaner surveillance of all the data crossing the Internet—whether that be people’s e-mail, Web surfing or other data.”
In the spring of 2006, USA Today reported that three telecommunications companies—AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth—had handed over to the NSA the calling records of hundreds of millions of telephone customers, including 80 percent of the landline and 50 percent of the wireless users in the US.
Framework of a police state
These programs constitute the framework of a police state in the United States. They provide the government with information that can be used to intimidate, undermine or blackmail any individual or group it chooses, including political opponents.
The expansion of spying powers is part of a much broader attack on the most fundamental democratic rights of the population in the US and internationally. The “war on terror” has been used to justify torture, the denial of habeas corpus, the creation of drumhead military commissions and the imprisonment of “enemy combatants”—including US citizens—indefinitely and without charge.
All of this has been justified as a response to September 11, an event that has never been seriously investigated. These attacks, for which there is substantial evidence of some level of government involvement, have become the pretext not only for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also for a frontal attack on the constitutional order in the United States.
The spying programs continue to this day. Whatever changes may have been made when Comey raised objections, they most likely involved shifting certain operations from one program to another. Russel Tice, a former NSA employee, has said that the agency has been authorized to engage in much broader spying than the government has admitted as part of a top-secret “special access program.”
As for those officials who raised objections, most have been pushed out of the Justice Department in one way or another. Gonzales meanwhile has become the attorney general.
The methods of criminality and gangsterism—including the revelation that Gonzales and Card went to the hospital bed of the ailing Ashcroft in order to pressure him to override Comey and endorse the program—reflect the nature of the regime and the aims it is pursuing. The firing of the US attorneys is part of this. The principal aim of these firings was to push an attack on voting rights in order to manipulate the 2006 elections.
Five years after the spying programs were initiated, and a year and a half after hints of their existence were revealed in the American media, the public still has no knowledge of what information the government is collecting and what it is being used for. The Bush administration has refused to provide any details, citing “national security.”
What is perhaps most striking is the way in which all of this has produced no serious opposition from the Democratic Party or mass media. Aside from a few revelations, the media has not pursued the issue. It is worth recalling that the Times sat on the initial story on the NSA program for over a year at the request of the White House, helping to ensure that it did not come up as an issue in the 2004 elections. The Times editorial on Thursday ends merely with the hope that Congress will conduct a “vigorous investigation.”
The Democratic Party has also made very little of the spying programs and has not pursued the issue since gaining control of Congress in January. No leading Democrat has called for an end to the programs, and there has yet been no call for the impeachment and prosecution of those who have clearly violated the law on an unprecedented scale.
The reaction of the Democrats to this massive assault on the constitution has been characterized by both cowardice and complicity. They are unwilling to explain to the population what is really taking place and why these domestic spying programs have been implemented. The entire political establishment accepts the lie of the “war on terror,” and, to the extent that there are criticisms, they proceed from the premise that the Bush administration has “overreached” in prosecuting this war.
In fact, these measures have nothing to do with combating terrorism. Laws such as FISA were put in place following revelations of spying on political opponents of government police. These laws are now being repudiated, and an even more expansive database of information is being collected, primarily for use in countering the inevitable explosion of social tensions and mass political opposition in the United States.
The main threat perceived by the political establishment, including both the Democrats and the Republicans, is not Al Qaeda, but the broad mass of American working people, which is coming increasingly into conflict with the right-wing and militarist policies of the American ruling elite.
World Socialist Web Site
Former Justice Department official’s testimony raises question:
How extensive is police state spying in the US?
By Joe Kay
18 May 2007
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.
