Breaking News: Alberto Gonzales Lied (again)

In a development that should shock no one...

On April 27, 2005 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate in the debate on whether to renew the US Patriot Act. He was asked whether he knew of any abuses by the FBI of their Patriot Act Powers. Gonzales answered:

"There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse."

He was lying. And he got caught.

As the Washington Post reports: "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."

read the entire article here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/09/AR2007070902065_pf.html

In Gonzales' defense, officials at Justice said they could not be sure AG had read any of the reports from the FBI. Furthermore, a spokesman said that Gonzalez was speaking in 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.

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, The Post details just what the reports given to Gonzalez said, so decide for yourself.

Blogging from the UK

I am in London this month for school, so I have a unique perspective on what’s going on back home, seeing it from across the pond. Also there is first hand experience on the current events in England.

For instance, the failed car bomb outside Tiger Tiger nightclub—I nearly went there that night, but opted for something closer. The next morning, the streets around my school in Trafalgar Sq. were blocked off to preserve the crime scene, it was blocks away.

The Brits have taken the attempts in stride, but it’s clear the attack is ever present in the back of Londoners’ minds; just as it's clear that radical Islamic fundamentalism is prevalent in a deadly way here.

I suppose some solace can be taken in the speed with which law enforcement tracked down five of the plotters, no doubt aided by the presence of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras on nearly every London street corner. The cameras are Orwellian, for sure, but proved their value. It’s a useful reminder that the relationship between safety and civil liberties is indeed one of balance, where conflicting goals are weighed against each other. Each has its place.