Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Washington Post reports. First, the lie:
As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.
And now, the truth:
Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated.
The reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI's use of an anti-terrorism tool known as a national security letter (NSL), well before the Justice Department's inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a stinging report this past March.
And now, the inevitable excuse:
Justice officials said they could not immediately determine whether Gonzales read any of the FBI reports in 2005 and 2006 because the officials who processed them were not available yesterday. But department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that when Gonzales testified, he was speaking "in the context" of reports by the department's inspector general before this year that found no misconduct or specific civil liberties abuses related to the Patriot Act."The statements from the attorney general are consistent with statements from other officials at the FBI and the department," Roehrkasse said. He added that many of the violations the FBI disclosed were not legal violations and instead involved procedural safeguards or even typographical errors.
Firstly (that was just for Tara), the excuse that perhaps Gonzales had not yet read those reports when he testified is absolutely absurd. Even if it's true, once he did read those reports he would have the responsibility to inform Congress that what he told them was false. That is, that's what an ethical person who cares about the truth would have a responsibility to do; someone intentionally trying to deceive Congress and the American people would feel no such responsibility at all.
The second excuse, that "many" of those FBI violations were mere violations of "procedural safeguards" is even more absurd. The whole point of such safeguards is to prevent abuses. The fact that the administration has consistently sought to do away with those safeguards is precisely the issue when determining whether to renew the act that lowered them. Those reports detailed a wide variety of abuses, not mere "typographical errors", and the DOJ's own reports later slammed the FBI for its profligate and unprincipled use of National Security Letters. Just another lie from Gonzales.
Comments
Thanks for not letting anything stop you from protecting us Attorney General Gonzalez. I don't want anyone I love or care for to end up as a sacrifice on the altar of idealism and rhetoric. I live in the real world, and I don't break the law so I have nothing to fear from the FBI, CIA, etc.
The only people I fear are Arab maniacs who think God commands them to kill innocent people. Thank goodness the Department of Justince will do anything to keep these maniacs who will do anything from attacking this country.
I love the rhetoric that our "liberties" are endangered by the Department of Justice and its actions. Whoever said that has no concept of American history. I would challenge them to find any time in American history where someone's "liberties" weren't horribly abridged. The country seems to have survived and liberty as well. If you don't like liberties in the United States go hop a jet and head to enlightened Europe where rhetoric and idealism don't seem to stop terror attacks as effectively as this administration.
You can keep your empty rhetoric and idealism, and I will demand pragmatic protection that leaves no stone unturned in an attempt to root out those who would attack us and kill us in reality, not in some idealistic sense.
Posted by: Dave Thomas | July 11, 2007 10:16 AM
"I live in the real world, and I don't break the law so I have nothing to fear from the FBI, CIA, etc."
If you believe the FBI and CIA have never screwed over people who don't break the law, then "the real world" is not what I would call your mental address.
"If you don't like liberties in the United States go hop a jet and head to enlightened Europe where rhetoric and idealism don't seem to stop terror attacks as effectively as this administration."
Unlike...which administration was in power during 9/11 again?
Go back to making Wendy's commercials, Dave.
Posted by: beibanjin | July 11, 2007 10:31 AM
Dave, I'm hoping that was parody.
Posted by: Chuck C | July 11, 2007 10:31 AM
Dave, its easy to be so dismissive of individual rights when they aren't affecting you. But I'm sure you'd have a different opinion when your dirty secrets (that have NOTHING to do with terror)were published and passed about the government. Or how about when your Arab wife (yes this is an imaginary situtaion) gets taken to jail on terror suspicion?
Not to mention, your assumption that all the government will do with the records of your many misdeeds is in your best interest resembles the "idealism" that you dismiss. You just hope that there is noone with any ulterior motives in the entire government?
PS this is my first post here, so be kind.
Posted by: Steve | July 11, 2007 10:35 AM
dave-
you are part of the problem in this country. you, and the fascists that represent your every whim, are playing off an un-named, poorly defined fear of "them" as a way to reach their big brother arms inside our houses every day. i'm glad that you think it's great for the fbi and cia to spy on american citizens without reasons and procedural safeguards..all the better for you. go live out on the streets under a security camera so they can watch you 24/7.
nutjob.
as for the rest of us, this is a country built on laws and the rule of law. this administration, through its warrantless wiretapping, "extraordinary rendition", torture of pow's, constant violation of the 4th amendment and repetitive lies to the american people has undermined everything that our country was based on. if you like authoritarianism and hate free speech so much, why don't YOU go move to china, where the gov't will listen to everything you say and do.
