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Sensenbrenner Issues NSA Questions to Gonzales

By Jeralyn, Section War on Terror
Posted on Wed Feb 08, 2006 at 03:42:00 PM EST
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Raw Story reports that Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has written Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a letter (pdf) asking him to answer 51 questions about the NSA warrantless electronic surveillance program by March 2. Among the questions:

  • "Do you agree that FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) 'expressly prohibits' the specific activities under this program?"
  • "What is the rationale for authorizing a program to conduct surveillance in a manner that does not require prior judicial review by the FISA court?"

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    Sensenbrenner Issues NSA Questions to Gonzales | 6 comments (6 topical)
    Re: Sensenbrenner Issues NSA Questions to Gonzales (none / 0) (#2)
    by Edger on Wed Feb 08, 2006 at 07:49:16 PM EST
    You get the feeling that bush WH is on the verge of imitating a cluster bomb?

    Re: Sensenbrenner Issues NSA Questions to Gonzales (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Wed Feb 08, 2006 at 08:07:05 PM EST
    Oooops, there goes that NSA driftnet picking up IP addresses again...

    Re: Sensenbrenner Issues NSA Questions to Gonzales (none / 0) (#4)
    by Edger on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 05:17:30 AM EST
    This is an obvious setup, I think. Sensenbrenners questions, as one of the commenters on Rawstory notes, are just about exactly "the same points Gonzales raised on Monday in the Senate". Another commenter there opines that "the odds are pretty high that Gonzales wrote the questions himself and gave them to Sensenbrenner in order to craft his letter. The answers to the questions were already written before they were asked" Is Sensenbrener electioneering here? Just paying lip service to getting at the truth, and getting back pre-agreed upon answers that he'll then use as justification to say "It's all perfectly legal, the AG has assured us of the Judiciary Committee, nothing the worry about here"? The constant equating of "legal" with "right" has been the last unthinking resort of the right for as long as I've been out of diapers. My dad used to try it on me when I was a little kid, till at about twelve years old I finally told him to shove it and start using his brain as more than just a tape recorder. I'm sick of it, it's a stupid, condescending, and utterly dishonest method of abdicating responsibility from those who hypocritically wave that responsibilty meme in the face of anyone they want unthinking obediance from. Sensenbrenner can KMA.

    Re: Sensenbrenner Issues NSA Questions to Gonzales (none / 0) (#5)
    by Edger on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 05:38:56 AM EST
    My hope here is that Conyers, as the Ranking Minority Member of the House Judiciary Committee that Sensenbrenner chairs, has enough support and acccumulated power to be able to hold Sensenbrenners feet to the fire long enough to force an honest unbiased evaluation by the committee. Trouble is I need to breath occassionally. Don't know if I can hold it that long. Wow... I guess I got up on the cynical side of the bed again this morning. I wonder why that happens so often the past 5 years... ;-) Anybody else feel that way?

    Re: Sensenbrenner Issues NSA Questions to Gonzales (none / 0) (#6)
    by kdog on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 09:27:26 AM EST
    If I know Senselessbrenner, one of the questions had to be..."You guys are spying on drug users in order to prosecute them...right?"

    Re: Sensenbrenner Issues NSA Questions to Gonzales (none / 0) (#7)
    by Edger on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 09:55:25 AM EST
    Sensenbrenner is R-Wisconsin. How does Feingolds (D-Wisconsin) statement in the Senate the other day fit into the equation here?

    Sensenbrenner Issues NSA Questions to Gonzales | 6 comments (6 topical)