США. ветераны войн в Ираке и Афганистане планируют спустить на вашингтон от Mar. 13-16 засвидетельствовать о военных преступления, котор они поручили или лично witnessed в тех странах.

Аарон Glantz

«Война в Ираке не покрыно к своему потенциалу из-за как опасно оно для репортеров, котор нужно покрыть его,» сказало Liam Madden, бывший морской пехотинец и член ветеранов Ирака группы против войны. «Оставляют множество misconceptions в разумы американской публики о поистине природа военной оккупации смотрит как.»

Ветераны Ирака против войны спорят что наилучшим образом-publicised случаи США. зверством как скандал тюрьмы Abu Ghraib и massacre всей семьи Iraqis в городке Haditha не будут изолированные случаи perpetrated «немного плохих яблок», так много политиканы и воинские руководители требовали. Ими будет часть картины, группа говорит, «все больше и больше кровопролитного занятия».

«Проблема мы смотрим на в Ираке что policymakers в водительстве устанавливали прецедент беззакония где мы abide торжеством права, мы не уважает международные договоры, так когда та атмосфера существует оно одалживает к преступной деятельности,» спорит бывшие США. Sergeant Logan Laituri армии, который служил путешествие в Ираке от 2004 до 2005 перед быть разряженным как совестный возражающий.

Laituri сказало IPS что прецедент сам моделей беззакония чувствовал в правилах захвата врученных вниз командирами к воинам на передних линиях. Когда он был помещен в Samarra, например, он сказал один из его воинов собрата сняло unarmed человека пока он погулял вниз с улицы.

«Проблема что тот воин не поручал злодеяние по мере того как вы могли вызвать его потому что правила захвата были очень ясны что no one было предположены, что погуляло вниз с улицы,» он сказали. «Только я имею проблему с тем. Вы не можете сказать, что семья оставила все, котор они знает поэтому вы можете бомбить shit из их дома или их города. So while he definitely has protection under the law, I don’t think that legitimates that type of violence.”

Iraq Veterans Against the War is calling the gathering “Winter Soldier,” after a quote from the U.S. revolutionary Thomas Paine, who wrote in 1776: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

Organisers say video and photographic evidence will also be presented, and the testimony and panels will be broadcast live on Satellite TV and streaming video on ivaw.org.

Winter Soldier is modeled on a similar event held by Vietnam Veterans 37 years ago.

In 1971, over 100 members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with fellow citizens. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions.

“Initially even the My Lai massacre was denied,” notes Gerald Nicosia, whose book “Home to War” provides the most exhaustive history of the Vietnam veterans’ movement.

“The U.S. military has traditionally denied these accusations based on the fact that ‘this is a crazy soldier’ or ‘this is a malcontent’ — that you can’t trust this person. And that is the reason that Vietnam Veterans Against the War did this unified presentation in Detriot in 1971.”

“They brought together their bona fides and wore their medals and showed it was more than one or two or three malcontents. It was medal-winning, honored soldiers — veterans in a group verifying what each other said to try to convince people that these charges cannot be denied. That people are doing these things as a matter of policy.”

Nicosia says the 1971 Winter Soldier was roundly ignored by the mainstream media, but that it made an indelible imprint on those who were there.

Among those in attendance was 27-year-old Navy Lieutenant John Kerry, who had served on a Swift Boat in Vietnam. Three months after the hearings, Nicosia notes, Kerry took his case to Congress and spoke before a jammed Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Television cameras lined the walls, and veterans packed the seats.

“Many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia,” Kerry told the committee, describing the events of the Winter Soldier gathering.

“It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit — the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.”

In one of the most famous antiwar speeches of the era, Kerry concluded: “Someone has to die so that President Nixon won’t be — and these are his words — ‘the first president to lose a war’. We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

Nicosia says U.S. citizens and veterans find themselves in a similar situation today.

