One of my senators, Dianne Feinstein, is an embarrassment, but unfortunately she is there and pretends to represent me. So I call her office all the time to bust her on just about everything she does, and now and then the staffer who answers will let it slip that I have hit an issue that is generating a lot of calls.
On to Michael Hayden and his potential nomination to replace Porter Goss. Here is Feinstein, quoted by ABC news:
"I think General Hayden is a logical choice; he is very well respected, he is a professional, he's run an agency twice the size of the CIA," she said.
But Feinstein, one of the top members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, quickly offered a caveat, "[The CIA] is a civilian agency," taking issue with Hayden's status as a active-duty Air Force general. The California Democrat suggested, "He might think about resigning his position if he's thinking about doing this."
More on the flip:
Hayden is emblematic of the corruption in the White House. He is the guy who admitted that he ignored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act because adhering to the Fourth Amendment involved
too much paperwork:GENERAL HAYDEN: FISA involves the process -- FISA involves marshaling arguments; FISA involves looping paperwork around, even in the case of emergency authorizations from the Attorney General. And beyond that, it's a little -- it's difficult for me to get into further discussions as to why this is more optimized under this process without, frankly, revealing too much about what it is we do and why and how we do it.
Q If FISA didn't work, why didn't you seek a new statute that allowed something like this legally?
ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: That question was asked earlier. We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program.
Q And who determined that these targets were al Qaeda? Did you wiretap them?
GENERAL HAYDEN: The judgment is made by the operational work force at the National Security Agency using the information available to them at the time, and the standard that they apply -- and it's a two-person standard that must be signed off by a shift supervisor, and carefully recorded as to what created the operational imperative to cover any target, but particularly with regard to those inside the United States.
He is the guy who could not articulate to a reporter the probable cause standard of the Fourth Amendment, offereing instead his revision, which is "reasonable suspicion":
if there's any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you've raised to me -- and I'm not a lawyer, and don't want to become one -- what you've raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we're doing is reasonable.
Hayden is the man who refused to deny that the administration had spied on Mr. Bush's political opponents:
At a public appearance, Bush's pointman in the Office of National Intelligence was asked if the NSA was wiretapping Bush's political enemies. When Hayden dodged the question, the questioner repeated, "No, I asked, are you targeting us and people who politically oppose the Bush government, the Bush administration? Not a fishing net, but are you targeting specifically political opponents of the Bush administration?" Hayden looked at the questioner, and after a silence called on a different questioner.
Senator Feinstein's schmoozing up to Hayden is a bad sign; it suggests that she is not going to question him very thoroughly at a confirmation hearing.
Email is not very satisfying to me, because there is no feedback. If you get an answer at all, it is along the lines of, "Thank you for your interest in this important issue." I like to call and engage the staffers in conversation. A few thousand of these conversations might make a difference, and if they don't, all you are out is a phone call.
California Kossacks: Call Senator Feinstein's various offices and let her know that Hayden should be answering to a court of law rather than running the CIA.
Washington office: (202) 224-3841
San Francisco office: (415) 393-0707
Los Angeles office: (310) 914-7300
San Diego office: (619) 231-9712
Fresno office: (559) 485-7430