Bush says domestic surveillance a ‘vital tool’

[ahsingjai]

Bush says domestic surveillance a ‘vital tool’
President lashes out at officials who revealed secret program
The Associated Press
Updated: 12:57 a.m. ET Dec. 18, 2005

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday he personally has authorized a secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks and he lashed out at those involved in publicly revealing the program.

"This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security," he said in a radio address delivered live from the White House's Roosevelt Room.

"This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power, under our laws and Constitution, to protect them and their civil liberties and that is exactly what I will continue to do as long as I am president of the United States," Bush said.

Angry members of Congress have demanded an explanation of the program, first revealed in Friday's New York Times and whether the monitoring by the National Security Agency violates civil liberties.

Program constitutional, Bush says
Bush said the program was narrowly designed and used "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution." He said it is used only to intercept the international communications of people inside the United States who have been determined to have "a clear link" to al-Qaida or related terrorist organizations.

The program is reviewed every 45 days, using fresh threat assessments, legal reviews by the Justice Department, White House counsel and others, and information from previous activities under the program, the president said.

Without identifying specific lawmakers, Bush said congressional leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times on the program's activities.

The president also said the intelligence officials involved in the monitoring receive extensive training to make sure civil liberties are not violated.

Adamant in his defense
Appearing angry at points during his eight-minute address, Bush said he had reauthorized the program more than 30 times since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and plans to continue doing so.

"I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaida and related groups," he said.

The president contended the program has helped "detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the U.S. and abroad," but did not provide specific examples.

He said it is designed in part to fix problems raised by the Sept. 11 commission, which found that two of the suicide hijackers were communicating from San Diego with al-Qaida operatives overseas.

"The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time," he said.

Bush's remarks echoed — in many cases word-for-word — those issued Friday night by a senior intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity. His highly unusual discussion of classified activities showed the sensitive nature of the program, whose existence was revealed as Congress was trying to renew the terrorism-fighting Patriot Act and complicated that effort, a top priority of Bush's.

Senate Democrats joined with a handful of Republicans on Friday to stall the bill. Those opposing the renewal of key provisions of the act that are expiring say they threaten constitutional liberties.

Critics call Bush’s justification ‘absurd’
Reacting to Bush's defense of the NSA program, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said the president's remarks were "breathtaking in how extreme they were."

Feingold said it was "absurd" that Bush said he relied on his inherent power as president to authorize the wiretaps.

"If that's true, he doesn't need the Patriot Act because he can just make it up as he goes along. I tell you, he's President George Bush, not King George Bush. This is not the system of government we have and that we fought for," Feingold told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The president had harsh words for those who talked about the program to the media, saying their actions were illegal and improper.

"As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have," he said. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10505574/

[Chu Chi]

Im old enough to remember President Nixon getting busted for doing this.

As a consequence, mechanisms were installed to prevent it from occuring again (FISA)

My question is this:


If this behavior is fully within the scope of executive power, why try to hide it?


CC

[Faithless]

If this behavior is fully within the scope of executive power, why try to hide it?


CC
That is a good point.

But is this enough to impeach Bush, finally?

[Arex]

Bush himself is a tool. He needs to first explain why he couldn't get wiretaps under FISA before he can spout off about how successful his snooping has been. Idiot.

[Faithless]

Bush himself is a tool. He needs to first explain why he couldn't get wiretaps under FISA before he can spout off about how successful his snooping has been. Idiot.
And he's probably wiretapping --

Hillary and Bill. :frown:

[kpih]

Yeah this is what freedom is all about...

Bush said the program was narrowly designed and used "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution."

I guess civil liberties are also narrowly defined...

[Faithless]

Are there any conspiracy theorists out there that think that the nomination of Harriet Miers had something to do with helping to protect Bush's interests in this area?

It's also funny how he goes from saying in 2004 before the election that he's all against wiretapping to this in 2005. What a difference a year makes.

Why the heck did that one judge resign? Why didn't he stick around and fight the abuse?

[snailpoo]

My question is this:


If this behavior is fully within the scope of executive power, why try to hide it?


He didn't.

Without identifying specific lawmakers, Bush said congressional leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times on the program's activities.

