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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (764336)	8/16/2007 7:43:05 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Judges skeptical of surveillance claims by Bush's lawyers Members of a federal appeals panel seemed flustered as attorneys said little while asserting that allowing lawsuits to go forward would reveal state secrets. By Karl Vick The Washington Post Article Last Updated: 08/16/2007 02:20:57 AM MDT denverpost.com San Francisco - Lawyers for the Bush administration encountered a federal appeals court Wednesday that appeared deeply skeptical of a blanket claim that the government's surveillance efforts cannot be challenged in court because the litigation might reveal state secrets. "The bottom line here is the government declares something is a state secret, that's the end of it. No cases. ... The king can do no wrong," said Judge Harry Pregerson, one of three U.S. Court of Appeals judges for the 9th Circuit who grilled administration lawyers on whether a pair of lawsuits against the government should go forward. Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre was forced to mount a public argument that almost nothing about the substance of the government's conduct could be talked about in court because doing so might expose either the methods used in gathering intelligence or gaps in those methods. A case of "trust us" "This seems to put us in the 'trust us' category," Judge M. Margaret McKeown said of assertions that surveillance activities did not violate the law. The panel represents the highest court so far to consider conflicting claims about the legality of surveillance efforts secretly launched by the Bush administration in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. About 50 separate lawsuits charging that those efforts are illegal have been consolidated before the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The two that reached the 9th Circuit panel Wednesday were the first to go forward. The cases predate legislation passed by Congress this month that gives the government broad power to monitor communications - authority that the lawsuits say the Bush administration illegally assumed over the previous five to six years. One suit, Hepting vs. AT&T, is a class action that grew out of allegations by retired AT&T engineer Mark Klein that the company had cooperated with the National Security Agency to install equipment that funneled Internet traffic to the surveillance agency. The plaintiffs, led by privacy groups, say that arrangement violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires a warrant for electronic surveillance conducted within the United States to be issued by a special court. "Did you go to the FISA court on this case?" Pregerson asked. "Again, your honor, that gets into state secrets," Garre replied. Can't confirm or deny A second government attorney said more about the importance of murkiness. In the case of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation vs. George W. Bush, investigators suspected the now-defunct Oregon foundation had links to al-Qaeda, and in 2004, they accidentally released - and recaptured - a secret document confirming that its lawyers were under surveillance. Thomas Bondy, a Justice Department lawyer, acknowledged the mistake but refused to confirm the document's authenticity. "You don't confirm or deny if someone is the subject to foreign surveillance," Bondy said. "The whole point is no one knows, or at least the United States government maximizes uncertainty over it." Late in the proceedings, McKeown complained of feeling "like I'm Alice in Wonderland." "I feel like Alice in Wonderland, too," said Jon Eisenberg, an attorney for plaintiffs in the al- Haramain case. "I filed a sealed file in this case, arguing what I think is in the document. I cannot talk about that file today."

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (764336)	8/16/2007 7:50:24 AM
From: JDN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

When you consider how LEAKY our Congress is how can anyone feel it BENEFITS WE THE PEOPLE for all the secrets to be told to all members of Congress. Committee heads have always been informed where applicable. I for one dont WANT to know whats being done if telling me results in the method being ineffective. jdn