Attorney General Michael Mukasey's trip to San Jose to speak to telecom leaders last week seems to have gone almost completely under the radar:
Officials "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."
At that point in his answer, Mr. Mukasey grimaced, swallowed hard, and seemed to tear up as he reflected on the weaknesses in America's anti-terrorism strategy prior to the 2001 attacks. "We got three thousand. . . . We've got three thousand people who went to work that day and didn't come home to show for that," he said, struggling to maintain his composure.
At the time of the attacks, Mr. Mukasey was the chief judge at the federal courthouse a few blocks away from the World Trade Center.
The story that the media at large focused on was Mukasey choking on his crocodile tears while talking about thevictims of 9/11, entirely missing the other story.
Mukasey's quote that they had known that a call coming from a safe house in Afghanistan to the United States made the hair on my neck stand on end, because if Mukasey wasn't lying or tripping over his own words - and according to Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann - he just admitted criminal malfeasance on the part of the administration for what happened on 9/11!
I'm really at a loss since my head has asploded trying to figure this one out, but this is, if nothing else, revolting to see that we haven't really taken a step up from Alberto Gonzales. I want to keep this short lest I start delving into forbidden territory and things of which I know little about, but let's make sure that the HJC, Waxman and Conyers grill him on this quote.
UPDATE: According to Keith Olbermann, this call reference by Mukasey was NOT in the 9/11 report!
MADDOW: Well, do you remember when Alfonso Jackson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who just resigned—he told a crowd in Houston that he had yanked a federal contract from a contractor who had been insufficiently enthusiastic about George Bush. When confronted about that, because that‘s illegal, his defense was, don‘t worry, I was lying.
That, essentially, is the place that we are in with Mike Mukasey right now. Oh, please let him have just been lying. If he was telling the truth here, if there really was a call from a known al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan to the United States before 9/11, which the Bush administration didn‘t tap and trace, that‘s huge news, and we ought to get some answers about why we were left so unprotected and surprised on 9/11. Let‘s hope that he was just making that up.
OLBERMANN: It requires—as I suggested last night, right now, somebody in the House or the Senate should be swearing him in to testify as to what the hell he was talking about.
MADDOW: Yes.
OLBERMANN: We need to know this, because that is information that is not anywhere in the 9/11 report, nor apparently came up nowhere in the investigation.
MADDOW: It should shock everybody to know that it was dropped parenthetically to make a political point in a speech in San Francisco by the attorney general nearly seven years after 9/11.
OLBERMANN: Underlying it in either event, this apparent falsehood, since the government did have the tools then that it has now. Fill in the rest of that blank.
MADDOW: The implication of Mukasey‘s story here is that these pesky, restrictive FISA laws kept us from tapping that call from Afghanistan and blocked us stopping 9/11. That‘s complete bull pucky. The laws then, the laws now, the laws since the FISA court has been in existence; the laws have said that you can tap without a warrant that kind of communication from outside the United States into the U.S., particularly if you knew it was an al Qaeda safe house and it had a link in terrorism.
What Mukasey said is either a terrible lie about the law or it‘s terrible admission about the Bush administration leaving us unprotected on 9/11.
Olbermann Transcript 4/1/2008
UPDATE x2: Thanks for putting this on the Rec List!
Glenn Greenwald had more on Salon.com:
(highlighted as per GG)
Even under the "old" FISA, no warrants are required where the targeted person is outside the U.S. (Afghanistan) and calls into the U.S. Thus, if it's really true, as Mukasey now claims, that the Bush administration knew about a Terrorist in an Afghan safe house making Terrorist-planning calls into the U.S., then they could have -- and should have -- eavesdropped on that call and didn't need a warrant to do so. So why didn't they? Mukasey's new claim that FISA's warrant requirements prevented discovery of the 9/11 attacks and caused the deaths of 3,000 Americans is disgusting and reckless, because it's all based on the lie that FISA required a warrant for targeting the "Afghan safe house." It just didn't. Nor does the House FISA bill require individual warrants when targeting a non-U.S. person outside the U.S.
Did they know about this supposed international phone call before 9/11? If they knew about it beforehand, then why wasn't it acted upon? Why the necessity for warrantless wiretapping, when the old FISA was adequate enough?
The picture that is getting painted in my head is one of a completely inept, disengaged President Bush and administration at large in the weeks leading to 9/11.
Independently, even if there had been a warrant requirement for that call -- and there unquestionably was not -- why didn't the Bush administration obtain a FISA warrant to listen in on 9/11-planning calls from this "safe house"? Independently, why didn't the administration invoke FISA's 72-hour emergency warrantless window to listen in on those calls? If what Muskasey said this week is true -- and that's a big "if" -- his revelation about this Afghan call that the administration knew about but didn't intercept really amounts to one of the most potent indictments yet about the Bush administration's failure to detect the plot in action. Contrary to his false claims, FISA -- for multiple reasons -- did not prevent eavesdropping on that call.
