Posted by Andrew Zajac at 3:56 pm CST
You can tell when reporters and government officials are preoccupied. The follow-up questions at a press briefing have little to do with the subject of the briefing.
Take Friday’s Justice Department event called ostensibly to trumpet the bust of what Attorney General Alberto Gonzales termed a “Portland-based cell of animal rights and environmental extremists”.
Flash forward to the Q & A.
Gonzales took nine questions and only two had anything to do with the alleged eco-terrorists.
The rest pertained to the better-known, international style of terrorism, and to privacy, both very hot topics at the moment.
Gonzales is slated to testify to Congress soon about the legal rationale for the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, and he and other top Administration figures have waged a high profile campaign to win renewal of the Patriot Act.
Not surprisingly, the attorney general was pleased to field a query about whether the Patriot Act played any part in the eco-terrorism case.
“I’m glad you raised that,” Gonzales said.
He proceeded to riff on how it provides “the tools that we’ve utilized to make America safe”, followed by an even longer riff on how the Bush Administration’s security measures are always legal.
Still no word on whether the Patriot Act had anything to with rounding up eco-terrorists.
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