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CREW files DOJ complaint against Boehner for leaking FISA court ruling

posted at 6:38 pm on August 6, 2007 by Allahpundit
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Fine by me. Wonderful by me, in fact. I mentioned the details in passing in this morning’s post about the possible Al Qaeda cell. In a nutshell, Boehner spilled the beans last week on Neil Cavuto’s show about a FISA court ruling earlier this year that prohibited the government from tapping calls routed through the United States, even if they were between two foreign persons. CREW offers chapter and verse:

18 U.S.C. § 793(d) provides that anyone with lawful possession of information relating to the national defense, which could be used to the injury of the United States, who willfully communicates that information to any person not entitled to receive it, is subject to up to ten years imprisonment.

It’s … curious that the left hasn’t awakened to the perils of leaks until now, with about 18 months left in Bush’s term and a Republican for once in the hot seat, but fine. We can do a lot in 18 months. I eagerly await the same stern statement of legal heart-ache as applied to Thomas Tamm if and when it turns out he leaked the information on the warrantless wiretap program to the Times, as well as to any other no doubt strictly nonpartisan CIA, State Department, and/or Defense officials found leaking like a sieve to the media in the coming months. I suspect there’ll be all kinds of tidbits about backroom discussions around the time of Petraeus’s Iraq progress report. I welcome my brothers on the left in cracking down on them. Hard.


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Looks like he pulled a real Boner this time.

JayHaw Phrenzie on August 6, 2007 at 6:43 PM

CREW could reasonably respond “it’s not our job to police every violation — why aren’t GOP affiliated groups filing complaints like that if they’re so cut and dried?”.

Which, I think, is quite a good question. One might even ask it of the current occupant of the White House with regard to such leaks.

Annoying Old Guy on August 6, 2007 at 6:45 PM

Right, Left, in between; Politician, Bureaucrat or publisher I want to see anyone who ‘leaks’ stuff related to National Security prosecuted. And it should be initiated by the DOJ… Not some group of yahoos trying to force the government to act.

LegendHasIt on August 6, 2007 at 6:46 PM

Jane Harman, call your office.

see-dubya on August 6, 2007 at 6:48 PM

Jay Rockefeller, Dick Durbin, Ron Wyden: please contact CREW immediately.

see-dubya on August 6, 2007 at 6:49 PM

I think this was a planned leak, since it got the Congress serious about the FISA program. The bill was passed because people knew a stupid judge decided we could not listen in to foreign calls routed through the US. It is called leverage.

Only by the public knowing the FISA program was crippled by a single judge, could the Administration roll Congress. Again.

Stormy70 on August 6, 2007 at 7:06 PM

I think what Boehner may have done pales in comparison to the other leaks that the New York Times and other lefty outlets have pulled in the past few years.

I also think that the court ruling itself was more harmful to our national security than Boehner’s comment on said ruling.

I don’t mean to excuse anyone, including Boehner, of wrongdoing, but lets keep some perspective on this issue.

HYTEAndy on August 6, 2007 at 7:22 PM

Based on that statute, and the Logan Act, how about hauling Pelosi’s butt up on charges too for her unauthorized jaunt to Syria?

Hello? Can we?

CrimsonFisted on August 6, 2007 at 7:24 PM

Hundreds of leaks the past few years and they raise a stink about this?

JammieWearingFool on August 6, 2007 at 7:29 PM

They are raising a stink because it was the club Bush used to beat the Democratic Congress over the head. It got the bill passed because National Security trumps the ACLU and assorted liberal ninnies.

Stormy70 on August 6, 2007 at 7:31 PM

Last week on C-Span I watched his eminence, Alcee Hastings, the corrupt, impeached and removed former judge and one-and-only Representative of Florida’s gerrymandered 23rd District (Broward County) preach to the House and the rest of America that he and the Dimmocrap-led HSCI had done everything requested of him by DNI/McConnell to properly address/update the absurdly out-dated 1978 FISA law. He did so presumably knowing full well what Boehner allowed on Cavuto’s show.

Our SIGINTers can collect “foreign to foreign” communications. Yup. But, oh…if those foreign to foreign comms happen to transit U.S.-based networks (the most developed and efficient in the world) while en route, forget it.

This sort of unending, ignorant, hypocritical, sanctimonious, lying to my face, national security jeopardizing crap makes me want to puke in my mouth. How stupid can American voters be (rhetorical)!?

BJ Phisch on August 6, 2007 at 7:36 PM

Jane Harman, call your office.

see-dubya on August 6, 2007 at 6:48 PM

Jay Rockefeller, Dick Durbin, Ron Wyden: please contact CREW immediately.

see-dubya on August 6, 2007 at 6:49 PM

Amen and Amen.

