Loss of US Civil Liberties

Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Louis O. Giuffrida announces he will step down from his position on September 1. The announcement comes a day before a subcommittee is scheduled to officially approve a report detailing waste, fraud, and abuse at the nation’s disaster agency (see July 25, 1985). Giuffrida is singled out in the report for improperly using agency funds and committing possible perjury, although he says his resignation is unrelated to the subcommittee’s investigation. [Associated Press, 7/26/1985]

Entity Tags: Federal Emergency Management Agency, Louis Giuffrida

Category Tags: Other

The House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Tennessee Democrat Al Gore, officially approves a report detailing numerous instances of waste, fraud, and abuse at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The 18-month subcommittee investigation finds mismanagement at the highest levels of the agency. The report describes improper awarding of no-bid contracts, the use of agency funds to build luxurious living quarters for FEMA officials, acceptance of gifts by officials from contractors, and questionable payments to contractors. It states that FEMA Director Louis O. Giuffida has used agency funds to pay for first class plane tickets for his wife’s travel. The former third highest-ranking official at FEMA, Fred J. Villella, is accused of using government expenses to upgrade a chapel for his daughter’s wedding. The report says the Triton Corporation, a FEMA contracted company, gave Giuffrida, Villella, and their wives tickets to a $250-a-plate fundraiser held by a private club with ties to the Republican Party. It highlights conflicts in the sworn statements given to the subcommittee by Giuffrida and other agency officials, and recommends the Justice Department review their testimony for possible perjury. [Associated Press, 10/24/1984; Associated Press, 7/26/1985]

Entity Tags: Fred J. Villella, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Louis Giuffrida, Al Gore, House Science and Technology Subcommittee, Triton Corporation

Category Tags: Other

White House counsel Alberto Gonzales contacts John Carlin, archivist of the United States, and asks him to step down, but does not provide reasons for the request. “The administration would like to appoint a new archivist,” Gonzales reportedly says. No reason is given, even after Carlin asks why he should leave. Some critics will suggest that Carlin’s removal is connected to President Bush’s Executive Order 13233 limiting access to presidential records. The records of former President George H. W. Bush, the father of the current president, were due to be released in January 2005. Incoming archivist Allen Weinstein will later note that he met with the director of presidential personnel, Dina Powell, on September 23, 2003, and was asked to submit investigative forms to the White House and the FBI in November and December. Weinstein will also note that although he professed distaste for President Bush’s executive order, he “would feel obliged to defend the order against a lawsuit by the American Historical Association seeking to overturn it.” [Washington Post, 6/26/2004]

Entity Tags: John William Carlin, Allen Weinstein, Dina Powell, Alberto R. Gonzales

Category Tags: Other

Porter Goss. [Source: CIA]Porter Goss becomes the new CIA director, replacing George Tenet (John McLaughlin served as interim director for a few months after Tenet’s sudden resignation—see June 3, 2004). Goss was a CIA field agent, then a Republican representative and co-chair of the 2002 9/11 Congressional Inquiry. [Knight Ridder, 10/25/2004]
Ignored Pakistan, ISI during 9/11 Investigations - He took part in secret meetings with Pakistani ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed before 9/11 and on the morning of 9/11 itself (see August 28-30, 2001 and (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Despite some press reports that Mahmood directly ordered money to be sent to hijacker Mohamed Atta, there is virtually no mention of Mahmood or Pakistan in the Inquiry report that Goss co-chaired. Such issues appear to be forgotten by the US press, but the Times of India raised them when his nomination was announced. [Times of India, 8/10/2004]
Will Lead 'Purge' - During his confirmation hearings Goss pledges that he will be a nonpartisan CIA director, but he will purge the CIA of all but “true believers” in Bush’s policies shortly after becoming director (see November-December 2004). [Knight Ridder, 10/25/2004] CIA analyst Valerie Plame Wilson will later write that Goss “arrive[s] at headquarters with the clear intention to houseclean, and from the beginning [is] seen more as a crusader and occupier than former colleague. He [brings] with him several loyal Hill staffers, known for their abrasive management style, and immediately set[s] to work attempting to bring the CIA—with special emphasis on the often wild and willful operations directorate—to heel, per White House orders. White House officials had suspected that CIA officials had leaked information prior to the election about the intelligence surrounding the war in Iraq that put the agency in a better light. Thus, Goss’s orders from the administration [are] probably along the lines of ‘get control of it.’” She will write that while most at the CIA welcome the idea of reform as a means to rebuild the agency’s credibility, “Goss’s heavy-handedness [will be] bitterly resented.” Goss will fail to have any meaningful dealings with “senior agency managers,” will spend “little time with the heads of foreign intelligence services (all of whom the CIA relied on for cooperation with counterterrorism and counterproliferation matters),” will fail to sufficiently engage “in day-to-day activities,” and will fail to gain a grasp of “some of the details of operations.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 211-212]

