“The National Security Agency acted on its own authority, without a formal directive from President Bush, to expand its domestic surveillance operations in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks,” The New York Times reported. And contrary to White House claims that Congress had signed off on expanded eavesdropping, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote a letter to the head of NSA on Oct. 11, 2001, questioning the programs legality.
What’s more, James B. Comey, the No. 2 man in the Justice Department, refused in 2004 to approve the continuation of the eavesdropping program, forcing White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and then-chief counsel Alberto Gonzales to lobby former Attorney General John Ashcroft while he was in the hospital, The Times reported last weekend.
And as we noted in our editorial Wednesday, President Bush was unconvincing in defending the program Sunday and in trying to explain away his 2004 statement that “a wiretap requires a court order.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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23 Comments
More lying from the Liar-in-Chief, what do you expect?
Remember when Bush said, “this would be a lot easier if this was a dictatorship and I were the dictator”?
What was thought to be a joke now turns out to be W. expressing his unguarded wish.
A wish he is making reality.
Remember this is the group who create realities. Unlike you reality-bound citizens.
You leftists kill me! You drone on about the traitor Bush but ignore that fact that there is no difference between him and either of the Clintons that you fools worship!
“Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all.” [Nikita Khrushchev , February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party]
“All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all.” [Vladimir Lenin, as quoted in Not by Politics Alone]
“We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.” [Hillary Clinton, 1993]
“We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans …” [President Bill Clinton, 'USA Today' March 11, 1993: Page 2A]
How deep does it go? How can people still support this man when he’s taking their liberties right out from under their noses?
As a side note, pancreatitis is one of the most painful diseases there is. Ashcroft was probably under the influence of a very powerful narcotics to combat the pain, a usual treatment for the disease.
What does that tell you about, one, Ashcrofts ability to understand what the president and his staff was presenting to him, and two, the presidents willingness to subject to, and his reliance on, Ashcroft’s ability to answer in a compentant manner.
Ya, I want someone on narcotics to sign illegal documents. The fact that Ashcroft may have had no idea what was going on tells me alot about Bush’s ability to run a country.
I have mixed feelings on this issue. On one hand, I do not want to see our rights and freedoms abridged.
On the other, intercepting overseas phone messages from al qaeda associates in this country does not bother me in the least. I don’t give a rip if they have been able to fraudulently become American citizens. I hate the idea of the cowards being able to hide behind the protections that this country affords while they try to destroy it. This is a new paradigm that requires new thinking.
I understand the seperation of powers argument and I honestly don’t know whether the president actually has the power he claims. (admit it, neither do you) But the acts themselves do not cause me concern, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.
Ditto Outlander.But I am concerned about treason – the leaking of secret information that logically impedes our ability to protect ourselves. I can’t say I know if it was legal, but if an error, it was on the side of protecting US.Too bad we will never know how much good it did, since that, too, is secret. The anti Bush leaker won’t leak that part.
Was Deep Throat guilty of treason when he snitched out Nixon, or was he a whistleblower? Is the person or persons who leaked the secret spying information a traitor, or concerned American? When you see the law broken, do you have a duty to expose it? Sure, it sounds noble on the face of it. Our President was only seeking to protect us. And what right-thinking American would protest spying on AQ and their sympathizers? But illegal spying always leads to abuse, always. That’s why the issue was addressed in the first place. And as the facts come out, it looks like this was more than just a little bit of spying, as the administration contends. The news today reports that the NSA may have spied on a CNN journalist. Was she an AQ contact, or a critic of the Bush administration?
As I said, this kind of thing always leads to abuse.
Outlander-Codie:
I would think that simply getting a call from a known Al-Qaeda operative would be grounds for a LEGAL wiretap if not arrest and questioning.
What’s the problem? The problem is that BushCo./NSA are obviously NOT just confining themselves to terrorist suspects. If they were, they could just get quick and easy warrants.
They are spying on people whom they CAN’T get warrants for.
Hmmm . . . now why would they do that?
Ian,Can you provide links for any of those comments? Sometimes people cherry-pick a line out of a speech because it sounds good, but it means something else if you put the whole thing up there with it.Bush is trampling on our civil rights. He is selling fear to justify it. He will keep chipping away. Terrorists hate us for our freedom. George is doing his best to appease the terrorists by selling fear. He is cutting into our rights with illegal wiretaps. The terrorists are winning. Bush will turn us into a police state if we let him. I don’t need Bush to protect me from terrorists. I need somebody to protect me from him.
Brown: Relax. Take a deep breath. The President is not coming for you.
Do you really think that President Bush sits around thinking about ways he can trample civil rights? Or is he consumed doing what he thinks necessary to protect our country? He may be pushing the envelope a bit, but the way the left is trying to paint this is ridiculous and it ain’t gonna fly.
Outlander–why don’t you respond to my post this time?
“I understand the seperation of powers argument and I honestly don’t know whether the president actually has the power he claims. (admit it, neither do you)”
Wrong, Outlander. The claim that the Use of Force Resolution authorized it was an outright lie. Absent specific statutory authorization, it was in violation of the law.
