John Yoo subverts the US Constitution again

The no-warrant surveillance program initiated after the September 11 terrorist attacks relied on a "factually flawed" legal analysis that John Yoo wrote.

Apparently Yoo became the 'go-to guy' for any illegal activities the Bush White House wanted.

A report was compiled by the inspectors general of the nation's top intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and the Justice Department.

 The 38-page unclassified version of the document reaches a cautious conclusion, stating that any use of the information collected under the surveillance program "should be carefully monitored."

The program, launched by President Bush within weeks after the September 11 attacks, allowed for  the interception of communications into and out of the United States. The Bush Presidential Surveillance Program bypassed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA Court)  if there was a "reasonable basis" that one of the parties was a terrorist.In the past a US attorney would have to go before A FISA Court judge to get a wiretap authorized.

Although some intelligence collection has a specific target, surveillance is 'vacuum cleaner' collection. AT&T,Verizon and other telecommunications companies split large SONET OC256 fibre optic lines to collect all incoming and outgoing Internet and email traffic in the US. It then used NSA mainframe computers to perform key word searches.

Such activities were forbidden by federal law in the past because the NSA was not allowed to conduct domestic surveillance except in very special circumstances. The effectiveness of the program is not known, but only a handful of terrorists were arrested after the program stated.

Update: MSNBC indicated the IG report on the Keith Olbermann reported that the NSA surveillance program led to no arrests. James Reisen of the New York times discussed this on the Olbermann show. It appears the government was using the surveillance for data mining. In the past there were reports that Bill Clinton and journalists were targeted.

The IG report sharply criticizes the legal advice provided to the White House by the Justice Department.

Among other things, the report cites a Justice Department conclusion that "it was extraordinary and inappropriate that a single DOJ attorney, John Yoo, was relied upon to conduct the initial legal assessment" of the surveillance program.

See the complete story at http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/10/bush.surveillance/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular

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