Without Honor?

(Updated April 19, 2008)

Glenn Greenwald covers a revelation about 9/11 offered by Attorney General Michael Mukasey almost six and a half years after the terrorist strike against the United States:

• "Michael Mukasey's tearful lies", March 29, 2008


• "Why doesn't the 9/11 Commission know about Mukasey's 9/11 story?", April 3, 2008


• "The DOJ comments on the Mukasey controversy", April 4, 2008


• "The U.S. establishment media in a nutshell", April 5, 2008


• "The Associated Press fails to reveal Mukasey's favorite color", April 6, 2008


• "Lee Hamilton denies Michael Mukasey's claim about 9/11", April 8, 2008


• "More on Michael Mukasey's false 9/11 and FISA claims", April 11, 2008


• "Mukasey dishonesty update", April 18, 2008

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See also: Josh Gerstein, "Mukasey Makes Emotional Plea for Surveillance Powers"

Attorney General Mukasey, in an emotional plea for broad surveillance authority in the war on terror, is warning that the price for failing to empower the government would be paid in American lives. Officials "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody picks up the phone in Iraq and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about," Mr. Mukasey said yesterday as he took questions from the audience following a speech to a public affairs forum, the Commonwealth Club. "We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."

At that point in his answer, Mr. Mukasey grimaced, swallowed hard, and seemed to tear up as he reflected on the weaknesses in America's anti-terrorism strategy prior to the 2001 attacks. "We got three thousand. ... We've got three thousand people who went to work that day and didn't come home to show for that," he said, struggling to maintain his composure.

Breaking the Law

Glenn Greenwald, " McConnell/Mukasey: Eavesdropping outside of FISA is 'illegal'

In any event, the two honorable, apolitical, completely trustworthy Bush cabinet members -- DNI Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey -- yesterday released a letter addressed to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes which is basically a written adaptation of the scary 24 video produced this week by the House Republicans, breathlessly claiming that the nation "is now more vulnerable to terrorist attack and other foreign threats" because of the PAA's expiration.

The letter contains the now-standard fear-mongering claims that telecoms will stop cooperating (and even have stopped cooperating already) with government surveillance in the absence of the PAA (an absence caused single-handedly by the President) -- i.e., "we have lost intelligence information this past week," etc. But there was one passage in the letter which seems significant and worth highlighting.

In the letter from Chairman Reyes to which McConnell and Mukasey are responding, Reyes pointed out that under the still-existing FISA law, the Government is free to commence surveillance without a warrant where there is no time to obtain one. In response, McConnell and Mukasey wrote:

You imply that the emergency authorization process under FISA is an adequate substitute for the legislative authorities that have elapsed. This assertion reflects a basic misunderstanding about FISA's emergency authorization provisions. Specifically, you assert that the National Security Agency (NSA) or Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) "may begin surveillance immediately" in an emergency situation. FISA requires far more, and it would be illegal to proceed as you suggest.

Wow, what a blockbuster revelation. Apparently, as it turns out, in the United States it's "illegal" for the Government to eavesdrop on Americans without first complying with the requirements of FISA. Who would have known? It's a good thing we don't have a Government that would ever do that, or a Congress that would ever tolerate such "illegal" behavior. And it's so moving to hear the Bush administration earnestly explain that they are so hamstrung by FISA's requirements that we are all deeply vulnerable to the Terrorists, but they have no choice but to comply with its burdensome provisions -- because to do otherwise would be "illegal."