Bloglines - NSA Hearings: John Dean

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NSA Hearings: John Dean NSA Hearings: John Dean Among the witnesses testifying at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today on Sen. Feingold's Censure Resolution is former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean. Dean has frequently compared the abuses of the Bush Administration generally to those of the Nixon Administration, and has specifically compared the illegal eavesdropping activities of the two Administrations. While we know that the eavesdropping ordered by President Bush is exactly the eavesdropping which FISA makes it a criminal offense to engage in, we do not yet know -- thanks to the frenzied efforts of Bush defenders to suppress any and all investigations into the Administration's eavesdropping activities -- the nature and extent of Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program. We do not, for instance, know which Americans were eavesdropped on, how many Americans were subject to this illegal surveillance, how it was determined who would be eavesdropped on, what was done with the information, whether purely innocent Americans had their communications intercepted without judicial approval, etc. The White House has repeatedly assured us that there is no reason for us to know any of this, and there is nothing for us to worry about, because they are only eavesdropping only -- to use a The White House's formulation -- on the "very bad people." In that regard, John Dean is an excellent witness for the hearings today, since he was part of an Administration which invoked exactly the same rationale. According to this July 25, 1969 article from Time Magazine, which was reporting on public fears over new surveillance powers given to the Administration by the Congress, Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell told Americans they had nothing to worry about: ...please continue reading ---posted by Glenn Greenwald