Not Your Average Scandal: Bush Domestic Spying Impeachable?

GNN.TV - Anthony Lappe - The New York Times ran revelations George W. Bush signed off on an Executive Order empowering the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on American peace activists, and any others deemed a "domestic threat" to national security. This runs counter to the law, and the little scandal among the myriad White House and Republican party scandals is causing a bigger than may be expected stir in Washington. -lex www.gnn.tv http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ asia-pacific/4454738.stm Watch the Video! Leaks: Maximum damage to the White House Anthony Lappe The Bunker Guerrilla News Network 16 Dec 2005 Today’s Times blockbuster that Bush signed a secret executive order in 2002 to allow the NSA to spy on American citizens without a court order couldn’t have come at a worse time for the White House. The Senate just happened to be voting today on whether or not to renew parts of the USA Patriot Act set to expire. The nays had it, in a striking blow to the administration. The timing of the story is raising eyebrows. The Times noted the administration told them to not print the story, and the paper apparently capitulated, holding the report for a year. The paper claims it wanted to do “additional reporting.” The editors have refused to allow the authors, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, to talk to the press. Drudge claims the story is timed to the imminent publication of a new book by Risen entitled “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.” Is it book marketing, or is something deeper going on? Risen’s title raises the question of whether the highly damaging scoop is part of a larger effort to hurt the White House. Are intel officers looking for payback from a White House that leaks its operatives names and cherrypicks its intel to create a pre-text for a war that has become al Qaeda’s greatest recruiting tool? Take last week: Just as the White House’s discussions with Sen. John McCain over his proposed “torture” amendment to the defense appropriations bill were reaching a critical stage, the Times’ Douglas Jehl reported that an alleged high-ranking al Qaeda operative who was tortured while in custody in Egypt (after being captured in Pakistan) provided unreliable intelligence about an Iraq-al Qaeda link to make the pain stop. Then, back to this week, as the USA Patriot Act vote came to a head, NBC News reported they had obtained a 400-page Defense Department document [PDF with excerpts] that lists the activities of various antiwar groups, and ranks their “threat” level. NBC reports it’s the “first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.” NBC military analyst Bill Arkin said, “It means that they’re actually collecting information about who’s at those protests, the descriptions of vehicles at those protests. On the domestic level, this is unprecedented. I think it’s the beginning of enormous problems and enormous mischief for the military.” The program is known as “Talon,” and is supposed to compile unconfirmed reports of threats to defense facilities. The Washington Post reports that the program is “part of a broader effort by the Pentagon to gather counterterrorism intelligence within the United States.” See peace groups reax here on Democracy Now! As the activists attest, the story isn’t new. The Pentagon has been actively trying to expand its domestic spying powers since 2002. Last summer, it lobbied Congress to allow more leeway in spying on Americans, just as reports of domestic military intelligence operations began to surface. Other documents obtained by the ACLU and other groups in the past two years under the Freedom of Information Act have showed that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force has been recording the names and license plate numbers of peaceful antiwar protesters. But what seems new, and interesting, is these leaks appear to be strategically timed to inflict maximum political damage to the White House. Coincidence, or “state of war”? UPDATE: Does Bush’s possibly illegal executive order constitute a call for impeachment? The Washington Monthly’s blogger Hilzoy thinks so. Vote: Avg: 5.00 Votes: 9 Comments: 16 [Add] RELATED ITEMS Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts Posted by Ecommunist on Thursday, December 15th 2005 BREAKING: Patriot Act renewal blocked in Senate Posted by anthony on Friday, December 16th 2005 Al Qaeda's Golden Opportunity Posted by ShiftShapers on Tuesday, October 11th 2005 Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.