Posted by: dave thomas, isn't that the wendy's guy? | July 11, 2007 10:37 AM
Dave Thomas is in danger of getting scooped up and labeled "enemy combatant" as much as any of us. "Enemy combatant" means anything they want it to mean. Nobody will know if Dave is innocent and law abiding because he won't be allowed a lawyer, he won't be told the charges against him and his imprisonment will be indefinite until the government decides they can let him go. He can be tortured--after all it's ok to torture those eeeviiil terrorists. Since he actually *is* innocent he will have nothing to tell them to make the torture stop. He won't even be able to make up something because he's utterly clueless about what they are looking for because he's not charged with any crime.
Yes, I want to live in a country with a bit more liberty than that, thank you very much.
Posted by: Susan Brassfield Cogan | July 11, 2007 10:51 AM
Well I know this can't be my friend Dave Thomas from New Mexicans for Science and Reason. He's much too intelligent to leave such a comment unless it was clearly intended as a parody. Join us in the real world, Dave, where those who don't break the law do indeed have much to fear from the abuse of power. Does the name J. Edgar Hoover ring a bell? Hoover used illegal wiretaps to blackmail leaders of civil rights groups. And you know how he justified it? He was doing whatever it took to stop communism, which was just as much of a threat as Islamic radicalism is today. Using genuine threats as a pretext to remove the safeguards we rightly place on the power of government and using that power to undermine one's political opponents is very much a part of the real world. Dave. It's already happened. If you had some evidence that the minimal restrictions found in the FISA act actually did hamper them in some way from pursuing the bad guys, then you might have an argument that, on balance, there was more danger in doing so. But you don't have any such evidence, nor could you have. In the real world, governments abuse their power.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | July 11, 2007 11:05 AM
People like Dave had nothing to do with the founding of this country. They were loyal to the king and happy to pay their taxes. My bet is that he is also an ignorant evangelical. I am Christian but not duped.
Posted by: cato | July 11, 2007 11:19 AM
What is really sad is that things have gotten so bad that it truly is almost impossible to tell the difference between what hard core conservatives say and actual parodies. I still have trouble believing that the headline that stated that Cheney claims he is not part of the executive branch did not come straight from The Onion.
Posted by: Disgusted Beyond Belief | July 11, 2007 11:19 AM
Good thing I got the titanium case for the irony meter, or several people would have sustained shrapnel wounds.
Posted by: Pieter B | July 11, 2007 11:42 AM
"rhetoric and idealism"
Is this the new monarchists' talking point? Are true Americans now meant to be against "rhetoric and idealism" in the name of pragmatism? So in essence, we are to shut up and not think and let the adults protect us.
Ooops, my mistake. That has always been the monarchists' talking point.
Posted by: Jonathan | July 11, 2007 12:01 PM
Oh, how I want to send Mr. Dave forward 18 months or so into the future and hear his moaning and crying when the Clinton administration inherits and wields all these super-duper protection powers he is keen on Bush having.
Posted by: SharonB | July 11, 2007 12:17 PM
Good ol' dave thomas believes that he is untouchable in this country because he obeys the law. If he does not belong to a currently discriminated minority and he obeys the law, odds are good that he will be fine in this country. It is not 100% sure, but close enough for him to feel comfortable with it.
There is something else to this type of belief, though. For many, I don't think it is just fear of the "other". They seem to relish other people's misery.
So, when an innocent is arrested and jailed, they are more than ok with it. When innocents die in air-raids and shelling, it's peachy. When people die from aids or other diseases, they are untouched.
They surround themselves with the blanket of conformity and majority and trust that the like-minded authorities will protect them.
To them, the small chance that they might be caught up in the trap is worth it if many others (particularly different others) are ground up in the machine.
So, Dave, your house is already glass. Bugger off you twit.
Posted by: eewolf | July 11, 2007 12:29 PM
"I don't break the law so I have nothing to fear from the FBI, CIA"
IF you don't break the law. Prove it.
