House Judiciary Chair Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has just issued a statement [posted in full below] calling on the FBI to fire those who broke the law by issuing improper letters from the FBI in order to receive access to thousands of Americans’ phone records from 2003 through 2006 under the guise of “national security.”
“I call upon FBI Director Mueller to take immediate action to punish those who violated the rules,” Conyers says in the statement, “including firing them from the agency.”
“Today’s hearing showed that the FBI broke the law on telephone records privacy and the General Counsel’s Office, headed by Valerie Caproni, sanctioned it and must face consequences,” said Conyers. “In some cases agents sent letters with information known to be false.”
His statement even quotes the former Republican chair of the Committee, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), sharing the sentiment:
In a related matter, late last month a federal judge found the Bush Administration’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program to be illegal. So this would be the second time in several weeks where the former administration was found to have violated the law and the U.S. Constitution in order to spy inappropriately and illegally on American citizens.
Will those Tea Baggers who claim to believe in the Constitution and the Rule of Law join the call for accountability yet? (Careful: It’s a trick question, Tea Baggers, since the accountability would include members of the Bush Administration, and we realize your calls for “accountability” only go so far. On the other hand, if it’s okay for Bush to have done it, we’ll presume you don’t mind if Obama spies on you either.)
Conyers’ complete statement, issued late this afternoon, follows below…
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Conyers: FBI Broke the Law and General Counsel’s Office, Headed by Valerie Caproni, Sanctioned It and Must Face Consequences
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) issued the following statement after the Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on the Report by the Office of Inspector General (IG) of the Department of Justice on the FBI’s Use of Exigent Letters and Other Informal Requests for Telephone Records.
“Today’s hearing showed that the FBI broke the law on telephone records privacy and the General Counsel’s Office, headed by Valerie Caproni, sanctioned it and must face consequences,” said Conyers. “I call upon FBI Director Mueller to take immediate action to punish those who violated the rules, including firing them from the agency. This must include the FBI Office of General Counsel, headed by Valerie Caproni, which the IG testified today had ‘approved [the] continued use’ of exigent letters and ‘provided legal advice that was inconsistent with’ federal law.
“Between 2003 and 2006, the FBI improperly obtained personal telephone record information from U.S. telephone companies for more than 5,500 phone numbers, including private details protected by federal law. The IG found that, during this period, much of this information was obtained through the use of so-called ‘exigent letters’, which do not exist in the Patriot Act and have no statutory basis whatsoever. In some cases agents sent letters with information known to be false.
“The FBI must fulfill its obligations to protect the rights as well as the security of all Americans. I share the concerns of my colleague, the former Republican Chairman of the Committee James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who today said,
‘I’m extremely disappointed that every time Congress has tried to plug potential civil rights and civil liberties violations in our counterterrorism activities, the FBI seems to have figured out a way to get around it.’
In related news, John Conyers today also demanded that attorney General Alberto Gonzales launch an immediate investigation into the politicized firing of U.S. attorneys with undue influence exerted by White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove.
Is Sensenbrenner worried that the FBI is going to wiretap HIM now.
Don Siegelman trusts John Conyers and that’s good enough for me. I could do without Sensenbrenner’s take on the matter.
GOOD FOR CONYERS!
And a bit of…PO’ed OT:
The latest joke… we spend trillions in war costs and deficits for oil and gas companies in Iraq and Afghanistan and these companies don’t even pay 1 cent in American taxes.
http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/201004060001
Oh yeah and lets not forget about the blood they and we pay in too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)
http://icasualties.org/oef/
http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/04/army_suicides_041410w/
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03186503.htm
Sorry, the third link’s funky.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)
I don’t know what’s up with that link, but here’s another great read:
http://warandlaw.homestead.com/files/matrix.htm
Conyers talks a mean game and writes a mean letter, but has no clout and KNOWS it, so he can make these demands and know that nothing will ever come of it.
How convenient.
I’m sorry Brad I’m not trying to hijack the thread, I just don’t know what to do with the horror I feel inside. Just another little tax story.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/15/ubs
Brad, check your headline at veteranstodaynetwork.com Traders should be Traitors I’d mention what we used to do to traitors, but the FBI’s already harassing me enough!!
That’s nice. And it will go exactly nowhere. There will be no accountability for Valerie Caproni or anyone else involved in this kind of thing. These people protect their own.
Conyers is a good man, but he knows it won’t go anywhere. He’s just throwing a bone to his progressive base; it’s nothing more than that. It’s not really different from when a republican talks about something like, say, “deport undocumented people!” It may be something that Conyers (or the republican with the “deport them!” crap) would like to happen, but he knows it won’t. It’s for the base and nothing more than that.
I’m not knocking Conyers, but just being realistic.
I don’t know folks, I think Conyers could use some people power behind him. But hey, that’s just me. 🙂
Well I’ll be…
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0415/feingold-end-war-afghanistan/
Conyers should float some kind of a petition to the people similar to this:
http://www.billiondollarsaday.com/
Kate Eddy @ 7:
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve been on the road, so my apologies for not responding sooner. I have no control over what they post over at that website (didn’t even though they were running my post at all, much less in full and with a different headline).
Saw that you mentioned the typo in their headline at least over in comments over there, which is much appreciated!
Gee Whiz… here’s another one:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/ge_7000_tax_returns/index.htm
And just in case you need a good laugh today…here’s a real thigh-slapper:
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_Afghan_commander_We_have_too_man_04162010.html