Annals of the NSS*

*National Security State

The prevailing narrative, that the extraordinary powers that Bush has claimed and Cheney used were a response to the 9/11 events, has now been shown to be a complete fraud.

Massive illegal spying on Americans by the Bush administration started before 9/11 (illegal spying started long before that), as the Qwest/Nacchio case now establishes. The same players, wearing different hats, Hayden, McConnell, et. al., back in the sunny days of February 2001, asked for the big telecom companies to help them with their surveillance project. Only Qwest demurred, on the advise of council, and strangely enough the chief of Qwest was soon indicted for insider trading and sent up the river for six years.

Congress is now going to retroactively legalize the operations that AT&T, Verizon, etc. performed for the government, for a profit, naturally.

Meanwhile, the confirmation hearings of Mukasey for grand inquisitor AG start this week, without the documents that Sen. Leahy had demanded, before he wisely dropped his demands. Mukasey is an insider of the National Security State, he's been given the most delicate trials to handle and so preserve secrecy as our most cherished value; he is assured the same reverential treatment by the Senate as Hayden or McConnell.

The Qwest/Nacchio case will obviously go nowhere in the press, much less in Congress. Nacchio did wrong, AT&T did right and that's the truth, so help me God. The pleasant trappings of a Republic grow more and more farcical, but the chuckles take place outside the view of the cameras. Cheney's quest for personal power might be over (maybe not), but there will surely be others to follow in his path. It's the nature of the beast and the empire.