Entity Tags: Porter J. Goss, John E. McLaughlin, Valerie Plame Wilson

Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Other

A former CIA officer will tell New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh that, in mid-2004, the White House began putting pressure on CIA analysts “to see more support for the administration’s political position.” But after Porter Goss becomes the new CIA director (see September 24, 2004) and the November 2004 election passes, a “political purge” of employees who have written papers that dissent with Bush policies begins. One former official notes that only “true believers” remain. [New Yorker, 1/24/2005]
'Creeping Politicization' - An anonymous former CIA official tells Newsday: “The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House. Goss was given instructions… to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats.” [Newsday, 11/14/2004] In 2007, CIA analyst Valerie Plame Wilson will write, “Employees’ worst fears about the creeping politicization of the CIA” are confirmed when Goss issues the memo about the agency supporting the administration. She will observe: “Although a CIA spokesman explained the memo as a statement of the agency’s nonpartisan nature, it appeared to be just the opposite. It had a kind of creepy Orwellian Ministry of Truth ring to it—further dismaying CIA staffers who believed the agency was rapidly losing credibility and power as partisan politics began to degrade its work product.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 212] Days after the November 2004 presidential election, Goss circulates an internal memorandum to all CIA employees, telling them their job is to “support the administration and its policies in our work.” [New York Times, 11/17/2004] The memo also contains a caveat that they should “let the facts alone speak to the policymaker.” However, an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times calls this mere “lip service,” and says the memo leaves “the impression that in the second Bush administration, the White House will run the CIA.… Goss has confirmed the worst fears of critics who warned he was too partisan when Bush appointed him.” [Los Angeles Times, 11/21/2004]
Morale 'Dangerously Low,' Many Senior Officials Leave - Plame Wilson will recall hearing from her colleagues throughout August, while she was on leave, “that morale was dangerously low, and there was a spirit of outright revolt towards Porter Goss and his ‘Gosslings.’ Everyone was calculating the benefits of staying or jumping from the fast-sinking ship.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 213] Such new policies inspire more employees to leave. By the time the purge is completed in early 2005, about 20 senior CIA officials will have resigned or retired. Only one member of the leadership team from George Tenet’s tenure will remain. [Washington Post, 1/6/2005] Newsweek says the “efforts at cleaning house may have only thrown the spy agency into deeper turmoil.” [Newsweek, 2/21/2005] Plame Wilson will write: “At least one thousand years of hard-earned operational experience walked out when our country’s national security needs were greatest. It was devastating.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 213]

Entity Tags: Bush administration, Porter J. Goss, Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Expansion of Presidential Power, Other

