Sorry for the absence folks – lots of meetings. Lots of information has been coming out on the FISA-NSA story which is modifying some of my theories on that may have happened and what is happening. But the revelations are also raising my concern that America is heading towards the re-establishment of the ‘Gorelick Wall’ and opening ourselves to future attacks.

From day one this NSA story was suspect. The leakers seemed to be manipulating the NY Times in a well conceived misdirection program. What was billed as new orders to spy on Americans seems to be something very different. It was not a case of the NSA doing something new regards monitoring our enemies. We know the NSA are going to monitor all communications with terrorist target overseas, they have to. Militarily they must. But what they do with information that leads them to people in the US is the question.

I never understood that legal theory in this country could be so stupid as to say evidence found by non-law enforcement means was forbidden even as grounds for surveillance for more, legally supported evidence. Khalid Mohamed, the 9-11 mastermind was picked up in Pakistan (I believe) by intelligence and/0r military operations. Evidence of key Al Qaeda members was found on his computer. This was most definitely an illegal search and seizure by our standard domestic procedures.

But legal theorist seem to want to argue evidence of contacts with this well known terrorist, gained in this manner, is not ‘pure’ enough to use to request a warrant in the US to monitor someone and gain more evidence under more formal processes. This blind allegiance to process over reality is probably why 3,000 people died on 9/11/01. As I pointed out in a previous post I pointed out how the NSA was required to dump any leads detected in the US prior to 9-11. In this later post I noted how the big change Bush made was to allow leads from the NSA to flow to the FBI instead of being thrown away – like what must have happened with two of the 9-11 terrorists – Midhar and Hazmi.

Debra Burlingame, sister of one of the pilots whose plane was highjacked as he was killed, mentioned how the NSA had run across a switchboard in Yemen the 9-11 highjackers in the US were contacting. Debra assumes the dots were not connected. But they probably were. Just like in the FBI where some screamed into the fog that we would pay for our shortsightedness, I am sure some someone was screaming into ‘The Wall’ someone needed to check out these people calling from San Diego. But it would not have done any good.

The FISA Court would have none of that even if someone tried. The FISA judges apparently do no care if information is accurate, important or will save lives. All they seem to care is that only information the judiciary deems valid is used to decide how we protect ourselves. Like judges are some kind of truth Seers?!

I was right all along – sadly. The FISA judges, proud builders and watchers of the Gorelick Wall, were upset at the fact that leads from military actions and intelligence was being used to identify leads here in the US for monitoring under FISA. The first hint was from Judge James Robertson who resigned and first worried about NSA ‘tainting’ FISA in the NY Time article that started this mess:

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court’s work.

Then other liberal leaning FISA judges came out and made similar claims about leads from the battlefield polluting the FISA warrants:

“The questions are obvious,” said U.S. District Judge Dee Benson of Utah. “What have you been doing, and how might it affect the reliability and credibility of the information we’re getting in our court?”

For those who wondered why the FISA Court cannot be used now you have the answer – they refuse to look at leads that come in from NSA and others during their monitoring of our enemies. Since you cannot use NSA data as the basis for surveillance, there is no way to gain other evidence from the FBI in time and the lead could be lost.

Anyone talking about protecting the rights of terrorist under the charade the program MIGHT be misused are on the wrong side of the American people.

The Yemen switchboard lead would never have been used to find and stop 9-11. The FISA Court is clearly saying today it will not use these leads to gain evidence on terrorists here in the US:

Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush’s eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events.

The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly — who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen.

Is anyone else simply stunned by this? If the NSA found highjackers in the US from surveillance and searches overseas the Washington Post is reporting they do not want to see that in their purist (or is it prudish) courts! 3000 Americans could be in danger and FISA would not act! Not in 72 hours or ever. The data is tainted because a DAMN JUDGE did not give anyone permission to go get it!!!

It seems James A Baker is the source of alerting Judges, including Robertson.

James A. Baker, the counsel for intelligence policy in the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, discovered in 2004 that the government’s failure to share information about its spying program had rendered useless a federal screening system that the judges had insisted upon to shield the court from tainted information. He alerted Kollar-Kotelly, who complained to Justice, prompting a temporary suspension of the NSA spying program, the sources said.

It is not clear who went to James Risen and the NY Times (notice how all the turncoats in this story are named James?), but it was either Baker, Robertson or both. The NY Times story broke 12/05 – after the NY Times sat on it for nearly a year. That makes the trigger event probably Baker’s actions. He may have been trying to do the right thing – but some one went to Risen.

Robertson’s surprise resignation makes a lot of sense now. Why are these leaks hitting the Washington Post? The judges (Robertson and possibly someone else like Lamberth) are pleading their case in the news media.

Both judges expressed concern to senior officials that the president’s program, if ever made public and challenged in court, ran a significant risk of being declared unconstitutional, according to sources familiar with their actions. Yet the judges believed they did not have the authority to rule on the president’s power to order the eavesdropping, government sources said, and focused instead on protecting the integrity of the FISA process.

BS. The reason they did not feel they had the authority was because the FISA Review Court had settled the debate. These traitor judges just could LIVE WITH the court’s decision. And the Post is still playing patsy or dupe – who knows.

And Arlen Specter is now planning to use this misinformation campaign to shut off all leads on terrorists in America from the NSA or CIA or DIA or DoD that point to people in this country:

US Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website], chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday that he is working on legislation that would require court supervision of President Bush’s domestic surveillance program.

Folks, the military is not going to ask FISA to monitor, capture and search terrorists overseas. Not g0ing to happen. What will result is the re-establishment of ‘The Wall’ because NSA will simply go back to not passing leads to the FBI. FISA and its idiotic defenders are REPEATING the pre 9-11 mistakes by making FISA something to avoid instead of a tool for our defense and our freedoms.

The theorists think a process is going to stop Al Qaeda and protect us. These people are so dangerously naive it is clear we cannot allow them to call the shots. I have said over and over to focus on the wrong subject on this topic will result on us losing the capability.

It doesn’t matter how NSA does its jobs and finds leads here from oversears communications and targets. None of it matters is the FISA Court turns its back on ‘tainted’ leads. They will be pure and we will be dead.

Check Out Mac Ranger’s take on the subject.