The only argument that can still be made is the “inherent presidential powers,” a dangerous argument that can be used any time the President wants to ignore a inconvenient law.
There have also been numerous reports of “data mining”–sweeping up huge amounts of civilian communications to search for tell-tale signs. None of which was authorized by law.
I am nonetheless glad that you have mixed feelings. It’s a start.
If Bush couldn’t tell Congress or FISA judges he was spying on these people why?
Was it because he was spying on Kerry during the presidential election?
How would you know?
The call switches that are being monitored aren’t just for international calls. Those switches convey calls from one coast to the other as well as from Europe to Asia. How can they prevent domestic calls from being picked up.
Finally, The president admitted to using this illegal wiretapping thousands of times.
If that’s true, than does that mean there are thousands of Al-queda members living in the US?
When Bin Laden first appeared on the U.S. Government’s radar. He was using phones that they could trace and listen in on. The terrorists were fairly ignorant of Technology, but soon learned of the spying and have since became smarter to the use of computers, the internet and cell phones. Though they may use open phones and e-mail, they will certainly be aware of the ability of the Government to intercept such communications. Even to the point that they would not use a signal such as was said in another topic,” I am ready for my twelve virgins” .
The point being that the terrorists have learned to be more secretive, unless it would be a case were information would have to be passed in a hurry. The likelihood that keywords or statements that would be singular to a terrorist would be noticed. They understand us more then we understand them, so would not use words that could tip us off. Thus making it harder to find or detect them, so this has become a fishing expedition.
This on top of the use of illegal spying within the United States, makes it not a matter of National security but an abuse of power by the President. Since it could not be reasonably expect to catch many terrorists, but could be a police state atmosphere. Still not thinking that the PNAC is involved?
PL: Sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore your post.
It seems that you are doing a lot of speculating as to motives etc… That’s fine, but don’t expect me to go along with it.
Although I don’t like to speculate, here is my own:
Suppose they know there are calls from a known AQ member coming in. They don’t know when and the spy on this end is smart enough not to use the same number etc… How are you going to get a court order for intercepting the call when you don’t know where it is going to or when?
Your final question was: ” Hmmm . . . now why would they do that?”
I dunno. Maybe to try and protect your sorry butt?
Sum1: Remember the Kerry- Bush debates? That little box that Bush had underneath his suit coat was probably part of the equipment!
Outlander–do your homework. They solved that problem decades ago with the “roving wiretap” legislation. It was intended for drug lords who did exactly what you’re talking about–switching phones.
The fact is this–any real evidence of Al Qaeda involvement, no matter how tangential, and any court in the land is going to permit a wiretap. I think we can all agree on that.
So then the question is why does our government need to spy on people who don’t meet the level of evidence required by law? And what do they do with the information they gather?
We already know what this administration is capable of–lying us into war and punishing people (Valerie Plame-Joe Wilson, Sibel Edwards, et al.) who publicly refute the official story.
So, no, hell no, I don’t trust the Bush administration to look out for my interests.
This link ties to the NBC website which is investigating whether BushCo. illegally wiretapped CNN’s Christine Amanpour.
What’s particularly troubling about this is that, if true, her husband would also have been monitored, and her husband worked as Kerry’s national security advisor during the campaign.
Oops . . . here’s the link:
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/01/nbc-confirms-its-investigating-whether.html
PL: That’s exactly why I don’t like to speculate!
Look, I don’t know the whole story and neither does anyone on this board. Oh sure, we hear the spin from one side or the other, but it isn’t anything you can depend on.
That being the case, I’ll wait for the facts to come out before I judge actions that I believe were taken in good faith and with the best interests of the country at heart.
A problem with this kind of surveillance is that a terrorist isn’t involved with terrorism all the time- he also has a life to live. If he calls his cleaner to see if his laundry’s ready, the cleaner then becomes a suspect, and if you happen to use the same cleaner, and call them the same day, they may conclude that you need to be picked up and “agressively interrogated” until you confess to whatever they want you to.This happened, and happened often, back in the early ’50’s when “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy and others saw commies under every bed (turned out to be dust bunnies) and violated the civil rights of a lot of people and ruined a lot of lives in their witch hunt.Our current administration seems hell-bent on remaking that movie, and we really don’t need it! The original should have taught us a lesson!
Outlandish–
So you’re saying, “we know Bush broke the law, but we don’t know if he broke the law to protect us or not.”
But the LAWS THEMSELVES — especially the Bill of Rights spelled out in the constitution–ARE WHAT PROTECT US.
Anybody capable of violating the Constitution he swore to uphold is capable of misusing that information for personal gain.
PL: It’s late, I’m tired, and I’m tired of you trying to put words in my mouth. You have an annoying habit of starting with an unfounded assumption and then bravely challenging your opponent to defend what they didn’t say. Sorry, I don’t feel like playing games.