Thomas Tamm Was the TSP Leaker:
Earlier news reports had tagged Justice Department lawyer Thomas Tamm as a suspect in the investigation into who leaked the Terrorist Surveillance Program to the New York Times back in 2005. In the latest Newsweek, Tamm admits that he was the leaker and makes his case for why he did it. (In the small world department, Tamm and I started working at DOJ on the same day in October 1998. I remember him from the 1st day briefing. Strange.)
There is a potentially available remedy for the Bush administration's lawlessness which I have seen little discussion of, so I will throw it out here.
Paragraph 7 of Article I, § 3 of the Constitution states:
The expiration of the current president's term accordingly does not make impeachment moot; the House can still investigate and vote articles of impeachment, with the Senate to determine disqualification from holding federal office in the future.
This is not a mere academic question. After serving as president, John Quincy Adams served in the House of Representatives and William Howard Taft served as Chief Justice of the United States. After serving as vice-president, Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush served as president (other than by succession to a vacancy), and Hubert Humphrey served as a U. S. Senator. Walter Mondale served as Ambassador to Japan and was nominated to run for the Senate from Minnesota when Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash.
In light of suggestions that the outgoing president may issue pre-emptive pardons, here's hoping that the incoming Congress will pursue articles of impeachment as to whether President Bush has taken care that the laws be faithfully executed as to electronic surveillance, among other topics.
When you're at war, act like you're at war. Same thing with waterboarding, or "torture" as all the Nice-Nellies like to refer to it.
Speaking for me and my children and grandchildren I wish they had done more of it.
Can you clarify your last sentence (or sentence-fragment)? Do you mean "It is strange" that you happened to start work at the same place on the same day as someone now belatedly famous? Or do you mean "He seemed strange" even then, in your opinion? Either would fit the context.
And I don't care who else broke laws. It means they were wrong too.
A lifelong democrat got mad that Boooossssh was trying cases where the bad guy could get the death penalty.
He found out about a program that was helping to protect America from terrorists, and decided to sabotage it to get back at Bush.
A friend in the senate staff didn't want to harm America, but the New York Times did.
This program so clearly helps protect America from terrorists with no downside that anyone who doesn't like it just hates Bush for no good reason.
Also, this is you, Dems: "Boooossssh!" Haha! Take that!
As Reynolds says, it's like they're not even trying to hide it any more.
Of course, that is why he waited until now to out himself.
It is, of course, derangement syndrom when you're so partisan you cannot get the facts straight. The guy was the head of a young Republican chapter.
One thing he could have done was went to a senior Democrat in Congress. Intelligence Committee for instance
There are other things. He could have even went to a FISA court judge.
He choose not to do so. So, his struggles are his own fault. He choose to put his career and family at risk so his whining now is a bit rich.
He wanted it both ways. Civil disobedience and whistle blowing but no downside. Does not work that way.
There are plenty of other ways to blow the whistle.
Naturally. And NYT's desire "to harm America" is demonstrated by the fact that they failed to publish the story prior to the election, even though they had the story prior to the election. I guess they figured the best way "to harm America" was to help Bush get reelected.
Which makes perfect sense, since Bush actually said this:
Hopefully we would see similar outrage when the "classified information" is the identity of a covert agent.
Hmm, let's see. Hayden. Appointed by the Bush administration. Said Plame was covert. Fitzgerald. Appointed by the Bush administration. Said Plame was covert.
I think I see your point: Bush appointees can't be trusted.
Certain people like to say that Armitage was 'the' leaker. This falsely implies he was the only one. Armitage was one of four known leakers. The others are Libby, Rove and Fleischer.
Throw the book at him.
Likewise, the behavior of the New York Times was inexcusable (so what's new?). It is not up to them (or Tamm) to determine the legality of the program, nor the potential damage of the revelations.
This illustrates a reason for us to have new definitions of war to handle the current situation. This wartime betrayal deserves wartime punishment.
Throw two books at him.
[Ok comments: David, I remember that you also seriously wanted all of the Justices who joined Wickard v. Filburn to be charged and convicted of treason, which I assume would also mean they should have been hanged, too. Anyone else?]
The article also describes how he grew up.
Speaking for me and my children and grandchildren I wish they had done more of it."
Because the torture and surveillance has been proven so effective.
Is the conservative consensus that the incoming President can take any actions he chooses (against them or anyone else) in secret so long as he finds some lawyer willing to write a memo rationalizing the actions? Is that the new standard?
Tamm's supervisor stated "I assume what they are doing is illegal."
And Bob from Ohio, he went to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which declined to act.
So
If you read the article, his attempts to bring the matter to Congress didn't go anywhere because people didn't want to talk about classified information. If you can't make Congress aware that there might be a problem, it is hard to meet that responsibility.
David Larsomn:
In August of 2001, how many Al Qaeda attacks had we suffered in the previous 8 years?
How many terrorist attacks have we suffered since 911 RPT? Are you aware of a bunch that you're just not telling us about?"
What attacks have been prevented by these programs? You don't know and neither do I. Leaving aside the as yet unsolved anthrax attacks, and the attacks against US troops at various places around the world, and possible cyber-attacks attributed to others, the answer is that there have not been any additional publicized attacks on the order of 9.11 since that date. However, the record, including the somewhat incomplete 9.11 Commission Report, indicates that the only reason that attack was successful was due to massive incompetence from the top down, ignoring intelligence warnings, PDB's and so on, both before and during the attack themselves. Forget the "firewall excuse, Jamie Gorelick, etc. 9.11 should have been prevented if competent people had been in charge. The current administration was and remains incompetent in its task of protecting or governing the United States and was effective only at the protection and promotion of crony interests.