Clipmarks | David addington Clips

EFF to Sue Bush & NSA

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:42:15 GMT

clipped by: yotofuji

EFF to sue Bush, Cheney, NSA and others over telecom spying

Submitted by Paul McNamara on Thu, 09/18/2008 - 5:23am.

The government has decreed that they can't sue the phone companies over illegal spying on Americans, so instead they're about sue the government.

From an Electronic Frontier Foundation press alert just received here:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will file a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records.

The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance.

Conflict Over Spying Led White House to Brink

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:30:15 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Cont....

Joel Brenner and Vito Potenza, the two men wilting under Addington's wrath, had driven 26 miles from Fort Meade, the NSA's eavesdropping headquarters in Maryland. They were conducting a review of their agency's two-year-old special surveillance operation. They already knew the really secret stuff [3]: The NSA and other services had been unleashed to turn their machinery inward, collecting signals intelligence inside the United States. What the two men didn't know was why the Bush administration believed the program was legal.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

David Addington, the vice president's lawyer, kept in his office controlling documents that gave strategic direction to the nation's largest spy agency. (By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)

A burst of ferocity stunned the room into silence. No other word for it: The vice president's attorney was shouting.

"The president doesn't want this! [1] You are not going to see the opinions. You are out . . . of . . . your . . . lane!"

Five government lawyers had gathered around a small conference table in the Justice Department command center. Four were expected. David S. Addington, counsel to Vice President Cheney, got wind of the meeting and invited himself.

If Addington smelled revolt, he was not far wrong. Unwelcome questions about warrantless domestic surveillance had begun to find their voice.

On this second Monday in December 2003, Addington's targets were a pair of would-be auditors from the National Security Agency. He had displeasure to spare for their Justice Department hosts.

Tags: constitution, cheney, addington, law, breakers, in, toilet, no mas

Was McCain Actually Tortured?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:04:33 GMT

clipped by: dulios

Clip Source: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Does Bush Believe McCain Was Tortured?

The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet.

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

Now the kicker: in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture.

Tags: torture, war crimes

The putsch that imperiled America

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:19:40 GMT

clipped by: Kelika
clipper's remarks: "Others have been less scrupulous for reasons that do them even less credit than ideological fanaticism. Take, for example, former Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes II. In a sworn statement, Air Force Col. Morris Davis -- the former top prosecutor in the Office of Military Commissions -- says he resigned after being pressured by Haynes to move forward with politically "sexy" prosecutions even though Morris believed the evidence against the defendants had been obtained by torture. Davis said he also told Haynes that a few acquittals at Guantanamo, if warranted, would send a message that the commissions sitting there were fair, just as the not-guilty verdicts against some Nazi defendants had done for the Nuremberg trials.

Haynes' response was emphatic, according to Morris: "We can't have acquittals! We've got to have convictions! ... If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off?""

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Areport released Tuesday by the Justice Department has documented the Bush administration's unprecedented -- and illegal -- effort to politicize the ranks of the agency's prosecutors and civil service employees with conservatives and true believers in the religious right's agenda.

Former Assistant Atty. Gen. Jack Goldsmith, who did heroic work trying to undo the mischief wrought by John Yoo, his predecessor in the Office of Legal Counsel, is one of those. His offense was to tell then-vice presidential counsel David Addington -- now Cheney's chief of staff -- that, despite Yoo's obliging opinions, U.S. law does not permit torture.

The Navy's general counsel, Alberto Mora, was forced out of his job as well, for trying to stop the abuse of detainees by interrogators at Guantanamo.

the particular courage of the military lawyers -- many of them from the Navy and Marine Corps -- who sacrificed their careers demanding that their clients at Guantanamo receive a modicum of due process.

Interactive link to Slate guide of Bush Administration Crimes..

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:33:43 GMT

clipped by: TJColatrella
clipper's remarks: Follow the link for this to be interactive and for more info for each conspirator...

Clip Source: www.slate.com

jurisprudence: The law, lawyers, and the court.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

By Emily Bazelon, Kara Hadge, Dahlia Lithwick, and Chris Wilson
Posted Thursday, July 24, 2008, at 6:55 AM ET

Each scandal is represented by a colored circle that encompasses the people who are implicated. As it's easy to see, many of the players here are mixed up in two, three, or more of the alleged crimes. Hence all the overlapping circles (Venn-diagram heaven!).

Clip Source: www.slate.com

Crimes and MisdemeanorsSlate's interactive guide: Who in the Bush administration broke the law, and who could be prosecuted?

