That defense attorney who runs the site Talk Left - where all sorts of attorneys arguing in court for their clients against the administration on this issue or that, or springing innocent people from death row, or defending detainees at Guantánamo, have their say - is Jeralyn Merritt. Friday, June 23, she shifted from her site to MSNBC to cover for their NYU journalism professor and political expert Eric Alterman. He's in Europe working on anther book, as if When Presidents Lie wasn't enough. So we're talking the opposition here. These are people unhappy with how things are going these days. They used to be in the minority. Things change.

In any event, it was her job to offer comment on the big events at the end of the week, and that called for making a decision - what big and what's not?

And her contention?  This - "While for some, the big story today is the indictment of wannabe warriors in Florida, I think the government's attempt to prevent the media from publishing articles about the Administration's use of an international financial cooperative's database to obtain banking records without judicial authorization is more compelling."

Of course she doesn't note the two are connected. But if it's going to come out - no matter how you plead with or threaten the press - that you are, in an entirely new area, doing massive snooping with no warrants or any oversight of any kind, and you've been doing it for five years without the courts or congress knowing a thing, then that's a good time to remind the wary that you really can catch the bad guys, so you need all your tools, even if you're breaking the law and lying. It softens the blow. It's for a greater good, keeping everyone alive.

The guys in Florida weren't caught by data-mining billions of personal financial records gathered and filed over the last five years and deciding who might seem a bit suspicious, but the implication is there - it could have helped, or might help in the future. The hapless Florida Seven are paraded for us, in handcuffs and the orange jail jumpsuits, as a reminder that things you really shouldn't do sometimes just need to be done. Not that there's any direct connection in this case, but massive financial snooping must be good for us all, you see. It could help, hypothetically. And of course these guys are the masters of carefully saying there may be "no explicit connection" but there could be - Saddam and 9/11, al Qaeda and Saddam, WMD and all the rest. You just don't say it flat out. You let people decide. So the Florida arrests were a sort of PR thing - these angry and useless men may be hopeless jerks with no real connection to the bad guys - but think about it. There are bad guys out there, even if these weren't, and do you want to tie the hands of those trying to protect you by making them play by the rules, when the bad guys don't?

It's all in the timing. The financial records story was going to hit the Friday morning papers. Announce you arrested the nefarious plotters Thursday night. It's just too bad these plotters weren't very nefarious.
The Washington Post account of the Florida arrests is here, the Associated Press account of the administration's attempts to get the press to not print a word of it here, and the New York Times discussion of how the administration got the records without any judicial authorization here.

It's pretty bizarre.

Who knew there was this Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT, of course), a cooperative in Brussels linking almost eight thousand banks and brokerage houses all over the world, maintaining records of billions of international financial transactions each year? That was just too tempting, and here the Post reports we've wanted access to their records since the 1990s, but it was only after September 11, 2001, that President Bush insisted he had the authority to compel them. It's that Article II thing - the president doesn't have to answer to anyone, as he can break the rules for the greater good - it's his job to do so. Yep, we're told some government and industry authorities said releasing all these detailed private records to the president's Department of the Treasury would "shake confidence in the banking system." People expect privacy. But that's too bad, and President Bush overrode all the objections and invoked his powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to "investigate, regulate or prohibit" any foreign financial transaction linked to "an unusual and extraordinary threat."

September 11 changed everything, as you know.

And no one was supposed to know - Treasury officials specifically asked the New York Times and Los Angeles Times not to report on this. You just don't let the bad guys know you have all the transition records of most everything around the world and you're looking for anything you can find - you just don't reveal such things to the enemy. You don't tip them off.

But one has to assume the bad guys knew they were being watched. The real reason to keep a lid on this may have been to prevent a banking crisis - much of business relies on your competitors not knowing what money is moving where, and if the folks in Brussels are handing absolutely everything over to the US Treasury folks, no questions asked, you have to worry what information could be leaked, or what might be purchased from a low-level investigator with an adjustable rate mortgage about to skyrocket. That doesn't make you happy.

But the newspapers refused to hold back the story.

The New York Times (Bill Keller) - "We have listened closely to the administration's arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."

