: re: Ex-Department of Justice Lawyer Faces Penalties in Leak of N.S.A. Program

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 6:41 PM
Subject: re: Ex-Department of Justice Lawyer Faces Penalties in Leak of N.S.A. Program
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

     The excesses of the Nixon White House provoked the Church Commission to lay bare a pattern of Executive infringements on the civil rights of Americans. The FISA statute of 1978 (as amended in '79) codified the privacy rights that could only be infringed by order of a court so that that should never happen again. In extremis, that could even be a post-facto warrant by the secret FISC.  What Thomas Tamm is accused of revealing is a pattern of criminal activity directed by the Attorney General of the United States (at least) in direct violation of this criminal statute. That revelation was then squelched by the White House for over a year, to be published only after the presidential election cycle.

    What we need Attorney General Loretta Lynch to prosecute are the warrantless wiretaps against American citizens and the cover-up of those crimes. Thomas Tamm is a whistle-blower to grave crimes. He deserves protection and plaudits.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/us/politics/ex-department-of-justice-lawyer-faces-penalties-in-leak-of-nsa-program.html