Tags: bush, gonzales, john yoo, david addington, rumsfled, condi rice, cheney, karl rove, fisa, torture

interactive guide: Who in the Bush administration broke the law, and who could be prosecuted

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:31:29 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Each scandal is represented by a colored circle that encompasses the people who are implicated. As it's easy to see, many of the players here are mixed up in two, three, or more of the alleged crimes. Hence all the overlapping circles (Venn-diagram heaven!).

The best way to make sense of this legal tangle is to mouse over the title of an individual scandal, which will highlight everyone implicated. For example, the wiretapping bubble ensnares George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Ashcroft, John Yoo, and Alberto Gonzales. At the same time, Ashcroft and Gonzales fall into the overlapping circle for monkey business related to DoJ hiring. Mouse over a person's name for information on how each person is involved. Mouse over the title of each circle for specifics about the particular scandal.

And if all else fails, fall back on this golden rule of wrongdoing in the White House: All roads lead to Gonzales.

Clip Source: www.slate.com

The recent release of Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side revealed that a secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross determined "categorically" that the CIA used torture, as defined by American and international law, in questioning al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaydah. The question of criminal liability for Bush-administration officials has since been in the news. It's also getting play because retired Gen. Antonio Taguba, lead Army investigator of the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib, wrote in a recent report, "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes."

One response to such conclusions is Nuremberg-style war-crime prosecutions. The opposite pole is blanket immunity for all lawbreakers in advance. Somewhere in the middle lies a truth-and-reconciliation commission that would try to ferret out the truth.

, you might ask which Bush administration officials did what and which could actually be prosecuted. Slate has answers.

White House Ignored Detainee Innocence

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:55:15 GMT

clipped by: Wisco
clipper's remarks: As far as I can figure out, this is the Bush admin. worrying that it might be embarrassed by the ham-handedness of their wide net approach to collecting detainees. Instead of admitting that they may have gone a little overboard, they kept innocent people in prison.

This creates a new class of political prisoner -- the inconvenient and unrectified mistake.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

A CIA analyst warned the Bush administration in 2002 that up to a third of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have been imprisoned by mistake, but White House officials ignored the finding and insisted that all were "enemy combatants" subject to indefinite incarceration, according to a new book critical of the administration's terrorism policies.

The CIA assessment directly challenged the administration's claim that the detainees were all hardened terrorists -- the "worst of the worst," as then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at the time. But a top aide to Vice President Cheney shrugged off the report and squashed proposals for a quick review of the detainees' cases, author Jane Mayer writes in "The Dark Side," scheduled for release next week.

"There will be no review," the book quotes Cheney staff director David Addington as saying. "The president has determined that they are ALL enemy combatants. We are not going to revisit it."

Tags: news

Demand The U.S. House Censure Rep. Delahunt NOW!

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:24:38 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Also, more action alerts include:

Tell YOUR Rep. to Co-Sponsor the "Affordable Gas Price Act"

As usual, the government doesn't have a solution to the problem -- the government IS the problem!

House bill H.R. 2415, short-titled the "Affordable Gas Price Act," was introduced on May 21, 2007. The official title of the bill states its purpose:

"To reduce the price of gasoline by allowing for offshore drilling, eliminating Federal obstacles to constructing refineries and providing incentives for investment in refineries, suspending Federal fuel taxes when gasoline prices reach a benchmark amount, and promoting free trade."

So for over a year now, Congress has had available to them legislation that reduces gas prices by reforming government polices that artificially inflate the price of gas.

And not one of them has even had the guts to sign on as a co-sponsor.

Clip Source: capwiz.com

ALERT: On Thursday, June 26, David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution.

When Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) asked him about certain terrorist interrogation techniques, Addington responded that he couldn't respond while C-SPAN was broadcasting the hearing, because "Al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN." ...

Tags: david addington, c-span, judiciary subcommittee, rep delahunt (d-ma)

Delahunt Is Glad Addington Is Al-Qaida Target

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:56:18 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Congressman Delahunt's response was, "I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you."

Mr. Delahunt now denies he meant what he said. But what he clearly said was "I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you." Al Qaeda now knows the face of one of the men who relentlessly pursues its henchmen and deals with their interrogations. Mr. Addington volunteered for public service, not a death sentence with Congressional encouragement.
Delahunt is both a vile liar and a cowardly lion willing to roar down at Mr. Addington while encouraging terrorists to do his dirty work in a war he has been ineffective at stopping.

Congressman Delahunt's email address is william.delahunt@mail.house.gov.

