Mukasey’s comments at Commonwealth Club: Smoking gun, or political lie?

On March 27th of this year, Attorney General Michael Mukasey delivered a speech at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco. His intention seems to have been an attempt to drum up some more support for the Bush administration’s policy regarding terrorist surveillance – you know, the idea that the government should be able to spy on any one of us at any time for any reason, with no regard for probable cause, warrants, or any other legal niceties.

Putting aside the moral and Constitutional issues here, I’d like to focus on one particular comment that Mr. Mukasey made so I will quote from an article that appeared on sfgate.com:

'Before the 2001 terrorist attacks, he said, "we knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went. You've got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn't come home, to show for that." '

Here is the link to the article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/28/BA69VROE9.DTL

Now, it appears that the mainstream media is just going to let this one go, but please pay attention to what this man said. He admitted, in a public forum, that this administration was aware of a communication that went from a known safe house in Afghanistan to somewhere in the United States, and that this communication had something to do with possible terrorist activity. Not only that, but he’s also implying that this communication was directly related to the attacks on 9/11 and all the death and destruction caused that day.

And then he says they “didn’t know precisely where it went”. In other words, they simply let this one go, and they have no excuse or justification for it. Oh, I’m sure that you’ll hear that their hands were tied by things like an outmoded FISA law…but that, as they say, is a big steaming pile.

The fact of the matter is, the FISA law gives law enforcement agencies up to 48 hours from the moment the surveillance is started to go before a judge and obtain a warrant. Here’s the direct text of Title 50, Chapter 36, Subchapter III, Section 1843:

"(a) Requirements for authorization
Notwithstanding any other provision of this subchapter, when the Attorney General makes a determination described in subsection (b) of this section, the Attorney General may authorize the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device on an emergency basis to gather foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or information to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution if—

(1) a judge referred to in section 1842 (b) of this title is informed by the Attorney General or his designee at the time of such authorization that the decision has been made to install and use the pen register or trap and trace device, as the case may be, on an emergency basis; and

(2) an application in accordance with section 1842 of this title is made to such judge as soon as practicable, but not more than 48 hours, after the Attorney General authorizes the installation and use of the pen register or trap and trace device, as the case may be, under this section. "

Here is the link for this: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sec_50_00001843----000-.html.

So what, exactly, is going on here? What did Mukasey mean with that comment? Because, frankly, I can only see two ways of interpreting this:

Mukasey made the story up in his zeal to get his boss, George Bush, the imperial powers that he wants to do as he damn well pleases. That makes Mukasey nothing more than a damned liar who is perfectly willing to cook up a story for political gain and damn the consequences

OR

The Attorney General just admitted in public that this administration had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and, either thru sheer incompetence or for personal/partisan gain, allowed it to happen.

Hell of a choice, isn’t it? But beyond that, what are we going to do about this? Why is Congress not calling this man on the carpet IMMEDIATELY and telling him to explain his comments? Make no mistake, if he didn’t lie then this is a smoking gun with this administrations fingerprint all over it and we’re facing a situation where the President and key members of his Cabinet allowed the worst terrorist attack in our country that we’ve ever seen to proceed just for the sake of pushing their political and economic agenda.

Feel like puking yet? I sure do…