In newly released grand jury testimony, Nixon leaned on familiar national security tropes

Richard Nixon is perhaps the best-known outed liar in history. In 1975, the year after he resigned in disgrace and was lifted away from the White House in a helicopter, the ex-president gave testimony before a grand jury investigating his administration. University of Wisconsin professor Stanley Kutler recently persuaded a More…

Has Koch Industries’ investment in Marco Rubio paid off?

On Friday, The American Independent reported that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) received more Koch Industries money than any other candidate for U.S. Senate in the 2010 election, and many of his other major contributors have personal and professional ties to the Koch brothers as well. So how have Rubio’s More…

FBI and DOJ refuse to release internal memo detailing domestic surveillance

McClatchy reported late last week that a Justice Department document asserts “the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the U.S. without any formal legal process or court oversight.”

In January 2010, McClatchy Newspapers petitioned the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) for a copy More…

Unlikely alliances formed in N.C. delegation over PATRIOT Act extension vote

It’s not too often that North Carolina U.S. Reps. Brad Miller (D) and Virginia Foxx (R) end up voting together on controversial legislation. The same can be said of Democrat Mel Watt and Republican Walter Jones. But Tuesday’s vote to renew parts of the PATRIOT Act — in a More…

A Few Words in Defense of Grover Norquist and Dick Armey

I see what Mark Wuerker is illustrating with this cartoon — which portrays Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist and FreedomWorks’s Dick Armey shedding business suits and old placards. But I’m confused as to what “warrentless wiretaps,” “all power to the prez,” and “suspend habeas corpus” placards are doing More…

Holder Promises to Produce Evidence Requested on USA Patriot Act

Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning, Attorney General Eric Holder promised to produce the evidence, withheld by the Department of Justice, that some Democratic Senators believe is necessary for an informed debate on the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act.

As I reported yesterday, Sens. More…

Senators Ask Holder to Declassify Evidence on Patriot Act

Anticipating that the debate over reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act will soon come to the Senate floor, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday asked Attorney General Eric Holder to declassify key information about how the law’s “business records provision” has More…

Senators Debate NYT Editorial

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was none too pleased with The New York Times this morning. At the Senate Judiciary Committee’s markup session of the Patriot Act Sunset Extension Act, which would extend several provisions of the controversial law with only minor modifications, she went out of her way to read More…

Feingold: We’re Not the Prosecutor Committee, We’re the Judiciary Committee

Most of the senators on the Judiciary Committee today seem to be bending over backwards to give the FBI and Justice Department every benefit of the doubt when it comes to the tools they say they need to fight terrorism. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) just warned of all the people More…

Amendment Requiring NSL to Target Foreign Terrorism Voted Down

An amendment to the Patriot Act provision authorizing National Security Letters that would have required the letters to target only people with some connection to a foreign power or the activities of a foreign power, so as to ensure that the NSL is actually issued to investigate terrorism rather than, More…