Congressman Delahunt can be reached at 202-225-3111 and by fax at 202-225-5658

Or, you can ask Barack Obama yourself at (866) 675-2008

http://youtube.com/watch?v=AEDR7ghl7AU

Clip Source: www.redstate.com

David Addington is the Vice President's Chief of Staff. Yesterday, he testified before Congress.

While Congress has also descended into a more shrill style, until yesterday it had not crossed one line of civility that never should be crossed on either side.

During the course of the hearing, Congressman and Obama Superdelegate William Delahunt (MA-10) asked Mr. Addington about water boarding. Mr. Addington responded that he would not go into details because Al Qaeda is probably watching.

Clip Source: youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: vp's chief of staff, david addington, c-span, congressional hearing, obama superdelagate, william delahunt, (d, ma.)

McCain advisor tight with Addington and Cheney

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:00:40 GMT

clipped by: budsmind
clipper's remarks: McCain--"Bomb-bomb-bomb Iran"-- has mostly neocon hawks as military-foreign-policy advisors. This connection to the Cheney Axis is especially worrisome.

Clip Source: www.newyorker.com

Scheunemann, who is known as a neoconservative, is also the McCain campaign’s most important channel of communication with the White House. He is a friend of David Addington, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. I have heard differing accounts of Scheunemann’s influence with McCain; though some close to the McCain campaign talk about him as a possible national-security adviser, others say he is someone who isn’t taken seriously while “telling Cheney and others what they want to hear,” as a senior McCain adviser put it.

Breaking: David Addington appears before Congress, acts like a jerk

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:30:29 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: A very strange little piece. Addington was subpoenaed before Congress and, along with John Yoo, pushed to new limits the practice of obfuscating the Congress in their attempts to exercise supervisory authority.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

When Anonymity Fails, Be Nasty, Brutish and Short

David Addington, left, under subpoena, and John Yoo, back by popular demand. (By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)

David Addington was there under subpoena. And he wasn't happy about it.

Could the president ever be justified in breaking the law? "I'm not going to answer a legal opinion on every imaginable set of facts any human being could think of," Addington growled. Did he consult Congress when interpreting torture laws? "That's irrelevant," he barked. Would it be legal to torture a detainee's child? "I'm not here to render legal advice to your committee," he snarled. "You do have attorneys of your own."

He sure was. When John Conyers (D-Mich.) inquired about Addington's pet legal concept, a "unitary executive theory" that confers extreme powers on the president, Addington dished out disdain.

"I frankly don't know what you mean by unitary theory," Addington replied.

Tags: politics, bushies, conservatives, law, gwot, wierd

Addington: I Can't Talk About Torture Because 'Al Qaeda May Watch C-SPAN.'

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:48:14 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: In other words:

"I won't answer because I don't wanna!

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, David Addington, appeared in front of the House Judiciary today to testify on interrogation techniques employed at Guantanamo Bay that were approved by the Bush Admininstration.

DELAHUNT: Oh I can understand why [the President] doesn't talk about it.

ADDINGTON: Because you gotta communicate with al Qaeda. If you do -- I can't talk to you, al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN.

DELAHUNT: Right. Well, I'm sure they are watching, and I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you, Mr. Addington.

ADDINGTON: Yeah, I'm sure you're pleased.

[Video]

Tags: torture, cheney, corwards, criminals, terror, terrorist, terrorism

Easing of laws that led to torture hatched in secret

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:10:15 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: And why did they do this?

"Only one of the five War Council lawyers remains in office: David Addington, the brilliant but abrasive longtime legal adviser and now chief of staff to Cheney. His primary motive, according to several former administration and defense officials, was to push for an expansion of presidential power that Congress or the courts couldn't check."

Clip Source: www.mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON — The framework under which detainees were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantanamo and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of American military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers.

It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials.

The Supreme Court now has struck down many of their legal interpretations. It ruled last Thursday that preventing detainees from challenging their detention in federal courts was unconstitutional.

The international conventions that the United States helped draft, and to which it's a party, were abandoned in secret meetings among the five men in one another's offices.

Tags: law, criminals, torture, cowards

The Federalist Society Judges in Action..

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:24:02 GMT

clipped by: TJColatrella
clipper's remarks: That's about it alright..

Clip Source: emfb.stumbleupon.com

Tags: federalist society, alito, scalia, roberts, mukasey, supreme court, doj, bush, david addington, john yoo

Naomi Wolf The Fascist Blueprint..

Sun, 11 May 2008 21:51:18 GMT

clipped by: TJColatrella

Clip Source: www.brasschecktv.com

[Video]

Tags: bush, prescott bush, nspd-51, hspd-20, david addington, john yoo, federalist society, bilderberg group, david rockefeller, kbr