In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales where the president's authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.

Gonzales said that it was impossible to answer such a hypothetical question but that it was "not the policy or the agenda of this president" to authorize actions that conflict with existing law. He added that he would hope to alert Congress if the president ever chose to authorize warrantless surveillance, according to a transcript of the hearing.

In fact, the president did secretly authorize the National Security Agency to begin warrantless monitoring of calls and e-mails between the United States and other nations soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The program, publicly revealed in media reports last month, was unknown to Feingold and his staff at the time Feingold questioned Gonzales, according to a staff member. Feingold's aides developed the 2005 questions based on privacy advocates' concerns about broad interpretations of executive power.

Gonzales was White House counsel at the time the program began and has since acknowledged his role in affirming the president's authority to launch the surveillance effort. Gonzales is scheduled to testify Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the program's legal rationale.

"It now appears that the Attorney General was not being straight with the Judiciary Committee and he has some explaining to do," Feingold said in a statement yesterday.

A Justice Department spokesman said yesterday the department had not yet reviewed the Feingold letter and could not comment.

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the anti-war movement, was arrested and removed from the House gallery Tuesday night just before President Bush's State of the Union address, a police spokeswoman said.

Sheehan, who was invited to attend the speech by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D- Calif., was charged with demonstrating in the Capitol building, said Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. The charge was later changed to unlawful conduct, Schneider said. Both charges are misdemeanors.

Sheehan was taken in handcuffs from the Capitol to police headquarters a few blocks away. Her case was processed as Bush spoke.

Schneider said Sheehan had worn a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan to the speech and covered it up until she took her seat. Police warned her that such displays were not allowed, but she did not respond, the spokeswoman said.

Police handcuffed Sheehan and removed her from the gallery before Bush arrived. Sheehan was to be released on her own recognizance, Schneider said.

"I'm proud that Cindy's my guest tonight," Woolsey said in an interview before the speech. "She has made a difference in the debate to bring our troops home from Iraq."

Woolsey offered Sheehan a ticket to the speech _ Gallery 5, seat 7, row A _ earlier Tuesday while Sheehan was attending an "alternative state of the union" press conference by CODEPINK, a group pushing for an end to the Iraq war.

Sheehan, wrapped in a bright pink scarf against the cold, protested outside the White House with a handful of others before heading to the Capitol Tuesday evening. There were no cameras around, but the small band faced the executive mansion and repeatedly shouted, "You're evicted! Get out of our house!"

Sheehan was arrested in September with about 300 other anti-war activists in front of the White House after a weekend of protests against the war in Iraq. In August, she spent 26 days camped near Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he was spending a working vacation.

1. Mssrs. Bush and Cheney lied to Congress and the American people in order to invade Iraq. Thousands of American servicemen and mercenaries have died in this military action against Iraq. Many times that amount of innocent foreigners have died as well. By needlessly casting the US in the role of an aggressor nation, which has already caused the death of thousands of innocent US military personnel, Mssrs. Bush and Cheney have committed treason. This demonstrates that they are nothing more than war criminals like Hitler and Stalin.

2. Mssrs. Bush and Cheney authorized wide-scale illegal wiretaps on US citizens. They believe that having a “war” authorizes any sort of dictatorial abuse of power. These brazen criminals must be impeached, convicted, and removed from office.

3. Mssrs. Bush and Cheney have either condoned or actively encouraged the torture of prisoners of war and other detainees. The Bush Administration has issued many illegal “signing statements” to void the provisions of the new anti-torture law as well as many other laws passed by Congress. These men are usurping the authority of Congress. They must be impeached, convicted, and removed from office.

4. Mssrs. Bush and Cheney are not safeguarding our national borders, which results in massive illegal immigration. Legal immigration is fine. However, allowing illegal immigration is destroying our society by allowing law-breakers to continue lawless behavior within America and by placing a burden on state and local governments. Logic would indicate that sealing our borders would increase the safety and security of our nation, yet the Bush Administration not only doesn’t adequately enforce immigration laws, but also promotes illegal immigration by proposing amnesty for illegal aliens.

