If nothing else, Republican Senator John Cornyn is an irony producing machine. During the Terri Schiavo affair, the former Texas Supreme Court Justice was at the forefront of the GOP campaign to intimidate and threaten judges. Now after his fierce defense of President Bush's regime of illegal NSA domestic surveillance, Cornyn is comically warning that the Obama administration has launched a sinister "data collection program" to promote health care reform.

Back in December 2005, Cornyn dismissed the New York Times' revelations of the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program. Regurgitating the same "Give Me Death" defense offered by colleagues Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Jeff Session (R-AL), Cornyn sneered:

"None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead."

Alas, that was then and this is now. Now, there's a Democrat in the White House, one who's trying to overcome Republican obstructionism on health care reform.

When the Obama White House on Tuesday asked Americans to help fight the disinformation campaign ("If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov"), Cornyn was quick to suggest a dark plot was afoot. As The Hill reported:

"By requesting citizens send 'fishy' emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email, addresses, IP addresses and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House," Cornyn wrote in a letter to Obama. "You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program."

Cornyn asked Obama to cease the program immediately, or at the very least explain what the White House would do with the information it collects.

"I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure speech that is deemed 'fishy' or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests," Cornyn said.

Of course, this is just the latest data collection myth spawned by the right-wing noise machine this week.

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From Countdown:

A new internal government report reveals that President George W. Bush played a direct role in instructing Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card to go to former Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital bed and urge him to personally approve warrantless wiretapping on Americans.

From James Risen and Eric Lichblau's article at the New York Times:

While the Bush administration had defended its program of wiretapping without warrants as a vital tool that saved lives, a new government review released Friday said the program’s effectiveness in fighting terrorism was unclear.

The report, mandated by Congress last year and produced by the inspectors general of five federal agencies, found that other intelligence tools used in assessing security threats posed by terrorists provided more timely and detailed information.

Most intelligence officials interviewed “had difficulty citing specific instances” when the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists, the report said.

While the program obtained information that “had value in some counterterrorism investigations, it generally played a limited role in the F.B.I.’s overall counterterrorism efforts,” the report concluded. The Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence branches also viewed the program, which allowed eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of Americans, as a useful tool but could not link it directly to counterterrorism successes, presumably arrests or thwarted plots.

So much for that talking point that all that spying kept us safe from another terrorist attack.

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From Countdown:

Professor Jonathan Turley discusses the legal implications for former President George Bush if he tried to force his attorney general, John Ashcroft to authorize domestic spying.

Jonathan has more at his blog. Reports Shows Additional Undisclosed Surveillance Programs — And Likely Unlawful Conduct by Bush Administration:

A new government report has disclosed that President Bush authorized secret surveillance activities that went beyond the previously disclosed NSA program – raising the prospect of additional unlawful conduct by the Bush Administration. At the same time, a House member has revealed that CIA Director Leon Panetta has shutdown a program that was never revealed to Congress in direct violation of federal law. I will be discussing these stories tonight on MSNBC Countdown.

In a notable change, the report now describes the entire program as the “President’s Surveillance Program,” going beyond the domestic surveillance program. It also highlights the individual who is most accountable for criminal violations as well as the failure of the Obama Administration to allow investigations into unlawful surveillance or torture. As the evidence of such unlawful conduct mounts, the blocking of a criminal investigation by Attorney General Holder grows more serious as an abdication of his oath to uphold our laws.

Notably, the “usual suspects” refused to be interviewed: former CIA Director George Tenet, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card; former top Cheney aide David Addington; and John Yoo, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general. Given the potential incrimination prospects, they have at least acted in deference to the criminal code even as Holder appears to ignore it.

Marcy Wheeler's been all over this story as well and has more on the latest revelations to come out of the IG's report. George Bush PERSONALLY Sent Card and Gonzales to Thug Up Ashcroft:

Today's IG Report on illegal wiretapping answers another previously unanswered question: who called Mrs. Ashcroft to tell her Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales were coming to the ICU ward to rough of John Ashcroft.

George Bush did so himself.

From the report:

According to notes from Ashcroft's FBI security detail, at 6:20 PM that evening Card called the hospital and spoke with an agent in Ashcroft's security detail, advising him that President Bush would be calling shortly to speak with Ashcroft. Ashcroft's wife told the agent that Ashcroft would not accept the call. Ten minutes later, the agent called Ashcroft's Chief of Staff David Ayres at DOJ to request that Ayres speak with Card about the President's intention to call Ashcroft. The agent conveyed to Ayres Mrs. Ashcroft's desire that no calls be made to Ashcroft for another day or two. However, at 6:5 PM, Card and the President called the hospital and, according to the agent's notes, "insisted on speaking [with Attorney General Ashcroft]." According to the agent's notes, Mrs. Ashcroft took the call from Card and the President and was informed that Gonzales and Card were coming to the hospital to see Ashcroft regarding a matter involving national security. (24) [my emphasis]

As Jonathan noted the only thing standing in the way of anything being done to bring the Bush administration to justice over these matters is the Obama administration's unwillingness to go after them. I would imagine that unwillingness is a result of being too worried about how Republicans will react with trying to get any legislation passed if they do it. That and the right wing screechers on talk radio and the rest of our "main stream media" saying they are criminalizing policy, rather than taking an honest look at the illegalities that have been done in the name of keeping us safe from terrorism.

