TPMM discloses a Salon report showing Members of Congress know about a massive, still not fully disclosed domestic spying operation spanning decades. It appears Members of Congress know some things which have not been disclosed: Evidence linking Members of Congress with war crimes planning and evidence destruction.

The Congress turned a blind eye to illegal activity. This sent Congress and the President down a slippery slope. They jointly refused to fully enforce FISA. This meant the President had leverage to convince Members of Congress to turn a blind eye to war crimes.

It's unclear how this data base has or has not captured evidence related to Member of Congress complicity with war crimes:

A. How has illegally captured information been used to create "investigative leads" which violate the warrant requirement?

B. Are members of law enforcement authorized to lie about the real source of this evidence -- illegal data collection -- during trial?

C. How many criminal defendants have been convicted using illegally captured information?

D. How much evidence -- of unlawful member of Congress complicity with war crimes -- has been intercepted with this system, but has not been adequately provided to international war crimes prosecutors?

E. What is the excuse of the US Attorneys for not using this captured information to prosecute the President and members of Congress for complicity with war crimes?

Put aside combat operations. Reconsider the Congressional "shocked responses to FBI abuses with NSLs. We've had no impeachment
investigation.  The disclosures of "Man Core" may help explain why
Pelosi took impeachment off the table: The President's illegal activity
is connected with what Members of Congress have long known, but failed
to do.

We previously raised concerns
that the public should be given access to internal Member of Congress.
We have no confidence Congress can independently examine itself on this illegal surveillance.

Some have suggested that oversight of this illegal activity would create a backlash. Indeed, the question is

1. What activity and oversight did the Congress fail to do to ensure that the lawful requirements were fully supported; or

2. Did Members of Congress, in keeping this illegal activity secret, ensure many reasonable concerns with IT-gaps were suppressed and not adequately resolved during requirements definition within the software baselines?

3. How many "gaps" in the pre-9-11 interceptions were real, fabricated, or related to inadequate Congressional oversight?

Most of the attention on the FISA violations has been on what the President did or didn't do. We viewed this approach as narrow. Congress also needs to be examined.

Before we appoint an independent commission to investigate this massive data-mining and surveillance activity, we need to consider what failed with the 9-11 Commision. If the reports in TPMM and Salon are true, this suggests that Members of Congress know or should know that the 9-11 Commission was not given all information about what the NSA knew before the 9-11 Attacks.

There are some basic questions about these new disclosures about Member of Congress knowledge of the larger illegal domestic surveillance:

4. Is there information Members of Congress have related to this non-disclosed "Man Core" surveillance that the 9-11 Commission did or didn't get access to during the investigation into 9-11?

5. What happened during 9-11: Was the "Man Core" surveillance capability shut down; or was it turned off; or did the NSA, in fact, have full access to all the information, but the President and Congress would have us believe they were blindsided?

There are several references in the 9-11 Commission Report which warrant discussion. 

Page 84: "The FAA had access to some TIPOFF data, but apparently found it too difficult to use"

Members of Congress knew about the NSA domestic surveillance, but have said nothing:

6. Does this mean Congress also knows why the FAA during 9-11-related events was or wasn't able to do something?

7. What information in the 9-11 report do Members of Congress know were publicly presented as limitations, but they know or should know these public disclosures do not match what the US government can really do?

8. How many statements in the 9-11 report did Congress and the President "rely" knowing fully well that those statements failed to fully disclose the full electronic monitoring capabilities of the United States government?

9. What happened to this now-admitted to monitoring before 9-11; or does the Congress know more than it is telling us: What information did the NSA have, but has not disclosed; what did the NSA destroy; or is there evidence the NSA collected before 9-11 which the 9-11 commission never got access?

Page 77 of the 9-11 Commission Report says:

"The poor state of the FBI's information systems meant that such access depended in large part on an analyst's personal relationships with individuals"

In light of the now-disclosed "Man Core" surveillance, it appears Congress was not adequately monitoring the illegal activity; and this, in part, may help explain why Congress was not adequately ensuring the intelligence community had all the resources it needed.

10. Does this mean the Members of Congress, in refusing to conduct fully
oversight of the FISA violations, did not adequately ensure there were
reasonable efforts in place to ensure the FBI's electronic surveillance
requirements were fully incorporated into information technology acquisition programs?


11. To what extent have Members of Congress, in refusing to conduct
oversight of the illegal activity, failed to ensure that there was
competent oversight of the lawful programs, and that all program
requirement baselines were adequately supported?

Knowing these technology gaps existed, or that there was illegal activity, Congress and the President are hard pressed to explain why they supported illegal warfare in Iraq. The Congress and President knew or should have known the limitations of the technical interception capabilities. It's an open question how much information Congress would have us believe it "thought" said something about Iraq WMD; but given their real knowledge of the US intelligence interceptions, they knew or should have known the level of evidence was something different.