"Congressional leaders" meaning the Senate Select Committe on Intelligence with both Democrats and Republicans.

[kpih]

Speechless. Less for them to pick up on me...

The New York Times
December 24, 2005
Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic "switches," according to officials familiar with the matter.

"There was a lot of discussion about the switches" in conversations with the court, a Justice Department official said, referring to the gateways through which much of the communications traffic flows. "You're talking about access to such a vast amount of communications, and the question was, How do you minimize something that's on a switch that's carrying such large volumes of traffic? The court was very, very concerned about that."

Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda.

What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation.

The current and former government officials who discussed the program were granted anonymity because it remains classified.

Bush administration officials declined to comment on Friday on the technical aspects of the operation and the N.S.A.'s use of broad searches to look for clues on terrorists. Because the program is highly classified, many details of how the N.S.A. is conducting it remain unknown, and members of Congress who have pressed for a full Congressional inquiry say they are eager to learn more about the program's operational details, as well as its legality.

Officials in the government and the telecommunications industry who have knowledge of parts of the program say the N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.

This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.

The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system, developed by the Pentagon for tracking terror suspects, and the Department of Homeland Security's Capps program for screening airline passengers. Both programs were ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.

But the Bush administration regards the N.S.A.'s ability to trace and analyze large volumes of data as critical to its expanded mission to detect terrorist plots before they can be carried out, officials familiar with the program say. Administration officials maintain that the system set up by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not give them the speed and flexibility to respond fully to terrorist threats at home.

A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.

"All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active involvement in that area," said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets.

Such information often proves just as valuable to the government as eavesdropping on the calls themselves, the former manager said.

"If they get content, that's useful to them too, but the real plum is going to be the transaction data and the traffic analysis," he said. "Massive amounts of traffic analysis information - who is calling whom, who is in Osama Bin Laden's circle of family and friends - is used to identify lines of communication that are then given closer scrutiny."

Several officials said that after President Bush's order authorizing the N.S.A. program, senior government officials arranged with officials of some of the nation's largest telecommunications companies to gain access to switches that act as gateways at the borders between the United States' communications networks and international networks. The identities of the corporations involved could not be determined.

The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many international-to-international calls are also routed through such American switches.

One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.

The growth of that transit traffic had become a major issue for the intelligence community, officials say, because it had not been fully addressed by 1970's-era laws and regulations governing the N.S.A. Now that foreign calls were being routed through switches on American soil, some judges and law enforcement officials regarded eavesdropping on those calls as a possible violation of those decades-old restrictions, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for domestic surveillance.

Historically, the American intelligence community has had close relationships with many communications and computer firms and related technical industries. But the N.S.A.'s backdoor access to major telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency's operational capability, according to current and former government officials.

Phil Karn, a computer engineer and technology expert at a major West Coast telecommunications company, said access to such switches would be significant. "If the government is gaining access to the switches like this, what you're really talking about is the capability of an enormous vacuum operation to sweep up data," he said.

[haplesshobo]

This could have been an interesting debate about what civil limitations are acceptable in a time of war. After all, we have previously accepted limitations on certain domestic civil liberties in exchange for homeland security in times of war. Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR all were willing to do that and later lifted those limitations once the war had ended.

Unfortunately, in today's polarized world, such debate has fallen to the wayside in favor of partianship sniping. I would argue that part of the appeal of the story is that it serves as another chance to criticize the Bush administration, and not necessairly about the true merits of the programs. After all, was everybody here similary outraged when the Clinton adminstration pushed through Echelon, a similar data mining program, through the NSA.

[Martino]

After all, was everybody here similary outraged when the Clinton adminstration pushed through Echelon, a similar data mining program, through the NSA.

This board didn't exist back then.

[Faithless]

This board didn't exist back then.
Well, maybe not outraged on the board, as much as, outraged when they heard the news.

I think if one is to be consistent, then one would have to say the Clinton era program was as nasty as the Bush one.

[haplesshobo]

This board didn't exist back then.

Okay, then we'll use a more recent example, when the board did exist.

Everybody was pretty upset when somebody in the administration leaked Valerie Plame's idendity to the media, as it compromised american interests. And, they wanted a full blown investigation to get to the bottom of this, to find and punish whoever did that.

