Fergie's Tech Blog

On Warrantless Wiretapping: 'Frivolous Caims of Secrecy'

Glenn Greenwald writes on his Unclaimed Territory blog:

One of the principal "defenses" of the Bush administration to its illegal warrantless eavesdropping on Americans is the claim that they "repeatedly briefed" a few members of Congress about the program (as though illegal behavior somehow becomes proper as long as you share vague details about what you're doing with a handful of people while emphasizing that they will go to jail if they tell anyone, including their own advisors and staff).

In order to determine the accuracy of those claims, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has been attempting to find out which Congressional leaders were supposedly briefed, how many times they were briefed and when they were briefed.

After promising to answer Pelosi's inquiry, which was first posed back in December, the administration stonewalled for the next several months and simply failed to furnish this most innocuous information.

Now, it has decided that it will refuse to publicize this information, suddenly - and absurdly - insisting that even this information, simply revealing which Congressional representatives received these "repeated" briefings - is highly classified and cannot be disclosed.

posted by Fergie @ 5/04/2006 09:12:00 AM