We knew it: The real deal behind wiretaps and intimidation and Cheney is evil

According to Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, two top lawyers in the Justice Department who attempted to push back against the authorization of torture by Vice President Cheney's staff became so paranoid that they worried they were being wiretapped and even feared they might be in physical danger.

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Mayer pointed out that "two of the top lawyers in the Bush administration, Jim Comey who was the number two in the Justice Department and Jack Goldsmith who ran the Office of Legal Counsel, were trying really hard to put the country back on what they thought was a legal footing when it came to how to treat prisoners. They were trying to take away the torture memo and replace it with something that was more responsible."

"As they were working on this," Mayer continued, "they became so paranoid that the vice president's office was either trying to push back in some way -- they thought they might be being wiretapped, they thought they might be in physical danger. The fights were that intense. I can't tell you how passionate and hard-fought these fights were inside this government."

Testimony of William Safire
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee
Wednesday, July 20, 2005

I am here to urge Congress to pass a law to stop the government and the courts from their present, dangerous course of trying to deny the public its right to the free flow of news.

The press’s freedom to publish the news without prior restraint is not in doubt. But now under attack is what comes before publication: the ability of journalists to gather the news.

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And there is a more specific chilling effect taking place right now. It imposes a mental “prior restraint” on the gathering of news and the expression of opinion. I’ve always been able to write what I have learned and what I believe “without fear or favor”, freely taking on the high and mighty. But I cannot do that this morning.

I am seething inside because I cannot tell you --- with no holds barred --- what I think of the unchecked abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and of the escalating threats of a Federal judiciary that is urgently in need of balancing guidance by elected representatives of the people. But for the first time, I have to pull my punches.

The reason is that I am afraid of retaliation against Federal prisoner 45570083, whose byline in the New York Times is Judith Miller. This Pulitzer prizewinning reporter, who earned the trust of the U.S. forces with whom she was embedded in Iraq, has accepted the painful consequences of daring to call public attention to the unbalanced, unwise, ever-growing application of the contempt power.

I must not anger or upset those who control her incarceration, and who repeatedly threaten to pile on with longer punishment as a criminal unless she betrays her principles as a reporter. Because any harsh criticism of them from me might well be taken out on her, I am constrained to speak gently, as if concerned about treatment of a hostage. That duress, I submit, is an example of what Justice Brennan had in mind about a “chilling effect”. I can testify that it works all too well, which is why I will now shut up and look to Congress to pass a law balancing our values and taking the chill out of the air.

http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/guest_commentary/saffire-shield-law.htm