Now, is everybody also upset that somebody also leaked such information to the media, also compromising american interests. Should we also start an investigation to find out who did this, and then punish that person.

[Martino]

Okay, then we'll use a more recent example, when the board did exist.

Everybody was pretty upset when somebody in the administration leaked Valerie Plame's idendity to the media, as it compromised american interests. And, they wanted a full blown investigation to get to the bottom of this, to find and punish whoever did that.

Now, is everybody also upset that somebody also leaked such information to the media, also compromising american interests. Should we also start an investigation to find out who did this, and then punish that person.

There's been lots of threads about each stage of the CIA leak investigation. Could you post links to those specfic threads where people here were upset?

[haplesshobo]

Turns out that the board wasn't around when it was first leaked. But, there have been several threads since then. In them, some people wanted whoever leaked the name to get punished, and sent to prision so the leaker would get anally raped.

I'm just asking if everybody here also feels that whoever leaked this sensitive material should also be found, and prosecuted. If not, what's the difference between leaking information in one case and the other case.

[Martino]

Turns out that the board wasn't around when it was first leaked. But, there have been several threads since then. In them, some people wanted whoever leaked the name to get punished, and sent to prision so the leaker would get anally raped.

I see. No links.

I'm just asking if everybody here also feels that whoever leaked this sensitive material should also be found, and prosecuted. If not, what's the difference between leaking information in one case and the other case.

Well, one is the case of the White House allegedly leaking information to discredit a critic, whilst the other is the revelation that the NSA has been conducting surveillance in the US without warrants. Which revelation do you think was in the public interest?

[Faithless]

Check out the video on the web page:

http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/01/new_dnc_web_vid.php

Posted by Tim Tagaris on January 5, 2006 at 04:57 PM

On April 20, 2004, President Bush said, "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

Talk about needing information and needing it "now!".

Wiretap scandal growing broader and hotter (http://www.rockrivertimes.com/index.pl?cmd=viewstory&cat=2&id=12145)

By Joe Baker, Senior Editor | From the Jan. 4-10, 2006, issue

The latest revelation about the George W. Bush administration’s secret wiretap operation is that not only did the National Security Agency (NSA) spy on other Americans, it also spied on its own staff and staff members of other intelligence agencies. That includes the CIA, the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and their media contacts, Congress, oversight agencies and offices, according to investigative reporter Wayne Madsen.

Surveillance of journalists was done under a program code named “Firstfruits.” It was part of a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) program that operated at least until the fall of 2004. George Tenet resigned as CIA head in June 2004, and Porter Goss succeeded him.

The journalist eavesdropping operation was authorized as part of a “Countering Denial and Deception” program, answerable to the Foreign Denial and Deception Committee, according to Madsen. Since U.S. intelligence operations were reorganized, the DCI has been replaced by the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte and his deputy, former NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden.

Madsen reported Firstfruits was a database that held articles and transcripts of telephone and other communications by certain Washington journalists who were regular chroniclers of U.S. intelligence doings, especially those involving the NSA. Madsen said he was one of those targeted because he has written many articles about the NSA.

NSA sources told Madsen that starting in 2001 before the attacks on New York and Washington, the NSA began to target anyone in the intelligence community who they considered disgruntled employees.

Madsen said the surveillance of intelligence agency personnel by other U.S. intelligence personnel was done without any warrants whatsoever. Indeed, there was not even an appearance before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

There has been little mention in the national media of the Bush administration’s use of the NSA to spy on U.N. diplomats in New York before the invasion of Iraq. The purpose was to gain some leverage to get a resolution from the world body authorizing the use of military force against Saddam Hussein, according to Madsen.

Britain’s The Observer reported March 2, 2003, that the U.S. government had developed an “aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the e-mails of U.N. delegates.” The paper continued: “The leaked memorandum makes clear that the targets of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the U.N. headquarters in New York.” The memorandum was written by a top official of the NSA.

Sources within that agency said the spying on personnel of other intelligence agencies was a direct violation of the United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

Reuters reports that requests to a special court to authorize secret surveillance rose substantially after Sept. 11, 2001, and the court required changes in those requests at an even faster rate, according to government documents.

