Looking For a Leaker (Gov't Looks For Leaker on Warrantless Wiretaps)

[journalist3072]

Looking For a Leaker

Newsweek

Aug. 13, 2007 issue - The controversy over President Bush's warrantless surveillance program took another surprise turn last week when a team of FBI agents, armed with a classified search warrant, raided the suburban Washington home of a former Justice Department lawyer. The lawyer, Thomas M. Tamm, previously worked in Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR)—the supersecret unit that oversees surveillance of terrorist and espionage targets. The agents seized Tamm's desktop computer, two of his children's laptops and a cache of personal files.

-snip-

The raid appears to be the first significant development in the probe since The New York Times reported in December 2005 that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents without court warrants. (At the time, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said of the leak: "This is really hurting national security; this has really hurt our country.")

-snip-

The FBI raid on Tamm's home comes when Gonzales himself is facing criticism for allegedly misleading Congress by denying there had been "serious disagreement" within Justice about the surveillance program. The A.G. last week apologized for "creating confusion," but Senate Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Patrick Leahy said he is weighing asking Justice's inspector general to review Gonzales's testimony.

The raid also came while the White House and Congress were battling over expanding NSA wiretapping authority in order to plug purported "surveillance gaps." James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology said the raid was "amazing" and shows the administration's misplaced priorities: using FBI agents to track down leakers instead of processing intel warrants to close the gaps. A Justice spokesman declined to comment.

Entire article at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20121795/site/newsweek/

[Old and In the Way]

1. Obviously, the leakers are a bigger threat than the actual terrorists.

They might actually have evidence that Bush and his Republican cronies are using the process to further their agenda, certainly not our agenda.

[rodeodance]

2. I do recall how REALLY ticked off Bush was at the time. Vengence is the call.

[rodeodance]

3. rec.

[acmavm]

4. Sheesh, if this statement doesn't tell you what we've come down to...

<snip>

"...when Gonzales himself is facing criticism for allegedly misleading Congress..."

Facing criticism? You know what, that's probably as far as it will go.

[soothsayer]

5. who cares about the valerie plame leak, right?