In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey provided details of a confrontation in March 2004 between himself and top White House officials over a warrantless wiretapping program operated by the National Security Agency (NSA). Even in the form later acknowledged by the President, the program violates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Comey, backed by then Attorney General John Ashcroft and then FBI director Robert Mueller, refused to give Justice Department approval for the program’s reauthorization. He grounded his position on a finding by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that the program had no legal justification. Comey’s stance provoked a sharp conflict with the White House, particularly with then White House counsel and current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and then White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, backed by Vice President Cheney. (See “Former Justice Department official describes illegal actions by Bush administration in defense of domestic spying”)
According to Comey, certain changes were made in the program after he and others objected, and these changes were sufficient to allow the Justice Department to ratify the program’s legality. The unanswered questions, however, remain: what precisely were these changes, and what was it that Comey and others opposed? How expansive was the spying program authorized after the September 11 attacks? These are not simply historical questions. There can be little doubt that all these domestic spying operations continue today, even if in a different guise.
Editorials in the New York Times and the Washington Post on Thursday touched on these matters. The Times wrote, “The really big question ... is what exactly the national Security Agency was doing before that night [when Comey refused to reauthorize the program], under Mr. Bush’s personal orders. Did Mr. Bush start by authorizing the agency to intercept domestic e-mails and telephone calls without first getting a warrant?”
In December 2005, after an article appeared in the Times describing aspects of the NSA program, Bush acknowledged the existence of an operation he insisted only involved communications that either came from or were sent to someone residing outside the United States. The Times is suggesting that prior to the confrontation with Comey, the program may have included warrantless spying on communications entirely within the United States—an even more flagrant violation of FISA.
The nature of the dispute with Comey is illuminated by Congressional testimony given by Gonzales in February 2006, after he had assumed the post of attorney general. In that testimony, which the Bush administration insisted not be conducted under oath, Gonzales said that there had been no “serious disagreement” from Comey or other administration officials “about the program that the president has confirmed.” He said, however, that there had been “disagreements about other matters regarding operations, which I cannot get into.”
It its editorial Thursday, the Times noted that Gonzales must have been referring in this testimony to the program that included the modifications after an agreement had been reached with Comey. This is the same program whose existence has been acknowledged by Bush.
The Post raised the same point in its editorial on Thursday, asking, “What was the administration doing, and what was it willing to continue to do, that its lawyers concluded was without a legal basis?”
The very fact that both these newspapers of the political establishment raise these questions is a good indication that they have information that the spying programs are in fact much more expansive than has been acknowledged.
Vast databases of information gathered
There are a number of possible elements of the program that might have been the source of opposition within the Justice Department. One relates to the power claimed by the administration to justify the program even though it violates FISA.
The rationale favored by Gonzales, Cheney and top Justice Department aids in power following the attacks of September 11—figures such as John Yoo and Jay Bybee—was that the President has virtually unlimited powers as commander in chief to carry out the “war on terror.”
In 2003, a new group of officials came into the Justice Department, including Comey and Jack Goldsmith, the new assistant attorney general. According to a number of media reports (including a February 6, 2006 article in Newsweek, “Domestic Spying: Bush Appointees Revolt”), these officials resisted the blanket executive power argument, which gave the President essentially dictatorial powers to override the law. They favored basing the rationale for the spying program on the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress following the September 11 attacks.
To use AUMF as a rationale for warrantless spying, however, was not only a groundless application of that resolution (which says nothing about spying), but it would also constrain the targets of the actions to “those nations, organizations, or persons [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorists attacks” of September 11.
This would imply that prior to March 2004, the program involved spying on broad sections of the American population, without even the pretense of restricting targets to associates of Al Qaeda. The new program as acknowledged by the President would have to be at least nominally more restrictive, though the additional powers could be shifted to other programs that have not been acknowledged.
Another possibility is that suggested by the Times, namely that the communications monitored included those entirely within the US. One reason to suppose that purely domestic spying was involved was the close involvement of Mueller, the head of the FBI, in the dispute between Comey and the White House. The FBI is involved primarily in domestic spying, while the NSA and CIA spy internationally. According to Comey, Bush met personally with Mueller to help work out a compromise. The NSA was apparently not involved at all in these discussions. Why was Mueller involved? Was he upset about the encroachment of the NSA into the FBI’s traditional field of operations?