5. Mr. Bush has encouraged a coup against Mr. Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela. Venezuela is a key source of petroleum for America. As a result of Mr. Bush’s foolish behavior, Mr. Chavez is seeking Chinese assistance and investment in the Venezuelan oil industry. Mr. Bush's foolish policies have turned the people and countries of Latin America, such as Brazil, against the US.

6. Mssrs. Bush and Cheney pressured Congress into enacting the PATRIOT Act, which violates many provisions of the Bill of Rights. The rights are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. But it is essential to remember that these rights are not merely privileges given by government, but, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, are actually “inalienable rights” given to us directly by God. The US Constitution was designed to reflect and guarantee these God-given rights. The PATRIOT Act takes away our God-given and constitutionally guaranteed rights. It is the duty and obligation of Congress to repeal any laws that contradict the Bill of Rights. Mr. Bush has violated his oath of office by failing to follow the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

7. Mr. Bush has illegally violated the basic human right of “habeas corpus.” He has detained US citizens without stating the charges for which they are accused. Would-be dictator Bush acts as if he is above the law. Congress must act to preserve the Constitutional rights of all Americans. No one should be allowed to take away these God-given rights. As our representative, you are obligated to protect these rights. You must do it now. This is the most important thing for you to do. Nothing else is significant.

8. Just as the first Roman dictator Julius Caesar violated Roman law by bringing his legions across the Rubicon River into Italy, Mssrs. Bush and Cheney have violated US law by having the US military involved within the interior of the US to engage in domestic law enforcement. This is the behavior of dictators.

9. These two men have committed many other crimes. They have enriched their cronies through exorbitant no-bid contracts. They cannot account for billions of dollars spent by the Defense Department. Through their negligence Mssrs. Bush and Cheney may have been responsible for not preventing the tragic events of September 11. They may even be responsible for instigating the events of September 11 for their own political benefit. There are numerous inconsistencies and unexplained facts to indicate that a thorough and objective investigation has not been performed. It appears that the public is not aware of the true extent of their many crimes. I am ashamed to call these men Americans.

This is a choice of freedom or tyranny ... we as Americans chose to keep freedom. We chose to keep the US Constitution.

We choose to keep the Bill of Rights.

Therefore, we demand that Congress impeach and convict both Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Bob Chapman
international_forecaster@yahoo.com

THE INTERNATIONAL FORECASTER
P. O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951, USA
Bob Chapman international_forecaster@yahoo.com

But the organizations behind the lawsuit say that Congress never intended to force broadband providers--and private networks at corporations and universities--to build in central surveillance hubs for police convenience. The list of organizations includes Sun Microsystems, Pulver.com, the American Association of Community Colleges, the Association of American Universities, and the American Library Association.

"The brief demonstrates the flaws in the FCC's reasoning and strips away any believability that its legal analysis has any validity," said Albert Gidari, a partner at Perkins Coie in Seattle who co-authored the document.

Even without the FCC rules that are scheduled to take effect in spring 2007, police have the legal authority to conduct Internet wiretaps--that's precisely what the FBI's Carnivore system was designed to do. Still, the FBI says, the need for "standardized broadband intercept capabilities is especially urgent in light of today's heightened threats to homeland security and the ongoing tendency of criminals to use the most clandestine modes of communication."

Unlike most lawsuits that are first heard by a judge, a procedural twist sends this one directly to the appeals court. Thursday's filing was expected; the universities and other groups filed a brief notice of appeal on Oct. 24, and now the Justice Department and the FCC will have a chance to submit their responses.

At issue in this case is the scope of a 1994 called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. It required telephone companies to rewire their networks and switches--at taxpayer expense--to guarantee police access to features such as extracting touch tones pressed during a call, conference call information, call waiting data, and so on.

Opponents of the FBI's demands argue that Congress explicitly said CALEA would not apply to the Internet. A House of Representatives committee report prepared in October 1994 says CALEA's requirements "do not apply to information services such as electronic-mail services; or online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online or Mead Data; or to Internet service providers."

According to the brief filed Thursday, the Bush administration is "relying on an interpretation of CALEA that is contrary to the plain meaning of the statute, arbitrary and capricious, and otherwise not in accordance with law."