Is it tinfoil-hattery to ascertain that these guys were really asleep at the wheel with all of the proper tools -- even the improper tools -- to specifically prevent attacks like these?
UPDATE X5: 9/11 Commission head Phillip Zelikow makes a statement to Glenn Greenwald --- also thanks to GG for linking this diary!
Glenn Greenwald, who links this diary by the way, has gotten a response from 9/11 Commission Executive Director, Philip Zelikow:
Not sure of course what the AG had in mind, although the most important signals intelligence leads related to our report -- that related to the Hazmi-Mihdhar issues of January 2000 or to al Qaeda activities or transits connected to Iran -- was not of this character. If, as he says, the USG didn't know where the call went in the US, neither did we. So unless we had some reason to link this information to the 9/11 story ....
In general, as with several covert action issues for instance, the Commission sought (and succeeded) in publishing details about sensitive intelligence matters where the details were material to the investigative mandate in our law.
This comment has been crossposted at AT&T: 611 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA - Room 641A.
by ManahManah on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 06:45:50 AM PDT
UDPATE x3 + 4: Here's a list of the House Judiciary Committee members to call to request a hearing on the matter!
Honorable John Conyers, Jr. (202) 225-5126
Honorable Howard L. Berman (202) 225-4695
Honorable Rick Boucher (202) 225-3861
Honorable Jerrold Nadler (202) 225-5635
Honorable Robert C. Scott (202) 225-8351
Honorable Melvin L. Watt (202) 225-1510
Honorable Zoe Lofgren (202) 225-3072
Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee(202) 225-3816
Honorable Maxine Waters (202) 225-2201
Honorable William D Delahunt(202) 225-3111
Honorable Robert Wexler (202) 225-3001
Honorable Brad Sherman (202) 225-5911
Honorable Steve Cohen (202) 225-3265
Honorable Hank Johnson (202) 225-1605
Honorable Linda T. Sanchez (202) 225-6676
Honorable Betty Sutton (202) 225-3401
Honorable Luis Gutierrez (202) 225-8203
Honorable Artur Davis (202) 225-2665
Honorable Tammy Baldwin (202) 225-2906
Honorable Anthony Weiner (202) 225-6616
Honorable Adam Schiff (202) 225-4176
Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz(202) 225-7931
Honorable Keith Ellison (202)225-4755
For those of you who prefer to Fax, here are the numbers thanks to WarrenS!
Honorable John Conyers, Jr. (202) 225-0072
Honorable Howard L. Berman (202) 225-3196
Honorable Rick Boucher (202) 225-0442
Honorable Jerrold Nadler (202) 225-6923
Honorable Robert C. Scott (202) 225-8354
Honorable Melvin L. Watt (202) 225-1512
Honorable Zoe Lofgren (202) 225-3336
Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee(202) 225-3317
Honorable Maxine Waters (202) 225-7854
Honorable William D Delahunt(202) 225-5658
Honorable Robert Wexler (202) 225-5974
Honorable Brad Sherman (202) 225-5879
Honorable Steve Cohen (202) 225-5663
Honorable Hank Johnson (202) 226-0691
Honorable Linda T. Sanchez (202) 225-5859
Honorable Betty Sutton (202) 225-2266
Honorable Luis Gutierrez (202) 225-7810
Honorable Artur Davis (202) 226-9567
Honorable Tammy Baldwin (202) 225-6942
Honorable Anthony Weiner (202) 226-7253
Honorable Adam Schiff (202) 225-5828
Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz (202) 226-2052
Honorable Keith Ellison (202 )225-4886
Thanks again to WarrenS downthread for a great form letter to fax to the HJC!
April 3, 2008
To: Democratic Members of the House Committee on the Judiciary
Re: Attorney General Mukasey’s recent statement about pre-9/11 intelligence and the possibility of Administration negligence
Attorney General Mukasey’s recent statement to Telecommunications Executives included the astonishing revelation that:
Officials "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."
It is my understanding that this information is not to be found in the 9/11 report. Either Mr. Mukasey is lying or the Administration’s response to actionable intelligence prior to the tragedy of September Eleventh was one of incompetence and disregard for clear and obvious threats to America’s security. The FISA laws that were in effect at the time did not require warrants for tapping communications from known Al Qaeda sources, as I am sure you are aware.
Regardless of whether Mr. Mukasey is simply fabricating for political effect or if he has inadvertently admitted criminal malfeasance on the part of the Bush administration, it is obviously essential that hearings be held on this matter.
Please call Mr. Mukasey to testify, under oath, before the Judiciary Committee. This is not a matter of partisan politics; this is about establishing accountability for possible criminal negligence of the most tragic sort.
Yours sincerely,
{your name here}