“The majority of the American people are very dissatisfied with the Iraq war now and would be happy to get out of it. But Americans are bred deep into their psyches to think of America as a good country and, I think, much harder than just the hurdle of getting troops out of Iraq is to get Americans to realise the terrible things we do in the name of the United States.”

*Aaron Glantz has reported extensively from Iraq and on the treatment of U.S. soldiers when they return home. He is editor of the website www.warcomeshome.org and will be co-hosting Pacifica Radio’s live broadcast of the Winter Soldier hearings from Mar. 14-16.

In response to the recent Home Office consultation titled ‘Managing Protest around Parliament’, which threatened further restrictions on demonstrations throughout the UK, a second day of action [1] called by the Campaign for Free Assembly will take place on Saturday 1 March. Campaigners opposed to the Government’s proposals will assemble at London’s Trafalgar Square (north side) at 1pm.

The Government consultation on ‘Managing Protest around Parliament’, which closed on 17 January, began as a review of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) 2005, s.132-138, which controversially restricts demonstrations in a 1km zone around Parliament [2,3]. While it had previously been reported that Prime Minister Brown intended to repeal the unpopular provisions of the legislation [4], the consultation paper’s questions on the possible ‘harmonisation’ of the existing legislation suggest that the Government plans to extend current restrictions on protest around Parliament to the whole country. This means giving the police the power to censor the number, size and content of banners and placards; and existing laws requiring prior notification of and the power to impose restrictions on, and even ban, protest marches - covered by the Public Order Act 1986 – could be extended to all demonstrations.

The proposed powers and those already granted to the police create a climate of criminalisation of political activism; with arbitrary arrests and police violence and heavy-handedness relatively commonplace at protests - even entirely non-violent ones - such as at last summer’s Heathrow Climate Camp. Even members of the press documenting protests are no longer spared police brutality, as illustrated by the case of photojournalist Marc Vallée [5]. Furthermore, despite the current review of SOCPA, it is clear the Met has no immediate plans to stop using it to harass and intimidate activists, as shown by the arrests only this week of three long-term supporters of Brian Haw and his Parliament Square Peace Camp for an ‘unauthorised protest’ outside Parliament [6]. Overall, it seems such tactics are designed to exert a ‘chilling effect’, whereby people are deterred from engaging in grassroots activism for fear of the consequences.

Whatever campaign people are involved in, whether it’s for a safer school crossing or to end a war, the new proposals will affect them. Campaign groups who run a weekend stall in their local high street would be moved on, and political rallies and meetings could be broken up.

A spokesperson for the Campaign for Free Assembly said: “We are tired of the Government’s relentless determination to silence the public. We must act now to stop the further erosion of our freedom to assemble, and make it clear that we will not allow our liberties to be consulted away. The plans outlined in the consultation demand a response on the streets. Our message is simple: we claim the freedom to assemble without prior notification or permission, and this is not open to negotiation.”

Notes:

1. On the Campaign for Free Assembly’s first day of action on January 12, 2008, there was a spontaneous tour of sites within the designated area around Parliament, where it is an offence under SOCPA to demonstrate without prior written authorisation from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. The tour included Downing Street, Whitehall, Parliament Square, the Home Office, the Foreign Office, MI5 headquarters and New Scotland Yard.

A number of participants held a sit-down protest in the middle of the road in Parliament Street, and later in Whitehall, directly facing Downing Street, disrupting traffic for a while. There was much pushing and shoving outside Downing Street from the Metropolitan Police riot squad, the Territorial Support Group (TSG). A number of arrests were made, the highest profile being that of Brian Haw. Mr Haw, who had been quietly filming the demonstration, had his camcorder violently shoved into his face by a police officer, causing a bloody gash on his cheek. He was subsequently arrested under Section 5 of the Public Order Act on suspicion of swearing at the officer concerned, and was allegedly assaulted shortly afterwards by a number of officers in the back of a police van whilst in handcuffs. It is understood Mr Haw may well take legal action against the officers concerned.

