Did 30 at level 5 again today worked up a good sweat and feel pretty good.

I had the senate hearings on the NSA "Terror Surveillance Program" on most of the day yesterday. Sadly I only feel a little bit more informed as to what the justification is for the program. They referenced the AUMF and something called Section 109; which I believe is part of the U.S. Code. I have not had much time to look into what 109 is. I have read some on line analyses that refers to this position as being "thoroughly debunked" yet can not find this debunking.

It did seem that an elephant entered the room during the day though. At one point the AG was asked if any entirely domestic conversations had been monitored. The response was (paraphrasing) "Not as part of THIS program(emphasis mine)" That was not seized on immediately. By the end of the day though that seemed to be the thrust of most of the questioning. Basically what that response infers is that there could be other programs currently running that in fact are concerned with purely domestic communications. The AG refused to answer but I think that cat is now out of the bag.

My overall concern now though is just what authority does the current administration feel it is operating under? Not only that but what precedent is being set for future administrations. Specifically, does the AUMF give the executive branch authority to act as it sees fit as long as it is connected, in any way, to the "War on Terror"(interestingly the AG did state that we are not at "War"). If this is the case as the AG seemed to be saying yesterday what type of oversight is there for these programs. Does this oversight allow for the raising of objections, or the introduction of legislation to limit any transgressions? The AG raised the point that the "Gang of Eight" was briefed in detail on the workings of this program and if it truly infringed the rights of the citizenry then why has nothing been done. I am unsure about whether or not that is possible. I believe one senator who was briefed on this did in fact release a sealed letter that expressed concerns on the constitutionality of the program but will need to research that more. My question is this: If these briefings are as highly classified as it seems what avenues exist for the outing of grievances/objections to the program. What penalties would the whistle blower in this case be subject to? How much of the information could be made public, and it what way? Scary stuff.