Barking Up Every Tree

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 21, 2005 11:18 AM

I'm sleeping better at night.

Our federal authorities have things under control.

FBI counterterrorism agents are on the case, looking into any nefarious plots by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Documents obtained by the ACLU shows the G-men were tracking PETA types at such frightening events as an animal-rights conference, a community meeting at an Indiana college and a planned protest of a celebrity fur endorser, says this WP story.

Not only that, says the NYT , but "one F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a 'Vegan Community Project.' Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's 'semi-communistic ideology.'"

You never know about those devious vegetarians.

And then there's this Lisa Myers NBC story on the Pentagon's intelligence database: "The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One 'incident' included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald's National Salute to America's Heroes -- a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla."

I bring all this up, of course, because of the furious debate over the warrantless NSA eavesdropping. Just as White House officials insist the program is tightly focused on potential terrorists, Pentagon and FBI spokesmen maintain that they are not investigating or interfering with legitimate political dissent.

But PETA? Vegans? Catholic Workers? No wonder there's considerable skepticism.

Keep in mind that the 1978 foreign intelligence law that some Democrats say Bush violated with the eavesdropping program was passed in reaction to the FBI improperly investigating Vietnam War protesters and civil rights activists, most famously Martin Luther King Jr.

That doesn't mean abuses are going on today, but it explains some of the media skepticism.

National Review's Byron York says Bush is in the same class as . . . Clinton:

"In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has 'inherent authority' to order physical searches -- including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens -- for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress's decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, President Clinton still maintained that he had sufficient authority to order such searches on his own."

In American Prospect, Matthew Yglesias sees a constant bending of the law:

"Faced with the pesky need to get warrants . . . the Bush administration chose another path--they simply issued a directive saying the old policy was out and a new policy was in. On hand to help rationalize things was John Yoo, the very same lawyer who provided the rationalizations required when the president wanted to start ignoring domestic and international law with regard to torture without getting any of the laws changed.

"And if it was Yoo's work that made McCain's effort to close down Bush-created loopholes in torture law, then it's the continuation of the Yoo mentality that makes me pessimistic about how much good McCain will do. The president, quite clearly, didn't surrender to McCain's view at the end of last week because of a genuine change of heart. Instead, as in his previous surrender to the Arizona senator over campaign finance reform, he dropped what he had previously portrayed as a point of high principle for reasons of crass political expediency. Thus, we still have in office a president who believes in the utility and overriding moral necessity of torture, and a president who feels that--at least in matters of national security--he's not bound by the law."

Nonsense, says Power Line's John Hinderaker , who says there's a practical reason why President Bush can't first get court approval:

"The issue of speed is critical. When we capture a cell phone or laptop being used by a terrorist, it is usually because we captured or killed the terrorist. The amount of time we have to exploit the capture is very short. The terrorists will soon figure out that their confederate is out of business, and stop using his cell phone numbers and email addresses.

"So if we are to benefit from the capture, we must begin obtaining information right now . A delay of even a few days may render the information useless, as the terrorists will have realized that their colleague has been neutralized. And it is likely that the first hours or even minutes after we obtain a cell phone number or email address are most apt to yield helpful new information. So it is easy to see why going through the process needed to obtain a warrant from the FISA court would undermine the effectiveness of our anti-terror operations."

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum quotes various defenses of the eavesdropping effort, but thinks there's more to it:

"None of these quotes makes sense if the NSA program involved nothing more than an expansion of ordinary taps of specific individuals. After all, the FISA court would have approved taps of domestic-to-international calls as quickly and easily as they do with normal domestic wiretaps. What's more, Congress wouldn't have had any objection to supporting a routine program expansion; George Bush wouldn't have explained it with gobbledegook about the difference between monitoring and detecting; Jay Rockefeller wouldn't have been reminded of TIA [a John Poindexter effort]; and the Times wouldn't have had any issues over divulging sensitive technology.

"It seems clear that there's something involved here that goes far beyond ordinary wiretaps, regardless of the technology used. Perhaps some kind of massive data mining, which makes it impossible to get individual warrants? Stay tuned."

Two top New York Times executives were subjected to a little high-level arm-twisting before publishing the spying article, reports Newsweek's Jonathan Alter :

"On December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president's desperation.

"The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden's use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists--in fact, all American Muslims, period--have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations . . . Rather than the leaking being a 'shameful act,' it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.

"No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story--which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year--because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had 'legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.' But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing 'all necessary force' in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism."