Reports:

“Brian Haw violently assaulted then arrested at Downing Street today”
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389308.html

“Haw beaten up by police”
 http://www.parliament-square.org.uk/morningstar140108.pdf

“Peace protester injured in demo”
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7186606.stm

2. The following website contains background on SOCPA and the ‘Managing Protest’ consultation:  http://www.repeal-socpa.info

3. Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) 2005:
 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2005/ukpga_20050015_en_1

4. “Brown to allow Iraq protests”
 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1977614.ece

5. “Injured photographer wins settlement, costs and apology from Met Police”
 http://www.epuk.org/News/811/vallee-accepts-met-settlement

6. “SOCPA newsflash”
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392385.html

“SOCPA - update on last night’s arrests”
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392412.html

7. Other resources:

Articles:

“SOCPA Anti-demo Laws Should be Repealed, Not Extended”
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389354.html

“Preserving disorder: freedom to protest and the future of SOCPA”  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386033.html

Indymedia UK topic page on SOCPA:
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/socpa/

Films:

Documentary: “SOCPA – the Movie”  http://www.socpa-movie.blogspot.com

Feature-length documentary: “Taking Liberties”  http://www.noliberties.com

Campaign for Free Assembly
freeassembly[at]lists.riseup.net

The Clarion-Ledger

“It being essential to the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government and to the maintenance of a democratic society that public business be performed in an open and public manner, and that citizens be advised of and be aware of the performance of public officials and the deliberations and decisions that go into the making of public policy, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the State of Mississippi that the formation and determination of public policy is public business and shall be conducted at open meetings except as otherwise provided herein.”

- Open Meetings Act, 1975

The legislative declaration at the beginning of Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act is a practical statement for the need for open government.

It is “essential” to the operation of our government that citizens be aware of the actions of public officials in determining the policies that affect their lives. While this idea is generally accepted, it is not always practiced.

Public officials, facing controversial decisions, or even worse, taking action they intentionally want to hide, shut the public out. Documents that detail the actions of government, often involving the use of taxpayer money, are hidden from public view.

Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act and the Open Records Act state the intention of openness, but do not adequately provide the practical requirements under law to ensure it.

The Open Meetings Act has a list of exceptions. While some are valid, including sensitive personnel issues and proprietary matters such as the purchase of land, the exemptions are too many and too broad.

Worse, exemptions and procedures that were intended for specific valid purposes are interpreted so broadly as to make the law useless. One example is that some law enforcement agencies close their records under the guise of protecting investigative material. Basic incident reports on crimes - information that involves public safety - are often hidden.

Agencies close meetings based on broad definitions of “personnel matters,” or possible “litigation.” Too often, the law is only as valid as the good intentions of the public officials.

Often, seeking enforcement of the laws requires expensive litigation, which puts a chilling effect on private citizens seeking open government.

Open government is promoted by the media, but it is not a media issue - it is a public issue. Any citizen should be able to observe the action of government officials or have access to public records. It’s that simple.

Today begins a series of reports on Mississippi’s problems with secrecy. There are various improvements that should be made to the state’s open meetings and records laws. Exemptions should be tightened and procedures improved to aid citizens seeking to know how their tax money is used, what their government is doing and how their lives are impacted.

Openness is “essential” to good government. The doors should open on Mississippi’s secrecy.

U.S. Army unit Probed for killing Iraqi prisoners

The US Army has opened a criminal investigation into an allegation of “battlefield deaths” of detainees captured by a US brigade that operated last year in southwest Baghdad, an army spokesman said.

The allegation involved the 2nd Combat Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, which returned to its home base in Schweinfurt, Germany in November after a 15-month tour in Iraq, said Paul Boyce, an army spokesman.

Boyce said the investigation was triggered by “what appears to be an allegation of at least one, and likely more battlefield deaths involving captured detainees.”

“The allegation is that this may in fact be some sort of a battlefield crime and we are pursuing this to determine the facts, the circumstances and further investigative leads,” he said.