Pilgrim on August 6, 2007 at 7:36 PM

I sat in on a conference call when he was trying to become minority leader and the guy was a douche then too. I hope they throw the book at him.

bj1126 on August 6, 2007 at 7:57 PM

Attention Congress: there’s a blue light special on Leakers in aisle 1. Please drop your Leakers at the DOJ registers located on the RIGHT side of the store. Then kindly proceed through the exit doors marked National Security and have a nice day ;o)

NightmareOnKStreet on August 6, 2007 at 8:06 PM

It was leaked because the Dems were trying to go home without getting it resolved. This forced them to deal with it before going on recess like they were trying to do.

TheBigOldDog on August 6, 2007 at 8:12 PM

PS – He explained it the day before he released the story on Rush Limbaugh’s show (Rush had a sub from Detroit sitting in that day).

TheBigOldDog on August 6, 2007 at 8:16 PM

Correction. It was Hoekstra who came on and explained what was coming. Anybody a Rush premium member? Maybe we can get the transcript.

8/2/07 As things stand now, if we wanted to listen in on Osama bin Laden’s cell phone conversations from Pakistan, we’d have to get a court order first, whether he’s threatening more jihad or not. The top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra, joined the program to talk about FISA and the NSA surveillance program.

TheBigOldDog on August 6, 2007 at 8:20 PM

what happened to keeping secrets? ( rhetorical)…but we will be killing ourselves if this keeps up for much longer. Knowing the left loves exposing anything and with the ‘08 elections approaching, hold on to your …..fill it in yourself.

C-Dub, you are quick!
good stuff.

shooter on August 6, 2007 at 8:40 PM

18 U.S.C. § 793(d) provides that anyone with lawful possession of information relating to the national defense, which could be used to the injury of the United States, who willfully communicates that information to any person not entitled to receive it, is subject to up to ten years imprisonment
DUH No shit Sherlock! This has been on the books. I stand with Allah on this . The sword cuts both ways. Its a Republican in the hot seat. The Dems have totally disregarded this law and during war time no less. If you need a law to keep you from running your jaw and disclosing sensitive information then you are a retard and need to be institutionalized. Boehner was just in a monkey see monkey do mode I am sure. Now he gets burned to make an example of him. Like I said that sword cuts both ways baby!

sonnyspats1 on August 6, 2007 at 8:52 PM

Bush had this leaked, period. Don’t you guys get that little fact? The leak allowed him to roll Congress.

I am not worked up about it because National Security was not harmed, but strengthened.

Stormy70 on August 6, 2007 at 9:24 PM

It is downright stupid for this to be classified. If ever there was a public need to know, this is it. I am furious.

Further, keeping it classified only causes the terrorist to curtail their communications. While it would be “illegal” to intercept increased communications, that does not mean that we could not gain intel through allies or a loophole.

To be clear – in World War II we used submarines to tap trans Atlantic lines to intercept communications. With this we could not tap these lines, or even communications near the source (on site surveillance) if the communication goes into or passes through a US exchange.

That means those phone-card companies that hand off calls would be off limits – those throw away phones too. So Osama can ditch his Sat-Phone. If we had a team in the room next door and he decided to use his phone-card – shudder to think.

I hope at very least there is warrant application process, and that these circumstances are not completely barred.

Agrippa2k on August 6, 2007 at 9:52 PM

See-dubya, those two links were very good.

Asked if he thought the three Senate Democrats ( Jay Rockefeller, Dick Durbin, Ron Wyden) should have their security clearances revoked for the duration of the leak probe, the former Defense Department official said: “Absolutely and forthwith. I mean, they should have been revoked at the time of the leak.”

Newsmax.com

It seems Boehnor was not the first to spill the beans. But then again, he’s a republican. And we all know that the traitorous democraps, by birthright, are above the law.

Zorro on August 6, 2007 at 9:55 PM

If this leak was on purpose, I’m fine with that.

However if this legal matter was unanticipated, well time to circle the wagons.

Pardon him right off. Period.

Agrippa2k on August 6, 2007 at 9:56 PM

In a July 31, 2007 interview with Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto, Rep. Boehner disclosed an aspect of a Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court’s decision regarding warrantless wiretapping, stating

:

There’s been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States.

By telling a reporter that a FISA court has restricted the U.S. intelligence community’s surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas, Rep. Boehner appears to have transmitted information relating to the national defense in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(d).