Democracy Now's headlines for June 18, 2009.

• Supporters of Mousavi Hold Mourning Rally in Tehran
  
• Iran Accuses US of Meddling in its Internal Affairs
  
• US State Dept Asks Twitter to Delay Shutdown Due to Iran Protests
  
• Obama Extends Some Benefits to Same-Sex Partners of Federal Workers
  
• Holder Refuses to Say Bush’s Warrantless Wiretapping Program Was Illegal
  
• NSA Database Collects Millions of Intercepted Emails
  
• Obama Proposes New Regulations of Financial Industry
  
• EPA Declares Public Health Emergency in Libby, Montana
  
• U.S. Drone Strike Kills Nine in Pakistan
  
• Suicide Bombing Kills Somalia’s National Security Minister
  
• GOP Aide in Tennessee Distributes Racist Image of Obama
  
• GOP Operative in SC Compares First Lady To A Gorilla

Rachel Maddow talks to Bob Baer about the objections from Dianne Feinstein and Jay Rockefeller to the appointment of Leon Panetta to head the CIA.

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From The O'Reilly Factor Dec. 22, 2008. Rove does his best job of channelling Dick Cheney.

From The Rachel Maddow Show. Whistleblower Thomas Mann gives his first television interview.

As a writer with openly progressive opinions living overseas, I would be surprised if my emails and telephone calls to Our Kid – a poli-sci professor who studied in Madrid and wrote her PhD on Spanish terrorism – have not been monitored by the US government. It’s been a long-standing joke between us to wave hello to the lonely NSA guy in the basement listening in on our conversations. But a new ABC report confirms what has long been suspected – it’s no joke. NSA officials have intentionally intercepted, listened to and passed around the phone calls of hundreds of innocent U.S. citizens working overseas, including journalists and international aid workers including the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, even when it was definite the calls were not related to anything to do with national security, while the government misled the American public about the scope of its surveillance activities. But rather than listening for possible connections to suspected terrorists, it seems what really interests those NSA guys with headphones down in the basement is… sex.

According to Adrienne Kinne and David Murfee Faulk, two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia, for years intercept operators listened in on hundreds of phone calls from American soldiers in Baghdad’s Green Zone as they talked to their spouses, girlfriends, and family about ‘personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism.’ Intercept operators assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon would routinely share salacious phone calls that had been recorded, and gossip about it during breaks. ‘ “Hey, check this out, there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out.” It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, “Wow, this was crazy”.’

‘The American public is led to believe that the NSA is eavesdropping on calls where one party is a member of al Qaeda, but in reality the NSA is monitoring and collecting the personal communications of innocent Americans,’ said James Bamford, who first interviewed the former intercept officers for his book, ‘The Shadow Factory,’ due out next week. ‘What's worse, once a telephone number or e-mail address gets picked up, it stays in the system. Every communication from the number or address is picked up, monitored and stored permanently.’

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Senator Feingold took to the Senate floor today and, with the help of Sen. Arlen Specter, challenged his colleagues to wrap their minds around what granting retroactive telecom immunity would mean for the rule of law, and wondered how they could be voting on such a thing when 70 members don't even have access to the evidence of alleged impropriety.

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"This is an amazingly inappropriate use of legislative interference, a push by this administration, and Senators should take a real hard look at whether they want to be associated with such an attack on the rule of law."

Glenn Greenwald has more:

Once passed by the Senate, the FISA bill will then immediately be sent by the Democratic Congress to an eagerly awaiting and immensely pleased President Bush, who will sign it into law, thereby putting a permanent and happy end to the scandal that began when -- in December, 2005 -- he was caught spying on the communications of American citizens in violation of the law. The only real remaining questions are (a) whether Bush will host Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller at a festive, bipartisan White House signing ceremony to celebrate the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law, and (b) whether Bush, when he signs the bill into law, will append a signing statement decreeing that even its minimal restraints on presidential spying are invalid.

Extended version of Senator Feingold's remarks below the fold:

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Senator Russ Feingold joined Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Tuesday to speak out about the reprehensible FISA "compromise" brokered by House Leader Steny Hoyer. Feingold has always been the most articulate and outspoken voice on Constitutional liberties, and he sure didn't hold back.

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SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: It's not even a fig leaf; it's a joke. It does not in any way prevent the ruling from that court, basically automatically, of immunity, because it just involves saying, "Look, they've got a piece of paper from the government." This is nothing but Democrats trying to pretend that they're doing something here. They are doing nothing. They're giving in. [Missouri Republican] Senator Kit Bond is basically giggling at the fact that the Republicans and the administration got essentially everything they want on this. It's sadly a great failure on the part of the Democratic majority that was elected in 2006 primarily to get us out of Iraq, but also significantly to protect the Constitution of the United States. This is not a proud moment.

Do you hear that, Democrats? The GOP is laughing at your craven weakness. Hell, your approval numbers are higher with Republicans than they are with the people who put you in power to supposedly protect their rights. Do what you were elected to do and filibuster this bill until the real intelligence gaps are closed and the telecoms are compelled to prove they didn't violate federal law by helping the most unpopular President in American history spy on us.

When, precisely, did it become unfashionable (even taboo) to stand strong on protecting core American values? Have we really allowed George Bush to fundamentally alter the character of our country? Be sure to tune into CSPAN-2 tomorrow to see whether or not there are any true leaders in the Democratic party willing to fight the good fight.