Boyce said the 1st Infantry Division’s 2nd Combat Brigade operated in the Rashid district of southwest Baghdad during its tour.

He said the alleged deaths did not occur in a detention facility but rather at what the military calls “the point of capture.”

The deaths are alleged to have occurred at least six months ago, he said.

He provided no other details on the specifics of the allegation, which came to the army’s attention last week.

The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command is conducting the investigation, he said, adding that the probe was still in its initial stages and no charges have been brought.

“Usually, these things come to light when somebody talks about it, a soldier in the unit, that sort of thing,” he said.

“I don’t want to rule out the scope and the extent of the situation quite yet, until we better understand what we are dealing with,” he said.

Stars and Stripes, a military newspaper that first reported on the investigation, said the Schweinfurt-based unit saw heavy fighting in Iraq, suffering 59 deaths.

An ex-congressman is indicted for his part in an alleged terrorist fundraising and accused of sending $130,000 to a Taliban supporter.

A US grand jury indicted ex-Republican congressman from Michigan, Mark Deli Siljander, with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice.

It is alleged he lobbied for a charity that sent funds to al-Qaeda and Taliban supporter Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Siljander was a congressman from 1981-1987 and served one year as a US delegate to the United Nations.

The 42-count grand jury indictment alleges Siljander lied about lobbying senators on behalf of the Missouri-based Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA).

The indictment alleges the charity sent about $130,000 (£66,000) in 2003 and 2004 to accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan, that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had access to.

It says Siljander “engaged in money laundering and obstruction of a federal investigation in an effort to disguise IARA’s misuse of taxpayer money that the government had provided for humanitarian purposes”.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has long been a thorn in the US side in Afghanistan.

The US justice department says he has “vowed to engage in a holy war against the United States and international troops”.

JR/RA

David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian

The Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, is behind a virtually unprecedented attempt to hold a British murder trial in secret, the Guardian can disclose. The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, has been asked to sign a public interest immunity certificate - a gagging order - at the request of the agency, which is responsible for spying and recruiting agents abroad. It is also involved in money laundering investigations.Wang Lam, 45, a financial trader from Hampstead, north-west London, who was arrested in Switzerland, is accused of murdering an 86-year-old recluse, Allan Chappelow, who lived in the Hampstead area. The body was discovered after £10,000 reportedly went missing from the victim’s bank account.

A secret hearing at the high court last week was adjourned until the new year. The Crown Prosecution Service will then apply for the entire trial, or large parts of it, to be held with press and public excluded. The CPS refused yesterday to confirm the reason for its rare application, and the Home Office refused to comment on reports that the defendant had acted as an informant.

The CPS said the move was “in the interests of justice” and the Home Office said it would not talk about PII certificates. Although MI6 is answerable to the foreign secretary, Smith was asked to sign the PII certificate because the Home Office is responsible for the conduct of criminal trials in the UK. Lam is defended by Kirsty Brimelow and Geoffrey Robertson QC, who came to prominence in the 1992 Matrix Churchill case, in which PII certificates were involved. In that case defendants were cleared of charges of arms dealing with Iraq, after disclosure of their links with British intelligence.

PII certificates are generally used to conceal evidence involving national security, intelligence methods, or undercover informants. It is extremely unusual to attempt to keep secret an entire trial, especially when it is not a spy case.

The trial judge can refuse to accept the reasons for a PII certificate, if the defence asks for the trial to take place in public in the normal way. It is also open to the media to challenge such a secrecy order.

Lawyers involved in the case said yesterday that they were forbidden by the court to discuss any aspect of the secrecy application. Lam has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, burglary and deception. He was arrested near Zug, Switzerland, by Swiss police, on an international warrant.

Chappelow was known in the Hampstead area as a reclusive figure, whose house in a wealthy area was neglected, with an overgrown garden. It was reported earlier that bank officials had alerted police after apparently unusual transactions on his account. Ten thousand pounds was reported to have been transferred by someone claiming to be him. Cheques, mail and a mobile phone were also allegedly missing from his house.