Page 122 of the 9-11 Commission report says

"An NSC staff-led working group on terrorist finances asked the CIA in November 1998 to push again for access to Tayyib"

Does this mean:

12. Congress, knowing the full extent of the domestic interception, was not adequately ensuring that all intelligence agencies had fully access to the still-not-disclosed databases?

13. Putting aside whether FISA was or wasn't enforced, how many databases does the US government have that it is not able to adequately managed?

14. Why didn't Members of Congress share with the public the real scope of the information storage requirements, and ensure there was public support for the real data retention, analysis requirements?

The Congress shows it has know that FISA was not relevant, and that there were other illegal activities.

15. Is it the contention of Members of Congress that the US government failed to safeguard the country despite using illegal surveillance; or is something else going on?

Now that we k now about the "bigger" data mining, which Congress refuses to investigate, what do we say about this in the 9-11 report, page 146:

"Our access to them has been limited to the review of intelligence reports based on communications received from the locations"

Was the 9-11 Commission telling us the truth, or is there something else going on:

16. Why did the 9-11 not have full access to the intelligence reports?

17. What did the intelligence community really hope to hide from the 9-11 Commission?

18. Did Members of Congress work with the President to thwart the 9-11 Commission, and hide the full scope of the "other" illegal activities which failed or were, in fact, detected, but did not respond or were thwarted on 9-11?

It defies reason to believe despite all this illegal monitoring, the US government was blindsided on 9-11. The real question is what information did the 9-11 Commission not get access to suggesting the members of Congress, president, and Vice President were complicit with a reckless response during and after 9-11.

19. Given the scope of the illegal NSA monitoring Members of Congress have known about for decades, should the public really believe that there were "holes" in the intelligence gathering and analysts?

20. Why should anyone believe the President did the right thing before or during 9-11 when the Congress has turned a blind eye to illegal activity?

21. Why should we really believe the Congress appropriately authorized force against the right country or enemy?

22. Is it possible Congress well knew who was working domestically to support the 9-11-related events, but have supported warfare against bin Ladin that the FBI says cannot be linked with 9-11?

Consider this from page 323 of the 9-11 report:

"most of them lacked access to the radio channel on which the Port Authority police evacuation order was given"

We ask:

23. Why would this "technical problem" be relevant if the United States Congress knew about illegal surveillance; and spending money to violate the law, but not spending money to mitigate technical problems?

24. Doesn't it seem odd the US Congress would spend money to violate the law; but never spend any money to ensure a domestic operation planned to support 9-11 would not be fully mitigated?

Consider this from page 341 of the 9-11 report:

They operate "outside traditional circles but have access to a worldwide network of training facilities

We ask:

25. Why is this relevant? The US government was willing to violate FISA to gather electronic information.

26. Why wasn't the US government using "other" methods to get access to these "other" training networks?

27. Doesn't it seem odd that the US would violate FISA to get access to information; but not fully exploit all options to do other things?

We're not advocating for illegal activity. Rather, if the Congress had fully disclosed the requirement to do illegal things, the public might have not rejected this government's approach; and we might have collectively developed an approach to lawfully do what should ahve been done before 9-11.

We might have had a discussion about the real risks and gaps; better understood the oversight problems; and better focused on the real threats facing America. But this government failed to work with the public, worked outside the law, and -- as evidenced by 9-11 -- didn't do what it should have fully done to defend the country. However, if someone wants to say, "There's more to the story," then we have to ask the question:

28. Did the Congress and President not fully disclosed all it knew about 9-11; and did the US government, in fact, know about and not adequately respond to the 9-11 preparations?

It makes no sense to discuss the scope of the illegal activity outside FISA, without discussing what should have happened had the US government fully used all lawful options to defend the country before 9-11. The disclosures from Salon raise new questions about the credibility of the 9-11 Commission's findings, and what Members of Congress and the President did in the wake of 9-11.

Had the US government fully disclosed the "requirement" to engage in illegal activity, the public might have fully supported legal reforms and other efforts required to fully engage in lawful warfare against that enemy. This government chose to keep their illegal activity secret, and failed to ensure public support for a full war mobilization. They failed before 9-11, and they continue to fail.

We've seen the price of secrecy: Loss of confidence in the United States government. We have no confidence the US Congress or President are part of the solution. They are the problem. It remains an open question to what extent they're sitting on other information showing the public they're complicit with illegal warfare, war crimes, and other illegal activity which should be brought before a war crimes tribunal.

The world community knows about the data retention and collection. Either the US government enforces the laws of war using this evidence; or the world must turn to international war crimes tribunals to do the job the President, US Attorneys, and Members of Congress refuse to do: Safeguard all evidence of US government war crimes and enforce the Geneva Conventions through US prosecutions.