The Los Angeles Times (Dean Baquet) - "We weighed the government's arguments carefully, but in the end we determined that it was in the public interest to publish information about the extraordinary reach of this program. It is part of the continuing national debate over the aggressive measures employed by the government."

And the Los Angeles Times reported on privacy advocates having a problem with the technology here - "link analysis." That can drag in almost anyone, like harmless folks who have routine financial dealings with "terrorist suspects." You invested in the mortgage reinsurance market and six step removed someone bought a house next door to some sneaky middle-eastern fellow who know some in Pakistan who knew someone in Kabul, and so on. It gets tricky, no outside governmental oversight body - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or some grand jury- ever monitors the subpoenas served on SWIFT.

Jeralyn Merritt does note that the New York Times published its report, the Treasury Department issued an official statement - the program is perfectly legal and these media reports will compromise it. And the Post Post reports that Stuart Levey, the Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the program "is on rock solid ground." The White House? That was predictable - "We are disappointed that once again the New York Times has chosen to expose a classified program that is working to protect Americans."

Then there are the contradictions. Stuart Levey, the Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, says the program wasn't data mining at all - a specific name had to be typed into the database request. But the Post reports this -

That was not the case when the program began in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, when Bush signed Executive Order 13224 going after al-Qaeda's finances. Officials said far more information was collected early on, often on people who had nothing to do with al-Qaeda but whose Muslim names or businesses were similar to those used by suspected members of al-Qaeda. That method flooded the intelligence community with reams of material that was laborious to go through and repeatedly misled investigators.

Maybe the Post is lying, or their sources on the inside want to make the administration look bad, and are lying. Or maybe it's true.

Someone is worried, like Congressman Markey from Massachusetts here -

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. and co-chairman of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, said today that there were disturbing similarities between the bank-monitoring program and the secret surveillance program for telephone calls that was revealed last year. "Like the domestic surveillance program exposed last December, the Bush administration's efforts to tap into the financial records of thousands of Americans appear to rely on justifications concocted without regard to current law," Markey said in a statement.

"If the administration wants to fight terrorism legally, then it should ask for the authority it needs and then follow the law that Congress passes," Markey said. "Don't claim 'temporary emergency' and then operate in secret for five years."

But why not? This congress won't make waves. And who said anything about fighting terrorism legally?

Anyway, all this information was obtained from national security letters, those administrative subpoenas. No judge approved them.

We do a lot of that these days, as the Post noted here -

The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people - are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans. Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.

Welcome to the funhouse.

Jeralyn Merritt 's cry in the dark - "The newspapers were right to publish reports on the program. We have an Administration that operates in incredible secrecy and a President who believes he can trump the will of Congress and bypass the Courts. Given the NSA warrantless electronic surveillance program and the huge surge in the use of national security letters to obtain our phone records and more, we cannot just take them at their word."

You just have to trust they'd never let information leak, or use what they've learned for political purposes or financial gain. Have they ever misled anyone, after all?

And what about those plotters in Florida? How close were we to losing the Sears Tower in Chicago and the ten thousand souls who work there every day?

There's this -

The seven men arrested in an alleged terrorist plot believed they were conspiring with al Qaeda ''to levy war against the United States'' in attacks that would ''be just as good or greater than 9/11,'' according to a federal indictment unsealed this morning.

The campaign, which never advanced beyond the discussion stage, would begin with the bombing of the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago, according to the indictment.

... They apparently never had any contact with authentic representatives of al Qaeda. They were not able to obtain explosives, federal officials said.

"It was more aspirational than operational," John Pistole, the FBI's deputy director, said during the Washington news conference.

But the group asked the supposed al Qaeda representative to provide machine guns, boots, uniforms and vehicles, the indictment said.

So let's see here - they had no money, no weapons, and had no contact with actual terrorists. And they were really unhappy didn't have uniforms, which is odd, as terrorists don't wear uniforms. That defeats the whole idea. They were unclear on the concept here, but still the Attorney General said - "These homegrown terrorists might prove to be as dangerous as groups like al Qaeda." He's careful with the word "might." You're supposed to extrapolate.