Federal records on the activities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court show the Bush administration made 5,645 applications for wiretaps or other electronic eavesdropping and physical searches through 2004, the most recent figures available. In the four years before, the court received only 3,436 requests.

A new version of the USSID was issued in July 1993 after disclosures were made in the 1970s that President Richard M. Nixon had been using secret wiretaps against anti-war and other political activists.

The new version recognizes the Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court has held that electronic eavesdropping constitutes a search and seizure of information. The directive also states that “intelligence operation and the protection of constitutional rights are not incompatible. It is not necessary to deny legitimate foreign intelligence collection or to suppress legitimate foreign intelligence information to protect the Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. persons.”

An intelligence directive issued in 1980 stated: “The Director, NSA, will consider requests to collect the communications of U.S. persons, or communications that refer to U.S. persons, only if one of the following criteria is satisfied” [the U.S. person has given consent and has executed the consent form or: the U.S. person is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. The purpose of collection must be the acquisition of foreign intelligence, and it also is necessary the information is not obtainable by less intrusive methods.]

The 1980 policy required the intelligence agency to get approval of the Attorney General before proceeding with intelligence collection. The directive provided for an emergency situation where: “The time required to secure Attorney General approval would cause failure or delay in obtaining significant foreign intelligence or counterintelligence and such failure or delay would result in substantial harm to the national security.” A second condition is when a person’s life or physical safety is believed to be in immediate danger or the security of a federal defense installation or U.S. property is believed to be in immediate danger.

The document goes on to say that “Except as approved under this [directive] and its annexes, no collection may be directed that brings about the intentional interception and recording of communications solely between U.S. persons.”

President Bush said he has authorized covert wiretaps of American citizens more than 30 times since 9/11 and would continue to do that. He said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was meant for “long-term monitoring” and that after the terrorist attacks, the government needed to move “faster and quicker” to protect and defend America.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the administration will be going to court to get orders under the act, but, like Bush, he said eavesdroppers sometimes needed to act faster.

Neither Bush nor any member of his administration mentioned that current federal law allows the government to act promptly, and then go before the special court within 72 hours afterward to legalize the operation.

Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ran a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for a special prosecutor to be appointed to determine if the president broke federal wiretap laws by authorizing illegal eavesdropping.

The ad declared Bush’s actions were a clear violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said: “President Nixon was not above the law and neither is President Bush. President Bush cannot use a claim of seeking to preserve our nation to undermine the rules that serve as our foundation. The Attorney General, who may have been involved with the formulation of this policy, must appoint a special counsel to let justice be served.”

[Faithless]

A bit of irony on Bush or underhandedness? It could have been that Bush's clan said what it said against Dewine because it didn't want its shit uncovered.

A Justice Department official confirmed Wednesday that the administration opposed changing the law in 2002 in part because it did not want to publicly debate the issue.

White House once opposed easier access to wiretaps (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/13715802.htm)

Posted on Thu, Jan. 26, 2006 | Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON - Four years ago, top Bush administration attorneys told Congress they opposed lowering the legal standard for intercepting the phone calls of foreigners who were in the United States, even while the administration secretly adopted a lower standard.

The government's public position then was the opposite of its rationale today in defending its warrantless domestic-spying program.

A Justice Department official confirmed Wednesday that the administration opposed changing the law in 2002 in part because it did not want to publicly debate the issue.

In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, proposed making it easier for officials to obtain warrants to conduct wiretapping. The law says officials must have ``probable cause'' to believe someone was an agent of an international terrorist group. DeWine proposed lowering the standard to one of ``reasonable suspicion.''

[Faithless]

AP) ABA President Urges Bush to Obey Spy Laws

www/townhall.com/news/ap/online/headlines/D8FMJ4F88.html

Feb 11 2006 | By ANNA JOHNSON | Associated Press Writer | CHICAGO

The president of the nation's largest lawyers group said Friday that President Bush should comply with federal law when conducting electronic surveillance of Americans and refrain from scaring people into giving up their civil liberties in the fight against terrorism.

"Times of conflict have often put stress on America's liberties. It's a time when we get frightened and are tempted to take shortcuts with the Constitution," American Bar Association President Michael Greco said. "But I personally reject the false choice that is being offered Americans that they must give up their liberties to have security."