Posted by: rpsms | July 11, 2007 2:09 PM
At one point I represented the clients of a local women's shelter when they went for domestic protective orders. There would come a time in every hearing where the Defendant would take the stand and explain how his actions were being misinterpreted. You see, he acted out of love, he was really innocent, just come back and trust him to take care of you, etc. Every damn hearing.
That's Gonzalez. They don't break the law. It's "technical." Or pro forma. Whatever, we shouldn't mind, because, first it hardly ever, really never happens, and, even if it does, it is for our own good and they love us and will take care of us and we'll see this for ourselves in a few years when we grow up.
So just come back and everything is going to be okay. I'll never hit you again. I promise. Unless it's motivated by love.
Posted by: kehrsam | July 11, 2007 2:26 PM
I would challenge them to find any time in American history where someone's "liberties" weren't horribly abridged. The country seems to have survived and liberty as well.
So you're saying there has never been a time when America had liberty, yet liberty has somehow survived?
...uh...
Posted by: Coin | July 11, 2007 2:46 PM
Sure. In Europe :P
Posted by: MartinM | July 11, 2007 3:00 PM
Just goes to show you that there are plenty of people who think they are patriotic Americans who really would PREFER to live in an authoritarian theocracy. Who consider the Constitution to be more obstacle than protection (except for the 2nd & 5th Amendments, of course).
And they have the nerve to believe that that is what the Founding Fathers would wanted?
Posted by: gary l. day | July 11, 2007 3:14 PM
Thanks for not letting anything stop you from protecting your own ass, Attorney General Gonzalez. I don't want anyone I back politically to end up limited by standards of freedom and independence. I live in a fantasy world, and since I'm a white, protestant male I believe I have nothing to fear from the FBI, CIA, etc.
The only people I fear are black people, Hispanics, women, Asians, Native Americans, Canadians, the French, all other Europeans, fags, people who look like fags, people who don't beat fags up, lesbians, atheists, left-handed people, clowns, Jews, and Arab maniacs who think God commands them to kill innocent people. Well, all Arabs, really. They lie a lot, you know. And they smell funny.
Thank goodness the Department of Justince (Justince?) will do anything to keep these maniacs who will do anything from attacking this country... umm... from attacking our country. Or anything.
I love the rhetoric that our "liberties" are endangered by the Department of Justice and its actions. Whoever said that has no concept of American history. I would challenge them to find any time in American history where someone's "liberties" weren't horribly abridged. The country seems to have survived and liberty as well. Well, except in the cases where liberties were horribly abridged. And where they're still horribly abridged. Or where we're thinking of horribly abridging them. Anyway, if you don't like the remaining liberties in the United States go spend two years waiting for a passport, get your "Real ID", dodge the DHS agents trying to render you to our fine, democratic partner-in-torture Syria, hop a jet and head to enlightened Europe where rhetoric and idealism don't seem to stop terror attacks as effectively as this administration can provoke them.
You can keep your empty liberties and freedom, and I will demand a totalitarian regime that leaves no stone unturned in an attempt to root out those who would exercise those freedoms in reality, rather than simply submitting their will to our God-given Federal Government.
God given, that is, except when a Democrat is in the White House. Or when a judge says something I don't like.
Or when they tell me I can't buy really big guns.
Posted by: Chuck C | July 11, 2007 3:54 PM
Chuck C:
God given, that is, except when a Democrat is in the White House. Or when a judge says something I don't like.
Or when they tell me I can't buy really big guns.
Problem is, I think that we're gonna eventually need those big guns to protect ourselves from people like Dave.
Posted by: Chris Krolczyk | July 11, 2007 8:53 PM
Hey ,
Be carefull what you say because the Bush Mafia is reading all this.
They will have Taco Boy write up some new laws so they can come to your house and blow you (off).
Think you can stop them? Remember, Taco Boy and Howdy Doody Bush can do anything they want. "They are on a mission from God".
I wish God would tell Howdy and the rest of his retard puppets to go for a long walk on a short pier.
I think Howdy Doody Bush and Taco Boy proves that Texas really is the Corn Hole State.
Posted by: Dont Speak | July 11, 2007 10:36 PM