Two months after leaving office, former Attorney General John Ashcroft opens a lobbying firm on Washington’s prestigious K Street, where he markets his contacts in the Justice and Homeland Security departments to, among others, ChoicePoint, a company that brokers credit data and other personal information on American citizens to government and private entities. The Ashcroft Group quickly earns over $269,000 from four clients, and, the Chicago Tribune will write, “appears to be developing a practice centered on firms that want to capitalize on a government demand for homeland security technology that boomed under sometimes controversial policies he promoted while in office.” Another Ashcroft client is the Oracle Corporation, one of the world’s largest software developers, who, according to the Tribune, will use Ashcroft’s clout with the Justice Department to win approval of a multibillion-dollar acquisition. A third client, LTU Technologies, makes software that analyzes large collections of video and other visual images. Ashcroft’s firm will soon sign a contract with Israel Aircraft Industries to help secure Bush administration approval for the firm to sell weapons to South Korea. The Tribune will write, “While Ashcroft’s lobbying is within government rules for former officials, it is nonetheless a departure from the practice of attorneys general for at least the last 30 years.” Ashcroft is the first former attorney general to open his own lobbying firm. Charles Tiefer, a former deputy general counsel to the House of Representatives, will note, “The attorney general is very much supposed to embody the pure rule of law like the Department of Justice’s statue of ‘Blind Justice’ and he’s not expected afterwards to cloak with the mantle of his former office a bunch of greedy interests.” Author and media critic Frank Rich will later write: “Thus did the government official who recklessly expanded the market for domestic surveillance while in office find a nominally legal way to make a profit on his nominally legal policies as soon as he was out the door. It was the perfect Enron-esque coda to his wartime career.” [Rich, 2006, pp. 208; Inter Press Service, 2/14/2006]

Entity Tags: John Ashcroft, Chicago Tribune, Charles Tiefer, Bush administration, ChoicePoint, Israel Aircraft Industries, Oracle Corporation, The Ashcroft Group, LTU Technologies, US Department of Homeland Security, US Department of Justice, Frank Rich

Category Tags: Privacy, Other

President Bush’s top political adviser, deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, tells a meeting of the Republican National Committee that the warrantless wiretapping controversy (see December 15, 2005 and December 18, 2005) can be used to boost Republicans’ election chances in the 2006 midterm elections. Republicans should emphasize that the wiretapping proves that Bush is willing to do whatever it takes to defeat terrorism and keep Americans safe. Critics of the program, therefore, can be painted as weak on terrorism. “The United States faces a ruthless enemy, and we need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in,” Rove says. “President Bush and the Republican Party do; unfortunately, the same cannot be said of many Democrats.… Let me be clear as I can be: President Bush believes if al-Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interests to know who they’re calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree.” [WIS-TV, 1/20/2006; Savage, 2007, pp. 203]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Democratic Party, Republican Party, Republican National Committee, Karl Rove

Category Tags: Impositions on Rights and Freedoms, Other, NSA Wiretapping / Stellar Wind

CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigns “amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.” A senior law enforcement official says, “It’s all about the Duke Cunningham scandal.” Congressman Cunningham (R-CA) was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty in late 2005 to taking millions of dollars in bribes. Goss is replaced by General Michael Hayden, the director of the NSA on 9/11. [New York Daily News, 5/6/2006] The Bush administration gives no explanation for the resignation and even Goss publicly describes his own resignation as “just one of those mysteries.” [CNN, 5/6/2006] In 2007, former senior CIA analyst Valerie Plame Wilson will write: “Once John Negroponte became the de facto intelligence czar as director of national intelligence (DNI—see February 17, 2005)… Goss’s effectiveness, prestige, and daily access to the president had been considerably diminished. This, in turn, further degraded and undermined the organization he led. During a time of driving massive change, which Goss and other senior intelligence managers were attempting to do at the agency, effective and clear communication with all levels of the organization is critical. Goss failed completely at this task and the cost was high.… [H]e had been a poor fit from the beginning. In an underperforming bureaucracy such as the CIA, a strong leader, respected by the rank and file, is essential to managing needed change and modernization. On a personal note, I was not sorry to see him go.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 247-248]

Entity Tags: Randall Cunningham, Valerie Plame Wilson, Michael Hayden, John Negroponte, Porter J. Goss, Bush administration

Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Other

Almost two years after resigning from the CIA (see Early November, 2004), Stephen Kappes agrees to return as deputy director for the new agency head, General Michael Hayden. Kappes is leaving his position as the chief operating officer for ArmorGroup International, a British security firm, to take the position. He is a former Marine with 25 years of service in the CIA. He is fluent in Russian and Farsi, and took part in agency operations against Iran while serving in the Frankfurt, Germany, station. After the 1991 Gulf War, Kappes reopened the CIA’s Kuwait station. He also was a key participant in the agency’s attempts to find information on nuclear black marketeer A. Q. Khan. He was deputy director for operations under former CIA chief George Tenet before coming into conflict with Tenet’s replacement, Porter Goss (see September 24, 2004). Kappes was one of the first of many CIA officials to leave the agency under Goss’s tenure, either by resignation or by firing as Goss attempted to purge the agency of all but Bush administration loyalists (see November-December 2004). [New York Times, 5/30/2006; Time, 6/1/2006] In May, CNN reported that Kappes was being offered the job in part to assuage concerns among members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who doubt Hayden’s ability to lead the agency and question whether he will run it in a nonpartisan fashion. Many observers see Kappes’s return both as a repudiation of Goss, who abruptly resigned over allegations of involvement with prostitutes and bribery schemes (see May 5, 2006), and as a potential brake on any possible instances of Hayden putting his loyalty to the Bush administration over his loyalties to the CIA and the nation. John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, said when Kappes’s nomination for the position was announced: “I believe that Mike’s appointment, and I think together if the appointment of Steve Kappes goes through, I think that’s going to be a boost for the morale out there. And I think they’re going to welcome this new leadership.” Hayden himself has said that Kappes’s return is a signal that “amateur hour” is over. Former clandestine CIA agent Milt Bearden says, “The simple fact is that he is a very solid choice to come to the agency at a time when it is extremely wobbly.” And a former top CIA official says: “The really good people are happy he’s coming back. The ones who are scared of him should be scared of him.” [CNN, 5/9/2006; New York Times, 5/30/2006]

Entity Tags: Michael Hayden, ArmorGroup International, John Negroponte, Stephen Kappes, Central Intelligence Agency, Senate Intelligence Committee, Milt Bearden

Category Tags: Other

Former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman tells authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein that the damage done to the agency by the Bush administration is long-lasting and may well be permanent. “The CIA is a brittle bureaucracy, fragile as any other,” he says. “It’s now broken.” Part of the reason for the damage is the pressure brought to bear on the agency by senior White House officials (see 2002-Early 2003, Fall 2002, and Fall 2002). A former deputy director of the CIA tells the authors: “In the history of the agency, I’ve never heard of a vice president making specific demands of analysts. It’s never occurred. It’s without precedent.” It will change the way the CIA functions, he says. “The mere fact that [Vice President Cheney and his then-chief of staff Lewis Libby] were out there will generate in the bureaucracy—and the CIA is a bureaucracy—a sort of thinking that says, ‘Gee, can we make them happy, can we continue to satisfy them?’ That’s not the sort of thinking you want in an intelligence agency.” [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 222]

Entity Tags: Melvin A. Goodman, Bush administration, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Central Intelligence Agency

Category Tags: Impositions on Rights and Freedoms, Expansion of Presidential Power, Other

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich says in a speech, “My view is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.” He also suggests pressing for a new “Geneva convention for fighting terrorism which makes very clear that those who would fight outside the rules of law… are in fact subject to a totally different set of rules that allow us to protect civilization by defeating barbarism… .” [Newt (.org), 11/27/2006; New York Sun, 11/29/2006] Gingrich makes these remarks as the featured speaker at the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications’ annual first amendment awards dinner, which honors New Hampshire citizens who exemplify and defend free speech liberties. [Union Leader, 11/28/2006]

Entity Tags: Newt Gingrich

Category Tags: Other

Silvestre Reyes. [Source: Foreign Policy (.com)]Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), slated to become the new speaker of the House when the Democrats take over leadership of the House in January 2007, names Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Reyes, a former soldier and Border Patrol chief before being elected to Congress, is named to the chairmanship over two other Intelligence Committee Democrats, Jane Harman (D-CA) and Alcee Hastings (D-FL), both of whom outrank him on the committee. Generally an advocate for the military, Reyes supports withdrawing from Iraq, and voted against the original war resolution. He has accused the Bush administration of using “cherry-picked” and “manipulated” intelligence to justify invading Iraq. He is also a strong critic of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program (see December 15, 2005). [Washington Post, 12/2/2006] Evidence will later show that Harman may have improperly accepted assistance from an Israeli agent, who promised to lobby Pelosi on Harman’s behalf for the chairmanship (see October 2005 and April 19, 2009).