Greco, who spoke at the ABA's midyear meeting in Chicago, also released a proposal recommending that the association oppose further electronic surveillance in the U.S. for foreign intelligence purposes that does not comply with the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. If the ABA's policy-making body approves it in a vote set for Monday, the proposal will become official policy of the 400,000-member group.

The proposal was recommended by an ABA task force that examined whether Bush was authorized to give the National Security Agency the power to eavesdrop on the international communications of Americans with suspected ties to terrorists without first obtaining warrants from a secretive court set up under FISA.

"We're calling on the president ... to explain to Congress what this program is about so Congress can exercise its constitutional duty of checking to make sure that the president's powers are being executed within the framework of the Constitution," Greco said.

The warrantless eavesdropping program has prompted a heated debate about presidential powers in the war on terror since it was first disclosed in December.

Bush on Friday continued his defense of the program, saying he concluded that it was needed to fill a gap in U.S security and that lawyers in the White House and at the Justice Department signed off on its legality.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insisted earlier this week during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that Bush was fully empowered to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants as part of the country's war on terror. He cautioned Congress not to end or alter the program.

But committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., suggested the program's legality be reviewed by a special federal court set up under FISA. Committee Democrats also have generally contended that Bush acted illegally in permitting the domestic surveillance.

[Yeahman]

Domestic surveillance IS a vital tool but why not get that warrant? I don't think that's too much to ask.

[Faithless]

Heather Wilson (http://wilson.house.gov/NewsAction.asp?FormMode=Releases&ID=1175), GoP Congresswoman from New Mexico, is one of a growing list of republicans that are criticizing Bush over wiretapping.

Breaking Ranks (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1158945,00.html)

By MASSIMO CALABRESI | Posted Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006

President Bush may wave away Democratic critics of domestic eavesdropping, but one challenger is proving harder to dismiss: Heather Wilson, a plainspoken Air Force veteran from New Mexico and four-term G.O.P. Congresswoman little known outside of national-security circles. As chair of the House subcommittee that authorizes technical intelligence, she has waged a behind-the-scenes battle for access to information about the controversial surveillance program since word of it leaked in December. She won a significant victory last week. After she called for a full investigation of the spying, the White House ended 54 days of stonewalling and briefed the full House Intelligence Committee.

Two days later, at the House G.O.P. retreat on Maryland's Eastern Shore, after Bush told lawmakers that he had resisted briefing them to keep more program details from getting leaked, Wilson retorted that the original leak appeared to have come from his Administration and that Congress has a right and a duty to exercise oversight. "The men who wrote the Constitution feared most a strong Executive with control of a standing army," Wilson tells TIME. "Our Constitution is set up to protect all of us from tyranny."

Wilson served with Condoleezza Rice on George H.W. Bush's National Security Council and plans to rewrite the cold war-era law controlling domestic eavesdropping in collaboration with House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, who showed his willingness to oversee the Executive Branch last week by sending 51 questions about the program to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "The law was written in 1978, pre-cell phone, pre-Internet," Wilson says. "We need to do some updating."

The issue could make Wilson the political canary in the '06 coal mine. Up for re-election--in a dead heat with New Mexico's attorney general--Wilson has received more than 500 letters about the controversial program. Last week she started getting ones thanking her for taking on Bush.

[VV o n g B a]

it just keeps getting better and better.

Whistleblower says NSA violations bigger

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights.

Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.

Tice said he believes it violates the Constitution's protection against unlawful search and seizures but has no way of sharing the information without breaking classification laws. He is not even allowed to tell the congressional intelligence committees - members or their staff - because they lack high enough clearance.

Neither could he brief the inspector general of the NSA because that office is not cleared to hear the information, he said.

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said they believe a few members of the Armed Services Committee are cleared for the information, but they said believe their committee and the intelligence committees have jurisdiction to hear the allegations.

"Congressman Kucinich wants Congressman Shays to hold a hearing (on the program)," said Doug Gordon, Kucinich's spokesman. "Obviously it would have to take place in some kind of a closed hearing. But Congress has a role to play in oversight. The (Bush) administration does not get to decide what Congress can and can not hear."