Most likely, the basis of the disputes was a combination of these factors—the program was so expansive and unconstrained that it encompassed virtually anyone. It is worth recalling the description given by the Times in its original December 2005 article revealing the program’s existence. Citing “senior government officials,” the newspaper reported that: “when the special operation first began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight outside the NSA. The agency can choose its eavesdropping targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or other Bush administration officials.”
The newspaper wrote at the time that these unnamed officials were “apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation.”
Moreover, the press itself has reported the existence of programs extending far beyond what has been officially acknowledged. The Times reported on December 24, 2005, that “The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged ... It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries.”
In 2006, a former technician at AT&T, Mark Klein, produced documents showing that the telecommunications giant was routing large amounts of internet communications directly to the NSA “Based on my understanding of the connections and equipment at issue,” Klein said at the time, “it appears the NSA is capable of conducting what amounts to vacuum-cleaner surveillance of all the data crossing the Internet—whether that be people’s e-mail, Web surfing or other data.”
In the spring of 2006, USA Today reported that three telecommunications companies—AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth—had handed over to the NSA the calling records of hundreds of millions of telephone customers, including 80 percent of the landline and 50 percent of the wireless users in the US.
Framework of a police state
These programs constitute the framework of a police state in the United States. They provide the government with information that can be used to intimidate, undermine or blackmail any individual or group it chooses, including political opponents.
The expansion of spying powers is part of a much broader attack on the most fundamental democratic rights of the population in the US and internationally. The “war on terror” has been used to justify torture, the denial of habeas corpus, the creation of drumhead military commissions and the imprisonment of “enemy combatants”—including US citizens—indefinitely and without charge.
All of this has been justified as a response to September 11, an event that has never been seriously investigated. These attacks, for which there is substantial evidence of some level of government involvement, have become the pretext not only for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also for a frontal attack on the constitutional order in the United States.
The spying programs continue to this day. Whatever changes may have been made when Comey raised objections, they most likely involved shifting certain operations from one program to another. Russel Tice, a former NSA employee, has said that the agency has been authorized to engage in much broader spying than the government has admitted as part of a top-secret “special access program.”
As for those officials who raised objections, most have been pushed out of the Justice Department in one way or another. Gonzales meanwhile has become the attorney general.
The methods of criminality and gangsterism—including the revelation that Gonzales and Card went to the hospital bed of the ailing Ashcroft in order to pressure him to override Comey and endorse the program—reflect the nature of the regime and the aims it is pursuing. The firing of the US attorneys is part of this. The principal aim of these firings was to push an attack on voting rights in order to manipulate the 2006 elections.
Five years after the spying programs were initiated, and a year and a half after hints of their existence were revealed in the American media, the public still has no knowledge of what information the government is collecting and what it is being used for. The Bush administration has refused to provide any details, citing “national security.”
What is perhaps most striking is the way in which all of this has produced no serious opposition from the Democratic Party or mass media. Aside from a few revelations, the media has not pursued the issue. It is worth recalling that the Times sat on the initial story on the NSA program for over a year at the request of the White House, helping to ensure that it did not come up as an issue in the 2004 elections. The Times editorial on Thursday ends merely with the hope that Congress will conduct a “vigorous investigation.”
The Democratic Party has also made very little of the spying programs and has not pursued the issue since gaining control of Congress in January. No leading Democrat has called for an end to the programs, and there has yet been no call for the impeachment and prosecution of those who have clearly violated the law on an unprecedented scale.
The reaction of the Democrats to this massive assault on the constitution has been characterized by both cowardice and complicity. They are unwilling to explain to the population what is really taking place and why these domestic spying programs have been implemented. The entire political establishment accepts the lie of the “war on terror,” and, to the extent that there are criticisms, they proceed from the premise that the Bush administration has “overreached” in prosecuting this war.
In fact, these measures have nothing to do with combating terrorism. Laws such as FISA were put in place following revelations of spying on political opponents of government police. These laws are now being repudiated, and an even more expansive database of information is being collected, primarily for use in countering the inevitable explosion of social tensions and mass political opposition in the United States.