Arianna may be in Tahiti, but she's not too far away to keep bashing the Times:

"What were Sulzberger and company thinking? There Pinch was, prancing around for the last year under the illusion that his defense of Judy Miller was going to be his reputation-making Pentagon Papers moment, while doing the exact opposite of what his father did with the Pentagon Papers by sitting on this bombshell story for a year. Now, instead of crusading journalists, Sulzberger and his editors look like a bunch of schmucks -- or, worse, a bunch of toadies doing the White House's bidding."

The Washington Times defends itself on the issue of Osama's phone:

"The September 11 commission falsely singled out The Washington Times for damaging an intelligence operation by disclosing in 1998 that Osama bin Laden used a satellite phone, even though his means of communication had been widely reported beforehand, including by CNN, CBS and Time.

"The issue arose at President Bush's press conference Monday. Mr. Bush criticized an unnamed newspaper for reporting what type of telephone bin Laden was using in 1998, when he was being tracked by the CIA . . .

"Mr. Bush did not name the newspaper, but The Washington Post yesterday quoted the White House as saying the president was referring to an Aug. 21, 1998, story in The Washington Times. The New York Times reported that 'the president was apparently referring' to the article. The story was a profile of bin Laden that said, in the 22nd paragraph, 'He keeps in touch with the world via computers and satellite phones and has given occasional interviews to international news organizations.'

"But the story in The Washington Times was not based on a leak, and it did not say the U.S. was monitoring the phone. Reports of bin Laden's using a satellite phone had been in the press for years. In 1996, Time magazine, in a story on bin Laden in Afghanistan, wrote that he 'uses satellite phones to contact fellow Islamic militants in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.'"

Well, you figure if it was a big scoop, it wouldn't have been in the 22nd paragraph.

Roger Simon has this explanation of some recent plaudits for Bush:

"While staying the course remains the fundamental principle of administration policy in Iraq, President Bush's team decided that his admitting to human frailty and the possibility of mistake would captivate his critics . . .

"Predictably, the press seized upon this. Commentator David Gergen called the president 'frank and humble.' The New York Times decided he was 'more humble about the mistakes he has made over the past two and a half years.' And the Associated Press called the speech 'a high profile display of candor.'

"Tom Shales, the television critic of the Washington Post (in the modern era it is entirely appropriate to have a TV critic critique the President of the United States) said that Bush was 'determined to sound determined.' In other words, the president did very, very well.

"Why? Because when the media concentrate on how you are newly humble about your mistakes, then they are not concentrating on the mistakes themselves. Instead, they are concentrating on you and how more appealing you have become.

"Americans love humility from those on high. They love the admission of error. They love redemption. (Ask Bill Clinton, whose approval ratings never dipped below 60 percent during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.)"

Man, this could be a big one if Abramoff is getting ready to sing:

"Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist under criminal investigation, has been discussing with prosecutors a deal that would grant him a reduced sentence in exchange for testimony against former political and business associates, people with detailed knowledge of the case say," reports the New York Times .

"Mr. Abramoff is believed to have extensive knowledge of what prosecutors suspect is a wider pattern of corruption among lawmakers and Congressional staff members. One participant in the case who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations described him as a 'unique resource.'

"Other people involved in the case or who have been officially briefed on it said the talks had reached a tense phase, with each side mindful of the date Jan. 9, when Mr. Abramoff is scheduled to stand trial in Miami in a separate prosecution."

Here's a weird Hollywood tale in the L.A. Times : The creator of the "Girls Gone Wild" videos, "who made a fortune persuading young women to bare their breasts for the camera, testified that an armed intruder stole cash and possessions and then forced him to make a humiliating, half-naked video."

No shortage of sordid details.

The New York Post goes with the Paris angle:

"Party girl-turned-crime fighter Paris Hilton feared for her life, believing the same thugs who brutalized 'Girls Gone Wild' producer Joe Francis were coming after her, the soft-core smut peddler said in court yesterday."

Jacko hasn't been in the news for awhile, so:

"Michael Jackson's ex-wife wants a judge to make him return their kids from the Middle East, while the pop idol's advisers continue 'desperate' negotiations to save him from financial ruin, sources said yesterday," says the New York Daily News .

"Debbie Rowe filed legal papers accusing the embattled entertainer of 'abducting' Prince Michael I, 8, and Paris, 7, a source close to Rowe confirmed."

Prince Michael ?

Finally, did the governor of New Mexico engage in excessive touching with the lieutenant governor of New Mexico? Diane Denish is backing away from an Albuquerque Journal story about her and Bill Richardson, says the New Mexican , but only slightly:

" 'He pokes me,' Denish said when confronted about photos taken of Richardson and her at an appearance in Bernalillo in late October. 'He pinches my neck. He touches my hip, my thigh, sort of the side of my leg.' Denish told The Journal, 'I try not to put myself in that situation, trying not to stand or sit next to him.'"

A real hands-on governor.