Back To Justice
This administration really is incapable of telling the truth. About anything. It appears that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been caught up in one of those lies, this one made before US Senators. From MSNBC:
As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.
Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. [Emphasis added]
Lying under oath about the unconstitutional behavior is bad enough, but here's the short list of just what activities were being reported to the AG:
The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated. [Emphasis added]
The administration's spin meisters are already at work, claiming that the AG's comments were appropriate when the context of the testimony is considered, and besides, there doesn't appear to be any proof that the AG actually read the reports he was copied on.
Either/or, I think Mr. Gonzales is going to find himself before another Senate committee, the one he's appeared before several times in the past six months. I also don't think Sen. Leahy is going to be too kind to him this time, at least I hope not.
As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.
Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. [Emphasis added]
Lying under oath about the unconstitutional behavior is bad enough, but here's the short list of just what activities were being reported to the AG:
The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated. [Emphasis added]
The administration's spin meisters are already at work, claiming that the AG's comments were appropriate when the context of the testimony is considered, and besides, there doesn't appear to be any proof that the AG actually read the reports he was copied on.
Either/or, I think Mr. Gonzales is going to find himself before another Senate committee, the one he's appeared before several times in the past six months. I also don't think Sen. Leahy is going to be too kind to him this time, at least I hope not.
Labels: Fourth Amendment, Justice Department, Patriot Act, Privacy
posted by Diane at 12:01 PM
3 Comments:
Gonzo has two options, it seems to me.
Either he can claim that he never read any of the things he was cc'd on, thereby demonstrating to the world that he is woefully incompetent and undeserving of the post he holds (and he should be impeached for that alone), or he can admit to having seen the reports and read them and then try to claim that he didn't really think that the behavior referred to by the FBI was the sort of thing he was being asked about.
I smell perjury. Let's go for impeachment. I don't see much likelihood that any Republicans would go to the mat for Gonzales, whatever they might be willing to do to protect Bush or Cheney.
I cannot think of a single sane reason why the citizens of a free constitutional representative republic should tolerate this kind of incompetence or malevolence.
Gonzo's fulfilling his role as 'stalking horse.' He's SUPPOSED to take the heat, be so outrageously crooked that the Congress HAS to do something...
thereby stealing all the oxygen from every other investigation and preliminary impeachment proceding.
fuukin BRILLIANT!!!
Post a Comment
<< Home