The main threat perceived by the political establishment, including both the Democrats and the Republicans, is not Al Qaeda, but the broad mass of American working people, which is coming increasingly into conflict with the right-wing and militarist policies of the American ruling elite.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
White House pressed Ashcroft on wiretaps
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070515/ap_on_go_co/eavesdropping
White House pressed Ashcroft on wiretaps
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press
5-15-2007
A top Justice Department official thought President Bush's no-warrant wiretapping program was so questionable that he refused for a time to reauthorize it, leading to a standoff with White House officials at the bedside of the ailing attorney general, a Senate panel was told Tuesday.
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he refused to recertify the program because Attorney General John Ashcroft had reservations about its legality just before falling ill with pancreatitis in March 2004.
The White House, Comey said, recertified the program without the Justice Department's signoff, allowing it to operate for about three weeks without concurrence on whether it was legal. Comey, Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller and other Justice Department officials at one point considered resigning, Comey said.
"I couldn't stay, if the administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis," Comey told the panel.
A day after the March 10, 2004, incident at Ashcroft's hospital bedside, President Bush ordered changes to the program to accommodate the department's concerns. Ashcroft signed the presidential order to recertify the program about three weeks later.
The dramatic hospital confrontation involved Comey, the acting attorney general during Ashcroft's absence, and a White House team that included Bush's then-counsel, Alberto Gonzales, and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, Comey said. Gonzales later succeeded Ashcroft as attorney general.
Senior government officials had expressed concerns about whether the National Security Agency, which administered the warrantless eavesdropping program, had the proper oversight in place. Other concerns included whether any president possessed the legal and constitutional authority to authorize the program as it operated at the time.
Comey testified Tuesday that when he refused to certify the program, Gonzales and Card headed to Ashcroft's sick bed in the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital.
When Gonzales appealed to Ashcroft, the ailing attorney general lifted his head off the pillow and in straightforward terms described his views of the program, Comey said. Then he pointed out that Comey, not Ashcroft, held the powers of the attorney general at that moment.
Gonzales and Card then left the hospital room, Comey said.
"I was angry," Comey told the panel. "I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general."
Comey's testimony revived one of the Bush administration's most bitter internal fights just as Gonzales appeared less under siege about the firings of several U.S. attorneys last year. Bush has stood solidly by his longtime counselor's side; calls for Gonzales' resignation have waned in recent weeks.
Asked about Comey's testimony, White House press secretary Tony Snow said he didn't know anything about the conversation at Ashcroft's bedside. But he defended the program.
"Because he had an appendectomy, his brain didn't work?" Snow said of Ashcroft. "Jim Comey can talk about whatever reservations he may have had. But the fact is that there were strong protections in there, this program has saved lives and it's vital for national security and furthermore has been reformed in a bipartisan way."
Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said he couldn't comment on "internal discussions that may or may have not taken place concerning classified intelligence activities." But he said the program succeeded in helping detect and prevent terrorist attacks and was always subject to rigorous oversight and review.
Democrats cited Comey's testimony as evidence of what they say is Gonzales' tendency to put loyalty to Bush ahead of most everything — including Justice's tradition of independence from the politics of the White House.
"What happened in that hospital room crystallized Mr. Gonzales' view about the rule of law: that he holds it in minimum low regard," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Under questioning by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Comey said he was not threatened by Vice President Dick Cheney or other White House officials who disagreed with him on the legality of the eavesdropping program.
Comey recalled that after the bedside incident he started to offer his resignation and was persuaded to wait a few days until Ashcroft could resign with him. "Mr. Ashcroft's chief of staff asked me something that meant a great deal to him, and that is that I not resign until Mr. Ashcroft was well enough to resign with me," Comey said.
On March 12 at their daily briefing of the president, Bush asked Comey and Mueller for separate private conversations on Justice's concerns about the eavesdropping program. There, Comey said, Bush agreed to do "the right thing."
