1 Boring Old Man

The first time I heard the term scandal fatigue, I thought it was a cute but melodramatic term. But now, I see how real it is. So many balls in the air: Plame, N.S.A., Quailgate, Comstock, etc. But there’s a piece from today that can’t be ignored. N.S.A. whistleblower Russell Tice is mad, real mad. They called him paranoid and it pissed him off. We’re all paranoid. But it’s because they’re out to get us. So he’s got a story he wants to tell, but he can’t tell it yet – too secret. But he’s hinting:

Whistleblower says NSA violations bigger

A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans’ Constitutional rights.

Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.

Tice said he believes it violates the Constitution’s protection against unlawful search and seizures but has no way of sharing the information without breaking classification laws. He is not even allowed to tell the congressional intelligence committees – members or their staff – because they lack high enough clearance.

Neither could he brief the inspector general of the NSA because that office is not cleared to hear the information, he said.

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From Brian Ross at ABC:

"Tice lost his job last May after the NSA revoked his security clearances citing psychological concerns. Nevertheless, the NSA is very concerned. In this letter sent to Tice today, the NSA said he should not testify before Congress because, Bob, none of the staff members on Capitol Hill are classified secret enough to hear what he has to say."

Give this man an audience! There’s got to be a smoking gun in the N.S.A. story and he seems to know what it is, and wants to talk. They’ve worked too hard on the cover-up and shutting him up for there not to be something really important that needs exposing.

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Department of Justice concedes it can begin to release internal warrantless surveillance records on March 3

Under pressure from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Justice Department on February 10 conceded in federal court that it could begin releasing as early as March 3 the internal legal memos relied on by the Bush administration in setting up the controversial National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program.

The National Security Archive, along with the American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU"), this week joined the Electronic Privacy Information Center in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice seeking to compel the immediate disclosure of the internal legal justifications for the surveillance program. The filing this week by the Archive and the ACLU was consolidated with a suit filed on January 19, 2006, by the Electronic Privacy Information Center ("EPIC") that requested the federal court in Washington to issue a preliminary injunction requiring the release of relevant documents within 20 days-which Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. considered at a formal hearing today.

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