A jury on Wednesday retired to consider its verdict in the trial of the Metropolitan Police over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

The force is accused of a “catastrophic” series of errors leading to the death of the innocent Brazilian at Stockwell Tube station on July 22, 2005.

Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times by specialist firearms officers after he was mistaken for failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman.

Mr Justice Henriques sent out the jury to begin its deliberations, in the fifth week of the Old Bailey trial.

The Office of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police denies a single charge under health and safety legislation of exposing the public to risk.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/23853/De-Menezes-shooting-trial-jury-out

By Iain Thomson

A US judge has ruled that the FBI cannot spy on people’s internet and telephone use without a warrant.

Judge Victor Marrero, of the District of Columbia, determined that the rules under the Patriot Act that allowed the FBI to secretly request telephone, internet and email logs without applying for a warrant were barred by the constitution.

The Patriot Act was passed 43 days after the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001.

Judge Marrero found that the practice offended constitutional principles of checks and balances, and violated the guarantee of free speech.

In a 24-page summation the judge concluded that the government would also have to hand over evidence requested on under the Freedom of Information act or explain why it would not.

The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Security Archive and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

“Today’s ruling deals a blow to the administration’s sweeping and often unfounded secrecy claims,” said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

“When documents are withheld under the Freedom of Information Act, the government must have a better excuse for keeping the documents secret than ‘because we said so’.”

The judge found that the government’s reasons for not releasing documents were “too vague and general” and that the FBI’s justifications were “wholly inadequate”.

The case will now go to the appeal courts and the government has until 12 October to respond.

The Observer

Benefit claimants and job seekers could be forced to take lie detector tests as early as next year after an early review of a pilot scheme exposed 126 benefit cheats in just three months, saving one local authority £110,000.
Last May, the Department for Work and Pensions asked Harrow council in London to undertake a year-long, £63,000 pilot of the ground-breaking Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) technology.

‘We will wait until the end of the formal evaluation period to make a final decision about rolling the technology out across the country but this early review by the council is very positive,’ said a spokesman for the DWP.

Article continues

‘If our own review comes to similar conclusions to Harrow’s, we would like to see this technology rolled out across Britain as soon as possible.’
VRA technology works by measuring slight, inaudible fluctuations in the human voice known as ‘micro-tremors’ that indicate when a speaker delivers words under stress, and when those moments of stress are generated by an attempt to deceive. Voice patterns are analysed and displayed on a computer.

Normal speech ranges in frequency from 8 to 12 hertz. When they are being honest, the average sound is below 10 hertz. When they lie, the stress causes the frequency to rise to above 10 hertz.

‘This technology is successfully used in the insurance industry and analyses changes in a caller’s voice, giving an indication of the level of risk that they are lying,’ said Richard Sheridan from Capita Group which owns the technology and is helping implementation for Harrow council. ‘These changes are measured against the caller’s “normal” voice which is recorded at the beginning of the phone call, ensuring that nervousness or shyness is not a trigger. If the technology flags up a caller as being suspicious, they will be asked to provide extra evidence to support their claim.’

The technology is being tested on people claiming housing or council tax benefit but will be extended at Harrow Jobcentre for other benefits this year. The government claims the technology also improves services.

‘Operators trained in intelligent questioning and behavioural analysis will use the system to identify suspect cases at the start of the claim process, enabling low-risk claimants to be fast-tracked,’ said a DWP spokesman.

Over the past two years the procedure for claiming benefits has been reformed. The claim often begins with a telephone interview, after which people may need to provide evidence and sign forms.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said the system ‘adds to the demonisation of claimants’.

‘Whatever their views on welfare policy, anyone who cares about science and reason should also be alarmed: lie detectors do not work, they are as likely to finger the innocent but nervous as the genuinely guilty,’ he said. ‘Innocent people will account for a majority of those whose claims are delayed while they provide extra evidence.’

Experts in America, where the most comprehensive scrutiny of the technology has taken place, warn that the technology is far from failsafe.