Excuse me, but will someone tell me just what classified information was given away? That the United States, because of the stupidity of “civil rights” activists (CREW included) and Dhimmicrat Congresscritters, refuses to listen in on conversations or eavesdrop on emails between terrorists who aren’t even in this country because we might need to watch their communications on servers or phone switches which are physically located inside this country? This is a crime during war in what way? We fail to use all the tools at our disposal because why? The terrorists aren’t serious? Or we are too stupid to fight them with all our will and technology? Because we would rather play at war on their level? Or should we kick their asses with our superior resources, technology and capabilities? Average Joe Americans want to know. Are we less important to our own leadership than protecting the supposed civil rights of some nimrod who doesn’t live here, doesn’t wanna live here, and in fact wants to kill as many people who do live here as possible?

And because Dhimmicrats believe any equipment which is located in this country is a domestic spying case, it must therefore be illegal to eavesdrop on foreign communications where the two parties use American Internet or phone service to transmit said communications. This news is a leak of classified information? In what way? Because it shows Congress and the courts are incompetent at fighting modern wars and terrorism? Because it makes Congress and the courts seem like they are more concerned about preventing hearing what Ahmed said to Mohammed than they are about whether little Suzy still has a life the morning after some terrorist idiot blows up a chemical bomb in the subway her Mom rides in to work?

Au contraire, this news shines a million candlepower spotlight on the stupidity of allowing Congress to fight wars, and allowing so called civil libertarians to insist on better and more rights for terrorists and criminals in this country than are afforded normal citizens because they don’t happen to have a name which makes them a cause celebre’ of the Hollywierd or Lefty Legal Eagle crowd. Because they are white Anglo Saxon Protestants and therefore somehow less worthy of protection from harm than Mohammedans in GITMO.

This is no leak. This is a wakeup call. We aren’t even trying to win this war. We aren’t even playing with only one hand behind our backs. We are playing in a straightjacket, with both eyes plucked out by Hussein and our women and children under threat of rape and death from Osama, and a freshly sharpened blade at our own throat wielded by Abu Sh*thead because we ain’t even trying to win our war against the forces of darkness resident in a large minority of the adherents of the so called Religion of Peace.

And you all think this is a leak because you feel like you have to give Dhimmicrats and terrorists the benefit of the doubt in their statements. You have to be holier than thou to actually protest the stupidity of Congress in allowing this loophole to exist, and the courts to be using it against our country, after 3000 of your friends and neighbors were incinerated on 11 September, 2001. After al Qaeda flocks in large numbers to Iraq only because 20 yr old American Men stand there helping Iraqis recover from over 40 years of dictatorial thuggishness and starvation and oppression, and they are there only for the sole purpose of actually being able to kill an American no matter how many children they kill in the process.

You’ve all lost it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking you have to play fair with idiots who don’t admit there is a threat (Dhimmicrats), and incompetent airhead terrorists who want to kill millions, but haven’t been able to do so because they lack the brains, the expertise and the resources to actually competently execute the largest mass killings in history. All because Osama says in a fatwa that its OK to kill 4 million infidels because that’s how many Muslims have died from American inactivity and gun and fighter jet sales to Muslim dictators.

I thought you guys were serious about fighting terrorism and injustice. Now I see you want to debate how many angels can fit on the head of a pin while Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s successors wield the knife and contemplate how many of your virgin daughters they will deflower through your Deaths by Stupidity.

Allah, You’ve lost it, young man.

Subsunk

Subsunk on August 6, 2007 at 10:25 PM

Truly cathartic Subsunk. I applaud your last.

Unfortunately, it’s all too gut-wrenchingly apparent that it’ll take another 9/11 equivalent event to drive home to all the utter lunacy of the American left’s position regarding national defense.

BJ Phisch on August 6, 2007 at 10:51 PM

Boehner was clearly not the first to reveal how interpretations of FISA law hamstrung our foreign intelligence gathering capabilities.

I knew that FISA warrants are required to view foreign emails that route through American servers as early as 7/26. I know that because I made a blog comment post on 7/26 at another website addressing this exact issue. I can’t remember where I heard it, but I’m guessing it was on Rush.

In the same comment I noted that Pelosi had looked very nervous in a Fox News clip where she was visibly shaky and stuttering about the FISA bill. It appeared obvious that they had intelligence that demanded the bill be enacted unless they wanted to commit political suicide and be blamed for mass casualties.

It looks like CREW is trying to turn what Subsunk correctly terms a “wake up call” into a political issue to distract from the Thomas Tamm news – which really IS a front page story.

Or perhaps for all their Soros millions and human capital CREW are asleep at the wheel and first heard about this from Boehner nearly a week after little old me (and presumably millions of other Americans) had already learned these same facts elsewhere.

Buy Danish on August 7, 2007 at 11:46 AM

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