Entity Tags: House Intelligence Committee, Bush administration, Jane Harman, Nancy Pelosi, Alcee Hastings, Silvestre Reyes

Category Tags: Other, NSA Wiretapping / Stellar Wind

Constitutional lawyer and author Bruce Fein, a former official in the Justice Department under Ronald Reagan, writes that if President Obama wants to “restore the rule of law and to prevent future wrongdoing by high-level government officials,” he “should investigate, among others, former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former White House counsel and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former White House political adviser Karl Rove. The crimes to be investigated should include complicity in torture, illegal surveillance, illegal detention, perjury, obstruction of justice, and contempt of Congress. Prosecutions should follow if the evidence convinces a grand jury to indict.” Fein states that “[t]he best way to deter government criminality and to teach citizens the rule of law is to punish the perpetrators who are unanimously found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by independent and impartial jurors.”
FBI, CIA Feared Prosecution for Torture - He notes that the FBI refused to participate in “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, for fear of being charged with war crimes. And the CIA required specific legal opinions from the Bush Justice Department—the so-called “golden shield” (see August 1, 2002)—and specific presidential authorization before it would allow its agents to torture detainees. And the White House ordered an end to waterboarding after it was warned that such tactics left its officials open to charges of torture and war crimes.
Attorney General Feared Prosecution under FISA - He goes on to note that Justice Department officials such as acting Attorney General James Comey “balked at approving… Bush’s warrantless surveillance program without modification in March 2004 probably because he feared criminal prosecution under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” (see 1978).
'Unpunished Lawlessness by Government Officials Invites Lawlessness Generally' - Fein asserts that “unpunished lawlessness by government officials invites lawlessness generally.” He quotes former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: “Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” The best way to deter criminal behavior, he says, is to prosecute alleged criminals, and that process must start with government officials. [Washington Times, 1/20/2009]

Entity Tags: Bruce Fein

Category Tags: Impositions on Rights and Freedoms, Other, Government Acting in Secret, Government Classification

The Obama administration’s choice to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen, is endorsed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. All the committee Democrats vote to endorse her, and all but one Republican committee member vote against her; Arlen Specter (R-PA) abstains. After the endorsement, Senate Republicans use a variety of parliamentary procedures to delay or block her appointment. Legal expert and columnist Scott Horton writes, “The real reason for their vehement opposition is that Johnsen is committed to overturning the Bush administration’s policies on torture and warrantless surveillance that would clip the wings of the imperial presidency.” Johnsen formerly worked for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), earning her the enmity of social conservatives who have made her the target of a massive opposition campaign. Anti-abortion groups call her a “radical, pro-abortion activist.” However, Horton notes, observations from Republican officials and opinion leaders show that the GOP’s real concern is not over Johnsen’s support for abortion, but for her apparent intent to roll back Bush-era policies on torture and warrantless surveillance. Even worse, Horton writes, is her intention to reveal secret information from the Bush years about those subjects. But it is politically difficult to attack Johnsen on these issues, Republicans say, so instead she is being targeted for her views on abortion. President Obama’s choice of Johnsen’s two deputies—Harvard law professor David Barron and Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman (see January 20, 2009)—are, like Johnsen, experienced in both academia and politics, and have been vehement critics of the OLC during the Bush years. [Daily Beast, 3/26/2009]

Entity Tags: Office of Legal Counsel, Arlen Specter, David Barron, Dawn Johnsen, Scott Horton, Senate Judiciary Committee, US Department of Justice, Obama administration, Marty Lederman

Category Tags: Other

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in a rare public appearance to answer questions from the winners of a high school essay contest sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institute, says he does not embrace the Bill of Rights. “Today there is much focus on our rights,” he says. “Indeed, I think there is a proliferation of rights.” He suggests that there should be two “alternatives” to the document, saying: “I am often surprised by the virtual nobility that seems to be accorded those with grievances. Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for our Bill of Obligations and our Bill of Responsibilities?” [New York Times, 4/13/2009]

Entity Tags: US Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas

Category Tags: Impositions on Rights and Freedoms, Other