David Ashe, chief deputy of the Virginia Board for Professional and Occupational Regulation, said, ‘The experience of being tested, or of claiming a benefit and being told that your voice is being checked for lies, is inherently stressful.

‘Lie detector tests have a tendency to pass people for whom deception is a way of life and fail those who are scrupulously honest.’

David Nason

A TOP-RANKING US judge has stunned a conference of Australian judges and barristers in Chicago by advocating secret trials for terrorists, more surveillance of Muslim populations across North America and an end to counter-terrorism efforts being “hog-tied” by the US constitution.

Judge Richard Posner, a supposedly liberal-leaning jurist regarded by many as a future US Supreme Court candidate, said traditional concepts of criminal justice were inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat and the US had “over-invested” in them.

His proposed “big brother” solutions flabbergasted delegates at the Australian Bar Association’s biennial conference, where David Hicks’s lawyer, Major Michael Mori, is to be awarded honorary life membership.

“We have to fight terrorism with our strengths, and our strengths evolve around technology, including the technology of surveillance,” said Justice Posner, a prolific legal scholar who sits on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

“Are there terrorist plots that are at a formative stage among the large US Muslim community of two to three million people? In the 600,000 Canadian Muslim population, are there people planning attacks on the US?

“What we have to do is discover the extent of the terrorist threat to the US. There is a danger, and it demands a rethinking of some of our conventional views on the limits of national security measures.

“We should think of surveillance as preventative, not punitive. We should think of controls that have nothing to do with warrants or traditional criminal justice to prevent abuses.”

Judge Posner said the US temper and culture could not sustain repeated terrorist attacks.

Melbourne QC Tim Tobin said it was a shock to hear such hard and isolationist positions coming from a judge known as a liberal thinker. While he was disturbed by the judge’s proposed crackdown on US and Canadian Muslims, he suspected the sentiment would be welcomed by the Howard Government.

Judge Posner raised the prospect of secret trials as a “tailored regime” to prosecute terrorists in cases where there was a concern about classified information going public.

Queensland SC Glenn Martin said he had been “jolted” by the address: “I hope we never have secret trials in Australia.”

Judge Posner said the US was “a law-saturated society where even non-lawyers tend to think ofproblems in terms of legal categories”.

“Criminal justice and war are the two responses we have to terrorism. Each comes with its own legal institutions and doctrines and regimes but the struggle against international terrorism doesn’t fit either very well.”

He said it was “quite misplaced” to suggest national security measures in force or contemplated in the US could endanger liberty and undermine the political system. This was because governments could no longer conceal what they did: “We have a very aggressive media and a huge and complex government where many people in the government are quite willing to talk to the press.”

R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Justice Department said yesterday that it will not retract a sworn statement in 2006 by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that the Terrorist Surveillance Program had aroused no controversy inside the Bush administration, despite congressional testimony Tuesday that senior departmental officials nearly resigned in 2004 to protest such a program.

The department’s affirmation of Gonzales’s remarks raised fresh questions about the nature of the classified dispute, which former U.S. officials say led then-Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey and as many as eight colleagues to discuss resigning.

Testifying Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Comey declined to describe the program. He said it “was renewed on a regular basis” and required the attorney general’s signature.

He said a review by the Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel in spring 2004 had concluded the program was not legal.

Comey said he and the others were prepared to resign when the White House renewed the program after failing to get a certification of its legality — first from him and later from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, while Ashcroft was ill and heavily sedated at George Washington University Hospital.

Gonzales, testifying for the first time in February 2006 about the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which involved eavesdropping on phone calls between the United States and places overseas, told two congressional committees that the program had not provoked serious disagreement involving Comey or others.

“None of the reservations dealt with the program that we are talking about today,” Gonzales said then.

Four Democratic senators sent a letter to Gonzales yesterday asking, “do you stand by your 2006 Senate and House testimony, or do you wish to revise it,” prompting the Justice Department’s response.