There are also a lot of games being played in the background, with the western countries having spy rings inside Iran, and one of these spy rings detected the presence of another Iranian secret nuclear enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. This detection forced the Iranians to announce the presence of this nuclear facility in a letter to the IAEA, and there are complex legalities about whether having a secret facility like this was proper or not (Iran claimed that it only had to announce once it reached a certain stage of activity). This announcement however raised more suspicions about the motives of the Iranians, and whether there were more such facilities that were hidden in the country. The Western countries are also racing against another unstated deadline, possible Israeli activity. Israel sees Iran as a deadly enemy, and may act militarily to destroy the Iranian facilities, something that would dramatically escalate tensions. Other powers in the area, such as Saudi Arabia would also be uncomfortable if Iran went ahead and built a bomb (link to article):

ElBaradei urged Iran to submit to more comprehensive inspections because its nuclear program is so advanced. “It would help the agency to have Iran subscribing again to our regulations that allow us to be informed of the construction of nuclear facilities as early as possible,” he said. He also pressed Iran to give the IAEA “the authority for more information, for access to more locations that would enable the agency to provide assurances not only about declared nuclear activity in Iran but also about possible undeclared activities.”
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili met with William J. Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, a senior U.S. official and a diplomatic source confirmed to CNN. The men discussed Iran’s nuclear program, a sit-down described as the first face-to-face meeting between the U.S. and Iran over the program. International powers want inspectors to have free access to Iran’s new facility and have threatened more sanctions if the Islamic republic doesn’t change its ways.

In recent weeks, the administration and congressional Republicans pressed for the change in response to what it called a dangerous gap in surveillance capabilities. This was triggered by what news reports say was a ruling by a judge that the government had exceeded its authority in surveillance of communications overseas passing through electronic centers in the United States.

The legislation authorizes for six months the National Security Agency to intercept, without a court order, communications between people in the United States and foreign targets overseas. The Bush administration would have to demonstrate to a special court that a surveillance request only targeted individuals outside the United States. Under existing law called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the government must obtain court approval to conduct surveillance of suspected terrorists within the United States.

The biggest concern raised about this law is about whether this is an acceptable intrusion into the privacy of citizens in the US communicating with people abroad. How many people would appreciate that their liasions, their business deals, their intimate contact, etc, can all be easily listened to now without the need for a court approval, just depending on the concerned spy agency to ensure that their privacy is not being invaded.

The Senate approved the Bush administration’s plan to remove a legal obstacle to eavesdropping on overseas terror suspects, putting pressure on the U.S. House to accept it before leaving for an August recess. President George W. Bush demanded that Congress close an intelligence gap that he said was hobbling the capability of U.S. spy agencies to eavesdrop on terrorists.

A proposal by House Democrats to fix the problem failed today to obtain the two-thirds margin required after McConnell said it “would not allow me to carry out my responsibility to provide warning and to protect the nation.” The measure, like the Democratic alternative in the Senate, would have required a court order to authorize interceptions of e-mails and phone calls of foreign-based terrorists routed through U.S. telephone switching points. In the Senate-passed measure, the secret court that oversees surveillance would have a more limited role. The court would review the program to ensure it was adhering to guidelines drafted by the attorney general and the national intelligence director to ensure Americans’ privacy is protected.

In essence, the Republican version loosens a fair amount of the controls. Now, one knows that the threat is real, but it is never very clear whether the administration is going overboard in its attempts. This measure now goes to the House, but if it cleared the Senate, it is much more likely to pass the House. After all, it has been the Senate in the past that has done a lot of cross-questioning in the past, not the House. With this measure, one can only hope that the administration still respects the right to privacy.

The director, Robert Mueller III, told the House Judiciary Committee that the confrontation was about the National Security Agency’s counterterrorist eavesdropping program, describing it as “an NSA program that has been much discussed.” His testimony was a serious blow to Gonzales, who insisted at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that there were no disagreements inside the Bush administration about the program at the time of those discussions or at any other time.
In a separate development, Senate Democrats, who were unaware of Mueller’s comments, demanded the appointment of a special counsel to investigate whether Gonzales committed perjury in his testimony on Tuesday about the intelligence dispute. The Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, issued a subpoena to Karl Rove, the White House senior political adviser, and another presidential aide, J. Scott Jennings, for testimony about the dismissal of U.S. prosecutors, another issue that has dogged Gonzales.

It is almost universally acknowledged that after the repeated battering that Gonzales has had at the hands of Congress and the image of a Justice Department not totally in control of things, he would be on the way out. However, it would appear that President Bush is keeping him out of loyalty, otherwise for a man causing such serious image issues to the White House, his days would seem to be numbered.