PATRIOTs and Secrets Hearing, Day One Wrap Up
graphic: Dr John 2005 via Flickr
The hearing started with John Conyers introducing a managers amendment to the bill that made tweaks to the overal bill to move them slightly closer to what the Obama Administration wanted. Republicans tried to gut National Security Letters (NSLs). One of those pertained to the changes in NSL minimization.
Republicans tried to eliminate special protections for library records, expand NSLs, and eliminate any minimization on NSL information. On all three, those amendments went down on a party line vote. Nadler did a particularly good job at defending the logic of the underlying bill, particularly the standards of proof the government must have to conduct certain kinds of searches.
Then, Adam Schiff (as I had predicted) piped up to make one of the changes the Administration wanted. He switched the 215 standard to what the Senate Judiciary Committee has adopted (showing the reasons to believe that records are relevant to an authorized investigation), but then required the Administration to come up with a better way to collect this information. Whereas in the Senate, that effort won bipartisan support, here it was strictly party line vote (though it seemed like Maxine Waters considered voting against it from the left).
The highlight of the hearing, though, was a speech that Mel Watt made. He talked about how, in the days after 9/11, he thought, “Well, if AG Ashcroft is protecting me from terrorists, who’s protecting me from AG Ashcroft?” He went on to bemoan the fact that there was no one like Bob Barr left on the Republican side. “I long for the day that somebody on your side of the aisle and remember that it was you that stood for individual rights at one point in your party’s history.”
All things considered, this is currently a better bill than the Senate side–though still one that allows for data mining of Americans. They’re coming back tomorrow, though, so we have not yet succeeded in improving on the SJC bill.
[Ed. note: The House Judiciary Committee is expected to reconvene Thursday at 11:00 a.m. EST; watch for more coverage here at emptywheel.]
Late to the party, so thanks EW for the excellent posts on the Patriot act hearings!
Couple typos: Post title has “PATRTIOTs” and should be “PATRIOTs”, and then “He want on to bemoan” should be “He went on to bemoan”.
Thanks muchly.
So where does Chairman Reye’s bill fall into the mix? Any discussion of it at all in the HJC?
None, and of course Schiff is the overlap person on HPSCI and HJC.
So the HJC is pretending that HPSCI doesn’t exist? *g*
Totally OT – While the revised “Reprocessed FBI Office of Inspector General Report” document had already shown up in last Friday’s ACLU document dump, note that today, the DOJ’s OIG saw the benefit of putting it up on their own website: A Review of the FBI’s Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq, October 2009 (Revised) (441 page PDF).
And of more timely importance, note that the ACLU has a bunch of more documents up such as:
CIA Vaughn Index of Information related to 18 documents processed on 10/30/2009 (35 page PDF)
Memo from Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to CIA Director regarding review of CIA’s interrogation program (6/11/2004) (3 page PDF)
Letter from CIA to ACLU regarding documents processed on 10/30/2009 (2 page PDF)
Memo from Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to Executive Branch Officials regarding draft executive order about “Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to Certain Detentions and Interrogations” (5/25/2007) (7 page PDF)
Memo from the President Bush to White House Senior Executive Branch Officials regarding humane treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban detainees (2/7/2002) (3 page PDF)
I would note that the Bush memo (3 page PDF) which we’ve seen the body of before, has a Director of Central Intelligence routing slip that has some “curious” instructions.
You’ll note that the Routing slip has columns for Action and Info. All of the CIA addressees only have check boxes marked in the Info column.
Since Bush’s memo is all about how he wants “…detainees be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva…”, and since the CIA is the primary organization tasked with detainee
tortureinterrogation, the lack of check boxes marked in the Action column for the CIA takes on a telling meaning.More OT. Today an Italian court convicted, in their absence, several members of the CIA including the Milan Station Chief of kidnapping a cleric called Abu Omar off a Milan street and performing extraordinary rendition on him to Egypt in 2003. Needless to say the Egyptians then tortured him. First crack in the dam perhaps? The first of many Americans who will have to give up foreign travel?
CBC reports 23 convicted, the other 3 accused acquitted by virtue of diplomatic immunity.
OK, I should have read through the comments before posting mine. You beat me to it by half an hour. What’s your beverage of choice today?
Bob in AZ
Gosh, that’s nice of you, Bob.
I’m not in this for teh competition, but since you’re offering: sauvignon blanc, svp.
“Several” = 23
Bob in AZ
It was late at night here. I was tired.
OT, but totally fun. See if you can guess who the “crazy” is in this quote before you click the link:
Ouch.
So Maxine Waters is the only HJC member under investigation by the House Ethics Committee? Hmmm…
I’m not understanding this sentence:
“I long for the day that somebody on your side of the aisle and remember that it was you that stood for individual rights at one point in your party’s history.”
He longs for the day that somebody What?
He was longing for the days when there were Republicans of principle across the aisle, like Bob Barr, who actually believed in the Constitution and defended it, regardless of what the Republican Party Line was at the time.
Bob in AZ
speaking of patriots, fox knew the yankees would be doing “god bless America” of the seventh inning stretch, they do it every game
I’m told the rendition was one of the most moving performances ever
fox did NOT broadcast that performance even though they knew it would be happening, I even suspect she practiced before the game
imagine how the fox nutz would be going balistic if msn didn’t broadcast that performance
I don’t think there’s a tube up yet but I hope they get one up soon
sounds like a good post for someone, I’m at work and can’t do a diary today
Spam from a dating service on emptywheel? Now I’ve seen everything.
Aw, mods, now yer gonna have people thinkin’ I’m crazy. At least put up a note or sumthin’ where the deleted comment was. *g* Or delete this and my earlier comment. Sheesh.
[mod note: It was there, and now it’s gone.]
*g*
SD, Don’t you worry. You only have 12. You have to have more for us to think you’re crazy. *g*
Citizen SouthernDragon:
ROFLMAO…now why would anyone think that a gentle, caring, thoughtful citizen like yourself would be short a few brains cells??!!! Peace Brother Dragonman, they will need more than a lantern and a stick ta get you in the bag.
But acc.to Ecahn, that may make him “demented” ;)) See Cat Ladies, etc.
The poster is great. Don’t remember seeing it before.
The guy in the graphic should be a Red Coat. Red Coats (and Xe-provided Hessians) are the new Patriots. Long live King George.