Tice was testifying because he was a National Security Agency intelligence officer who was stripped of his security clearance after he reported his suspicions that a former colleague at the Defense Intelligence Agency was a spy. The matter was dismissed by the DIA, but Tice pressed it later and was subsequently ordered to take a psychological examination, during which he was declared paranoid. He is now unemployed.

Tice was one of the New York Times sources for its wiretapping story, but he told the committee the information he provided was not secret and could have been provided by an private sector electronic communications professional.

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060214-053955-9494r

and better still.
325,000 Names on Terrorism List
Rights Groups Say Database May Include Innocent People

By Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 15, 2006; Page A01

The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.

The list kept by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) -- created in 2004 to be the primary U.S. terrorism intelligence agency -- contains a far greater number of international terrorism suspects and associated names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed. Because the same person may appear under different spellings or aliases, the true number of people is estimated to be more than 200,000, according to NCTC officials.

full story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021402125.html
if there's 200k terrorists out there, we've got some major problems. like for real.

[Faithless]

Something to keep watch of with this whole rotten issue of the NSA wiretapping: Whistleblower Protection.

The H.R. and the Senate are winding their legislation through, supposedly, to protect federal whisteblowers.

HR-5112, sponsored by republican Tom Davis:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.05112:

S-494, sponsored by democrat Daniel Akaka:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s494:

According to whistleblower.org:

http://www.whistleblower.org/content/press_detail.cfm?press_id=446

“The CIA has been vocal about its leak investigation because their efforts are designed to make employees think twice before coming forward to challenge agency conduct. This is exactly why stalled legislative proposals to strengthen whistleblower protections for federal employees must be passed,” commented GAP Legal Director Tom Devine.

Pending legislation in the House and Senate, H.R. 5112 and S. 494 respectively, would allow for legally-safe, classified whistleblowing disclosures to Congress. “This is the responsible alternative to the Catch-22 facing national security employees,” added Devine. “These employees currently have to decide between leaking information publicly at great risk to their career or submitting to a cover-up of government illegality.”

From an old press release from Senator Akaka:

http://akaka.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Home&month=3&year=2005&release_id=206

"Providing meaningful protection to whistleblowers fosters an environment that promotes the disclosure of government wrongdoing and mismanagement that may adversely affect the American public," Senator Akaka said. "If federal employees fear reprisal for blowing the whistle, we fail to protect the whistleblower, taxpayers, and, in recent notable instances, national security and our public health. A free society should not fear the truth."

Senator Collins added, "Congress has consistently supported the principle that federal employees should not be subject to prior restraint or punishment from disclosing wrongdoing. This should give federal workers the peace of mind that if they speak out, they will be protected. Full whistleblower protections will also help ensure that Congress and our Committee have access to the information necessary to conduct proper oversight."

[VV o n g B a]

bush gets bitchslapped on wiretapping.

------------------
Federal Judge Orders End to Warrantless Wiretapping

By DAVID STOUT (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/david_stout/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 — A federal judge in Detroit ruled today that the Bush administration’s eavesdropping program is illegal and unconstitutional, and she ordered that it cease at once.

District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor found that President Bush exceeded his proper authority and that the eavesdropping without warrants violated the First and Fourth Amendment protections of free speech and privacy.

“It was never the intent of the Framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights,” she wrote, in a decision that the White House and Justice Department said they would fight to overturn. A hearing will be held before Judge Taylor on Sept. 7, and her decision will not be enforced in the meantime pending the government’s appeal.
The judge’s ruling is the latest chapter in the continuing debate over the proper balance between national security and personal liberty since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which inspired the eavesdropping program and other surveillance measures that the administration says are necessary and constitutional and its critics say are intrusive.

In becoming the first federal judge to declare the eavesdropping program unconstitutional, Judge Taylor rejected the administration’s assertion that to defend itself against a lawsuit would force it to divulge information that should be kept secret in the name of national security.

“Predictably, the war on terror of this administration has produced a vast number of cases, in which the states secrets privilege has been invoked,” Judge Taylor wrote. She noted that the Supreme Court has held that because the president’s power to withhold secrets is so powerful, “it is not to be lightly invoked.” She also cited a finding in an earlier case by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that “whenever possible, sensitive information must be disentangled from nonsensitive information to allow for the release of the latter.”