As for that "might" Greg Saunders says this -

At this point, those of us who lived in Oklahoma in the mid-90's let out a collective "No shit, dumbass." It's nice for the head of the Justice Department to state this reality, but they're the same ones who have been spent the last half-decade refusing the use the word "terrorist" to describe any American criminals who aren't SUV-hating hippies. But even compared to the "eco-terrorists" (who have actually firebombed SUV dealerships), these guys were smaller than small-time. These arrests weren't even the result of a law enforcement operation; they just got turned in by the neighborhood watch -

Pistole, the FBI official, said the case was broken through a tip from the public. ''They came to our attention through pepple who were alert in the community,'' he said.

Other authorities emphasized that the public was not in danger and all activities - including today's parade in honor of the Miami Heat's NBA championship - should proceed without undue alarm.

I wish these "other authorities" were on CNN. Instead we're stuck with anchors and "experts" talking about how these dorks considered themselves "soldiers." Which might be scary if these guys weren't so pathetic that they couldn't even buy their own damn shoes -

Batiste gave the supposed al Qaeda representative a shopping list of materials he needed - boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios and vehicles.

Six days later, Batiste outlined his mission to wage war against the U.S. government from within using an army of his ''soldiers'' to help destroy the Sears Tower. He also gave the informant a list of shoe sizes for his soldiers.

I knew a guy a few years ago who would dress up like a ninja and sneak around his college campus. He also would show up at poetry readings wearing a Cobra Commander mask and shout threats at the audience along the lines of "You will all face destruction! COBRAAAA!!!". He wasn't a terrorist, he was just crazy. Same goes with these seven morons in Miami.

Saunders' conclusion - "You know the Bush Administration has lost its mojo when they can't even fake a terror alert well."

Yeah, well, they had to do something, as fancifully imagined by Taylor Marsh here -

Hey, Alberto Gonzales here.

So, I'm sitting around in my air conditioned office in Washington the other day thinking, I need to make an arrest. It's just been way too quiet lately and the boss is taking incoming from generals, veterans and military families on Iraq. I need to do something. I need to prove we're fighting them "over here" to make... well, anyway, we need to keep America safe.

Anyway, an FBI agent walks in and starts talking about a tip we just got from someone down in Miami. With Jeb down there it's friendly territory anyway, so I thought, what the hell, right? Next, I allocate some funds and sign off on an operational request. We called it Operation Ninja, and then my personal FBI agent buddy - not a regular FBI agent, but one of our Republican moles - gets on the phone to Florida.

So, now I'm a Ninja fighter. You may ask, why am I calling the bad ass terrorists in Florida Ninjas? Because they dressed up in "ninja clothing" to disguise their purpose and to shape shift between good and evil doers. It was on cable. It's true.

But after my FBI agent calls the head Ninja, a problem arises. Sure, they want to blow up stuff and raise hell in America. After all, that's what homegrown terrorists do. But the Florida Ninjas don't have a camera to take pictures of the buildings they want to blow up.

They don't have boots.

They don't have guns, equipment or any weapons of any kind. They don't even have explosives. There was "no threat from this cell."

They don't even have a van to case the building they hope to target.

That means more money and set up costs for me, so that the Florida Ninjas can set up shop so I can go in and arrest them for plotting terrorism. Well, this is a presidential pain.

And I have to do all this while also planning a big fancy blow out press conference for when I arrest the Florida Ninjas. Sheesh. An attorney general's job is never done.

Then I find out that there's been "absolutely no plotting" from these "mutant jihadists." The mainstream press is also calling them "incompetent wannabes." Yeah, but they're MY incompetent wannabes. I made these guys. These evil doers are mine.

Marsh - "Color me cynical, but wake up and smell the election year fear campaign. Hear Karl Rove hiss. I'm all for catching terrorists, but when you catch a bunch of wannabe jihadists in ninja clothing just arrest them. Do you need to call a glory hound press conference?"

Yes, you do. It was the banking thing.

But then there's the logic problem. It's hard to maintain the war rationale now in play - "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here."

You just don't say, "They're here, folks." People do notice.

Spin is hard work.