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'Torture Boy' Signals More Spying

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Gonzales: "There is all kinds of wild speculation out there about what the President has authorized and what we're actually doing. And I'm not going to get into a discussion, Senator."

Recanted Testimony

Three weeks later, by recanting the statement about "that is all that he (Bush) has authorized" in the context of Leahy's line of questioning, Gonzales appears to be acknowledging that some of Leahy's concerns are valid, that there are other components to Bush's warrantless surveillance operations beyond the NSA program.

Given the fact that the Bush administration and its media allies have openly challenged the loyalty of Americans who have disagreed with Bush's policies, it would not be a big jump to suspect that Bush has authorized spying on citizens, journalists and/or politicians who have, in his view, undermined his strategy in the War on Terror or the Iraq War.

Some Republicans publicly have urged Bush to counter these Americans whom they call "Fifth Columnists" for supposedly sympathizing with or otherwise helping the enemy.

At the Feb. 6 hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., declared that "I stand by this President's ability, inherent to being Commander in Chief, to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don't think you need a warrant to do that."

When Graham offered to work with the administration to draft guidelines for how best to neutralize this alleged threat, Gonzales smilingly replied, "Senator, the President already said we'd be happy to listen to your ideas." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'."]

With Bush's elastic use of language and his aggressive interpretation of his own powers, there would seem to be little that Bush feels he cannot do.

Gonzales, who was Bush's White House counsel before becoming Attorney General, is part of a cadre of far-right lawyers who have asserted virtually unlimited powers for Bush during the indefinite War on Terror.

Gonzales earned the nickname "Torture Boy" for going along with ideologues like John Yoo and David Addington in defending interpretations of Bush's authority that opened the door to torture and other abuses of U.S. detainees imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan and secret CIA jails scattered around the world. [See Consortiumnews.com's "U.S. Disconnect on Bush's Abuses."]

Legal Resistance

The right-wing lawyers encountered opposition from professional attorneys at the Justice Department and the Defense Department. The professionals - the likes of Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith and U.S. Navy general counsel Alberto Mora - forced the Bush lawyers into some retreats on the most expansive assertions of executive power, especially involving torture.

Referring to one of Yoo's opinions that asserted the President's power to subject Guantanamo inmates to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, Navy general counsel Mora wrote, "The memo espoused an extreme and virtually unlimited theory of the extent of the President's Commander-in-Chief authority." [See Mora's 22-page chronology, as posted by The New Yorker.]

But, one by one, these internal critics were pushed out of the government. Goldsmith resigned to take a teaching position at Harvard Law School; Mora quit to take a job as general counsel for Wal-Mart's international operations. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Another Bush Lie" on Goldsmith, or The New Yorker's "The Memo" on Mora.]

In the context of Bush's top legal advisers rationalizing Bush's right to torture prisoners or to jail American citizens without charges, the likelihood seems high they also would claim for Bush the power to spy on domestic opponents.

As Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 6, "detention is far more intrusive than electronic surveillance."

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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
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