In any event, she said, she is convinced that the administration could defend itself in this case without disclosing state secrets. Judge Taylor’s ruling came in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_civil_liberties_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org) on behalf of journalists, scholars, lawyers and various nonprofit organizations who argued that the possibility of eavesdropping by the National Security Agency (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_security_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org) interfered with their work.

Although she ordered an immediate halt to the eavesdropping program, no one who has followed the controversy expects the litigation to end quickly. The White House issued a statement saying “we couldn’t disagree more” with Judge Taylor’s decision and crediting the surveillance program with saving American lives.


(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/washington/17cnd-nsa.html?hp&ex=1155873600&en=a6f8950517248da0&ei=5094&partner=homepage)

[hooligan]

own'd.

[bluemonq]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v114/bluemonq/aa489b14.jpg

[VV o n g B a]

wow. i'm sure the dems must be proud of their continued ability to suck the president's cock on every meaningful issue while protesting that they don't want to.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/washington/09nsa.html

[VV o n g B a]

why the did the nation vote for dems again? certainly not b/c they have any backbone. i don't expect much (anything at all) from bush. but ffs why did they vote for this travesty? how can ppl who were voted into office to counter bush fail so much?

bush wants surge. dems get voted in to stop him. they can't stop sucking his fat cock. FAIL
bush wants to deny habeus corpus. dems swallow it down. FAIL
bush wants immunity for telecom law violations. u get the picture. FAIL

why do we even have a congress? lets make bush emperor for life!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021300959.html?hpid=topnews

[zero]

Consider this:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Upitty Yellow + Wanna be respectable & high achieving white trash + webcam + videotaped home invasion =

1) killing rampage
2) flee from America
3) bomb white people's home
4) set fire to Asian people's home
5) declare war
6) put white people in mental asylum/jail/electrocute
7) fairy tale romance


What do you think is the answer after ="

[Wuwei]

This is pretty terrible, but is anyone really surprised?

The U.S. is hardly a democracy anymore.

[snailpoo]

Consider this:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Upitty Yellow + Wanna be respectable & high achieving white trash + webcam + videotaped home invasion =

1) killing rampage
2) flee from America
3) bomb white people's home
4) set fire to Asian people's home
5) declare war
6) put white people in mental asylum/jail/electrocute
7) fairy tale romance


What do you think is the answer after ="

What? Why isn't there an option for alien vagina motherships?

[Sunflare]

I'm scared shit to comment, I might be under surveillance by the NSA.

[VV o n g B a]

democrats display their utter cowardice. the house has passed the telecom immunity bill. it was passed by the senate quite awhile ago.

i gotta say i'm really really disappointed. so apparently congress doesn't give two shits about whether anything bush asked the telecoms to do was illegal. once bush signs this bill, all lawsuits against them disappear no matter what they've done. to be honest, i see little reason at all to vote dem in the congressional elections when they prove they're such cowards on every single security issue bush pushes them on. it's disgusting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062000986.html

[VV o n g B a]

more info here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/20/bipartisanship/

what a fucking joke. pelosi is calling it a bipartisan compromise that brings control of wiretapping and such back to congress when really the justice department refuses to admit any such congressional ability w/ this bill. they've just gutted the 4th amendment.

thank god the supreme court still believes in habeus. 5 to 4 anyways.

edit: argh, bastard. my representative voted for this but he's not running for office again. he had no reason to support this legislation except for the fact that he believed in it.

[VV o n g B a]

and so it goes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10fisa.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

unless the courts strike this down, everyone should have no expectation of privacy when emailing or phoning anyone outside the US. how they even clearly determine that email recipients are outside the US when using webmail is a question to me. and how wonderful is it that clinton ends up voting against this bill now that she's got no reason to pander?

more coverage:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/09/fisa/index.html
http://lessig.org/blog/2008/07/selfswiftboating.html

i don't understand why dems would hand repubs and bush a victory like this. and as for barack? i now associate his name with words like craven, sellout, panderer, and liar. how barack can reconcile saying he'd filibuster anything with immunity to now aiding its passage is far beyond my puny mental abilities.