In an unusual twist, some of the FCC commissioners who unanimously approved the wiretapping rules have acknowledged that the agency was on shaky legal ground. Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy, for instance, said she had "concern that an approach like the one we adopt today is not without legal risk."

AT&T said Tuesday that it needed to review the complaint before it could respond. But AT&T spokesman Dave Pacholczyk told CNET News.com last week in response to a query about NSA cooperation: "We don't comment on matters of national security."

A Los Angeles Times article dated Dec. 26 quoted an unnamed source as saying the NSA has a "direct hookup" into an AT&T database that stores information about all domestic phone calls, including how long they lasted.

If the Bush administration does intervene, EFF could have a formidable hurdle to overcome: the so-called "state secrets" doctrine.

The state secrets privilege, outlined by the Supreme Court in a 1953 case, permits the government to derail a lawsuit that might otherwise lead to the disclosure of military secrets.

In 1998, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals elaborated on the state secret privilege in a case where former workers at the Air Force's classified Groom Lake, Nev., facility alleged hazardous waste violations. When requested by the workers' lawyers to turn over information, the Air Force refused.

The 9th Circuit upheld a summary judgment on behalf of the Air Force, saying that once the state secrets "privilege is properly invoked and the court is satisfied as to the danger of divulging state secrets, the privilege is absolute" and the case will generally be dismissed.

The Bush administration also is defending a related lawsuit filed earlier this month by the American Civil Liberties Union, that says the surveillance was unconstitutional and illegal.

AT&T has 30 days to file a response, which could include a request that the case be dismissed or a motion for summary judgment.

CNET News.com's Anne Broache contributed to this report

It goes to the question, Is the president above the law? The answer, if we wish to maintain our free republic, must be no. Hence, the public-relations campaign, which consists of the president and his minions fanning out to make speeches asserting that what he did was both legal and necessary. The operative word is "asserting." An assertion is not a fact. It is merely a claim. What it all boils down to is, "Trust me." The American people have no way of verifying if, in fact, the surveillance is limited to people actually making contact with actual terrorists.

As to the legality, that's plain. What the president did was illegal. Some act does not become legal just because some hired lawyers say it is. The act must be measured against both the law and the Constitution; Bush's act was illegal and unconstitutional.

Some years ago, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It sets up a special court that can issue warrants authorizing surveillance of Americans. This court has routinely issued the warrants and even gives the government 72 hours in which it can get a warrant after the fact. In other words, if what Bush says about only surveilling people with known ties to terrorists is true, then he would have had no problem getting the warrants.

Gen. Michael Hayden, now deputy director of national intelligence and former director of the National Security Agency, was trotted out before the press to justify this and, frankly, made a fool of himself. When someone raised the issue of probable cause, the general petulantly denied that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution requires probable cause. Then he said that the standard is reasonable, and added that nobody was more familiar with the Fourth Amendment than the NSA.

Well, he's dead, flat wrong.

Here's the text of the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

What the Bush administration is saying is, to hell with the Bill of Rights. We are changing the standard. No probable cause and no oaths or affirmations are needed. All that is needed is if we personally decide that search and seizure is reasonable. By that standard, no police department in the U.S. would need to bother with search warrants.

Sorry, but the Constitution cannot be amended by arrogant public officials who don't wish to bother with it. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and if the American people allow it to be violated at will, then they will deserve the loss of liberty that will surely follow. We do not need to become a dictatorship just to catch terrorists. Nor does a declaration of war (which Bush, by the way, doesn't have) suspend the Constitution.

Not long after the Bush administration adopted new rhetoric to describe its warrantless domestic surveillance program, Fox News reporters and anchors began using the White House's terminology, referring to it as a "terrorist surveillance program." Beginning on January 25 -- during a week that saw the administration go on the offensive to promote its practice of spying on U.S. residents without obtaining warrants -- Fox News began slipping the term, without qualification, into its news reports and commentary. For example, reporter Harris Faulkner, on the January 25 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, used the term during a news brief when she noted that " '[s]trange and farfetched' ... is what New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is calling President Bush's defense of his terror surveillance program."