"We had the president's direction to do what we believed, what the Justice Department believed, was necessary to put this matter on a footing where we could certify to its legality," Comey said of the period after those private meetings. "We did that."
Spokesmen for Ashcroft and Mueller refused requests for comment.
White House pressed Ashcroft on wiretaps
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press
5-15-2007
A top Justice Department official thought President Bush's no-warrant wiretapping program was so questionable that he refused for a time to reauthorize it, leading to a standoff with White House officials at the bedside of the ailing attorney general, a Senate panel was told Tuesday.
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he refused to recertify the program because Attorney General John Ashcroft had reservations about its legality just before falling ill with pancreatitis in March 2004.
The White House, Comey said, recertified the program without the Justice Department's signoff, allowing it to operate for about three weeks without concurrence on whether it was legal. Comey, Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller and other Justice Department officials at one point considered resigning, Comey said.
"I couldn't stay, if the administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis," Comey told the panel.
A day after the March 10, 2004, incident at Ashcroft's hospital bedside, President Bush ordered changes to the program to accommodate the department's concerns. Ashcroft signed the presidential order to recertify the program about three weeks later.
The dramatic hospital confrontation involved Comey, the acting attorney general during Ashcroft's absence, and a White House team that included Bush's then-counsel, Alberto Gonzales, and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, Comey said. Gonzales later succeeded Ashcroft as attorney general.
Senior government officials had expressed concerns about whether the National Security Agency, which administered the warrantless eavesdropping program, had the proper oversight in place. Other concerns included whether any president possessed the legal and constitutional authority to authorize the program as it operated at the time.
Comey testified Tuesday that when he refused to certify the program, Gonzales and Card headed to Ashcroft's sick bed in the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital.
When Gonzales appealed to Ashcroft, the ailing attorney general lifted his head off the pillow and in straightforward terms described his views of the program, Comey said. Then he pointed out that Comey, not Ashcroft, held the powers of the attorney general at that moment.
Gonzales and Card then left the hospital room, Comey said.
"I was angry," Comey told the panel. "I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general."
Comey's testimony revived one of the Bush administration's most bitter internal fights just as Gonzales appeared less under siege about the firings of several U.S. attorneys last year. Bush has stood solidly by his longtime counselor's side; calls for Gonzales' resignation have waned in recent weeks.
Asked about Comey's testimony, White House press secretary Tony Snow said he didn't know anything about the conversation at Ashcroft's bedside. But he defended the program.
"Because he had an appendectomy, his brain didn't work?" Snow said of Ashcroft. "Jim Comey can talk about whatever reservations he may have had. But the fact is that there were strong protections in there, this program has saved lives and it's vital for national security and furthermore has been reformed in a bipartisan way."
Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said he couldn't comment on "internal discussions that may or may have not taken place concerning classified intelligence activities." But he said the program succeeded in helping detect and prevent terrorist attacks and was always subject to rigorous oversight and review.
Democrats cited Comey's testimony as evidence of what they say is Gonzales' tendency to put loyalty to Bush ahead of most everything — including Justice's tradition of independence from the politics of the White House.
"What happened in that hospital room crystallized Mr. Gonzales' view about the rule of law: that he holds it in minimum low regard," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Under questioning by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Comey said he was not threatened by Vice President Dick Cheney or other White House officials who disagreed with him on the legality of the eavesdropping program.
Comey recalled that after the bedside incident he started to offer his resignation and was persuaded to wait a few days until Ashcroft could resign with him. "Mr. Ashcroft's chief of staff asked me something that meant a great deal to him, and that is that I not resign until Mr. Ashcroft was well enough to resign with me," Comey said.
On March 12 at their daily briefing of the president, Bush asked Comey and Mueller for separate private conversations on Justice's concerns about the eavesdropping program. There, Comey said, Bush agreed to do "the right thing."
"We had the president's direction to do what we believed, what the Justice Department believed, was necessary to put this matter on a footing where we could certify to its legality," Comey said of the period after those private meetings. "We did that."
Spokesmen for Ashcroft and Mueller refused requests for comment.
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