Carol Leonnig Double Shot!

This enterprising writer from the Washington Post has two articles out today. First, a funny story. Remember that whole NSA spying story, you know, the New York Times revealed it after sitting on it for over a year? Turns out they weren't the only ones:

A classified document that an Islamic charity says is evidence of illegal government eavesdropping on its phone calls and e-mails was provided in 2004 to a Washington Post reporter, who returned it when the FBI demanded it back a few months later.

According to a source familiar with the case, the document indicated that the National Security Agency intercepted telephone conversations in the spring of 2004 between a director of the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and lawyers for the foundation in the District.

Al-Haramain, a Saudi group that once operated in Oregon, sued the Bush administration in federal court this week, alleging it was a victim of President Bush's secret domestic eavesdropping program. Its lawyers asked a judge to privately review the classified material, which the organization contends would help prove its claim [...]

At the same time, an attorney for al-Haramain, Wendell Belew, provided a copy of the document to Post reporter David B. Ottaway. Ottaway was researching Islamic groups and individuals who had been designated terrorists by the U.S. government and were attempting to prove their innocence.

In November 2004, FBI agents approached Belew, and soon thereafter Ottaway, saying that the government had mistakenly released the document. They demanded all copies back and warned that anyone who revealed its contents could be prosecuted.

Aside from showing that once again, reporters disseminate vital information to the public on a need-to-know basis, this document kind of proves that the "limited" NSA program was not so limited. I mean, this document suggests eavesdropping on conversations between a lawyer and a client. A client who is now suing the government. How long until the revelations of spying on journalists?

But that's not all from Ms. Leonnig. She also contributes to this lovely piece which patiently explains just how things go in the New America:

Bush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does not apply to people held at the military prison.

In federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers described as "systematic torture."

Government lawyers have argued that another portion of that same law, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, removes general access to U.S. courts for all Guantanamo Bay captives. Therefore, they said, Mohammed Bawazir, a Yemeni national held since May 2002, cannot claim protection under the anti-torture provisions.

Well, we knew that when Lindsay Graham's sham of a "compromise" agreement got wiggled into the torture ban, that it essentially made it unenforceable. McCain got the best of both worlds: he got to say that he forced the White House to repudiate torture, without having to, you know, actually force them to do anything. If anything, his bill LOWERED detainee protections against torture.

This will go up the legal chain, I assume, and the only hope is to have that section of the law invalidated as unconstitutional (I can think of a lot of reasons; cruel and unusual punishment and the Geneva Conventions to which we are a signatory spring to mind).

Some days it just doesn't pay to get up in the morning... I'd thank Carol Leonnig for her writing if I wasn't pounding my head against the keyboard.