During what many in the media have described as the White House's weeklong "blitz" to foster support for the wiretapping program, on the January 24 edition of the Fox News morning show, Fox & Friends, co-hosts E.D. Hill and Steven Doocy used the term "terrorist surveillance program" while discussing the president's January 23 Kansas State University speech in which he began using the term publicly. Hill and Doocy concurred that the White House's terminology "sounds better" and "is more accurate" -- presumably than other descriptions of the program, such as "domestic spy program," "warrantless wiretapping" and "NSA domestic surveillance program." The following day on Fox & Friends First, Doocy and co-host Brian Kilmeade announced their intention to refer to the program as "the terrorist surveillance program."

On January 22, the White House Press press office released a backgrounder -- called "Setting the Record Straight" -- on the NSA spy program, in which the term "terrorist surveillance program" appeared 10 times in reference to the NSA's controversial practice, authorized by the White House, of the warrantless surveillance of people in the United States, including U.S. citizens. The term "terrorist surveillance program" appears to have originated with the right-wing news website NewsMax.com on December 22; operators of right-wing weblogs began to pick up the term on January 20, according to a timeline at the Think Progress blog.

As Media Matters for America has noted, Fox also followed the White House's lead in replacing the terms "suicide bomber" and "suicide bombing" with "homicide bomber" and "homicide bombing" to describe attackers who kill themselves and others with explosives. On April 12, 2002, then-White House press secretary Ari Fleisher adopted the term, and Fox News immediately followed suit in its reporting. According to an April 13, 2002, Associated Press report, "Dennis Murray, executive producer of [Fox News'] daytime programming, said executives there had heard the phrase ["homicide bombing"] being used by administration officials in recent days and thought it was a good idea." In a February 23, 2005, item, Media Matters documented Fox's doctoring of AP articles featured on the Fox News website concerning terrorist attacks in the Middle East to conform to Bush administration terminology -- even altering a quote from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) to fit the White House jargon.

Initially, when using the phrase, "terrorist surveillance program", Fox News reporters and anchors noted that it was the term promoted by the Bush administration. For example, on January 23 broadcast of Your World with Neil Cavuto news update anchor Uma Pemmaraju highlighted the switch:

PEMMARAJU: President Bush on the offensive against critics of domestic wiretapping in the war on terror. The president, speaking at Kansas State University, relabeled his effort the "terrorist surveillance program." He says it was within the law to eavesdrop on people communicating with Al Qaeda associates outside the U.S. after 9-11.

But beginning January 25, use of the phrase began to appear in Fox News reports without any indication that the White House has promoted it.

From Faulkner's news brief during the January 25 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

FAULKNER: "Strange and far-fetched," that's what New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is calling President Bush's defense of his terror surveillance program. For example, President Bush has said Congress gave him the authority as part of a terror fight resolution passed after 9-11. Senator Clinton says she doesn't buy that argument, calling it "a stretch."

From the January 25 broadcast of Fox & Friends First:

KILMEADE: Let's call it the terrorist surveillance program. That would be a lot easier. And right now, if you're--

DOOCY: And more accurate.

KILMEADE: Yeah, more accurate too. If you're for the NSA wiretapping without going to the FISA court, I guess warrantless, then most likely you're Republican. If you are against it, you most likely are a Democrat. Here is what the president is going to be focusing on: the independents.

As Media Matters has previously documented, numerous Republicans and conservatives have expressed concern over the legality of the NSA warrantless spy program.

From the January 24 broadcast of Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends:

DOOCY: I wouldn't be surprised if George W. Bush is looking for a house in Manhattan, Kansas, because the audience yesterday at the Alf Landon Lecture Series at Kansas State University gave him a warm reception. He was talking at great length about the terrorist surveillance program -- that's now how it is being referred to by the White House -- and as we heard the president say at the top of this program just four minutes ago --

HILL: It sounds better, doesn't it? It's more accurate.

DOOCY: It is more accurate, and it tells you what it's about. And he made a good point: He said, "If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?"