Is the Pentagon spying on Americans?

[Avery L. Breath]

Is the Pentagon spying on Americans?
Secret database obtained by NBC News tracks ‘suspicious’ domestic groups

By Lisa Myers, Douglas Pasternak, Rich Gardella and the NBC Investigative Unit
Updated: 7:51 p.m. ET Dec. 13, 2005


WASHINGTON - A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.

“This is incredible,” adds group member Rich Hersh. “It's an example of paranoia by our government,” he says. “We're not doing anything illegal.”

The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.


“I think Americans should be concerned that the military, in fact, has reached too far,” says NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin.

The Department of Defense declined repeated requests by NBC News for an interview. A spokesman said that all domestic intelligence information is “properly collected” and involves “protection of Defense Department installations, interests and personnel.” The military has always had a legitimate “force protection” mission inside the U.S. to protect its personnel and facilities from potential violence. But the Pentagon now collects domestic intelligence that goes beyond legitimate concerns about terrorism or protecting U.S. military installations, say critics.

Four dozen anti-war meetings
The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One “incident” included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes â€" a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: “US group exercising constitutional rights.” Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in the database were discounted because they had no connection to the Department of Defense â€" yet they all remained in the database.

The DOD has strict guidelines (.PDF link), adopted in December 1982, that limit the extent to which they can collect and retain information on U.S. citizens.

Still, the DOD database includes at least 20 references to U.S. citizens or U.S. persons. Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One DOD briefing document stamped “secret” concludes: “[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the nternet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents, such as “reoccurring instigators at protests” or “vehicle descriptions.”

The increased monitoring disturbs some military observers.


“It means that they’re actually collecting information about who’s at those protests, the descriptions of vehicles at those protests,” says Arkin. “On the domestic level, this is unprecedented,” he says. “I think it's the beginning of enormous problems and enormous mischief for the military.”

Some former senior DOD intelligence officials share his concern. George Lotz, a 30-year career DOD official and former U.S. Air Force colonel, held the post of Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight from 1998 until his retirement last May. Lotz, who recently began a consulting business to help train and educate intelligence agencies and improve oversight of their collection process, believes some of the information the DOD has been collecting is not justified.

Make sure they are not just going crazy
“Somebody needs to be monitoring to make sure they are just not going crazy and reporting things on U.S. citizens without any kind of reasoning or rationale,” says Lotz. “I demonstrated with Martin Luther King in 1963 in Washington,” he says, “and I certainly didn’t want anybody putting my name on any kind of list. I wasn’t any threat to the government,” he adds.

The military’s penchant for collecting domestic intelligence is disturbing â€" but familiar â€" to Christopher Pyle, a former Army intelligence officer.

“Some people never learn,” he says. During the Vietnam War, Pyle blew the whistle on the Defense Department for monitoring and infiltrating anti-war and civil rights protests when he published an article in the Washington Monthly in January 1970.

The public was outraged and a lengthy congressional investigation followed that revealed that the military had conducted investigations on at least 100,000 American citizens. Pyle got more than 100 military agents to testify that they had been ordered to spy on U.S. citizens â€" many of them anti-war protestors and civil rights advocates. In the wake of the investigations, Pyle helped Congress write a law placing new limits on military spying inside the U.S.

But Pyle, now a professor at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, says some of the information in the database suggests the military may be dangerously close to repeating its past mistakes.

“The documents tell me that military intelligence is back conducting investigations and maintaining records on civilian political activity. The military made promises that it would not do this again,” he says.

Too much data?
Some Pentagon observers worry that in the effort to thwart the next 9/11, the U.S. military is now collecting too much data, both undermining its own analysis efforts by forcing analysts to wade through a mountain of rubble in order to obtain potentially key nuggets of intelligence and entangling U.S. citizens in the U.S. military’s expanding and quiet collection of domestic threat data.

Two years ago, the Defense Department directed a little known agency, Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, to establish and “maintain a domestic law enforcement database that includes information related to potential terrorist threats directed against the Department of Defense.” Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz also established a new reporting mechanism known as a TALON or Threat and Local Observation Notice report. TALONs now provide “non-validated domestic threat information” from military units throughout the United States that are collected and retained in a CIFA database. The reports include details on potential surveillance of military bases, stolen vehicles, bomb threats and planned anti-war protests. In the program’s first year, the agency received more than 5,000 TALON reports. The database obtained by NBC News is generated by Counterintelligence Field Activity.

CIFA is becoming the superpower of data mining within the U.S. national security community. Its “operational and analytical records” include “reports of investigation, collection reports, statements of individuals, affidavits, correspondence, and other documentation pertaining to investigative or analytical efforts” by the DOD and other U.S. government agencies to identify terrorist and other threats. Since March 2004, CIFA has awarded at least $33 million in contracts to corporate giants Lockheed Martin, Unisys Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation and Northrop Grumman to develop databases that comb through classified and unclassified government data, commercial information and Internet chatter to help sniff out terrorists, saboteurs and spies.


One of the CIFA-funded database projects being developed by Northrop Grumman and dubbed “Person Search,” is designed “to provide comprehensive information about people of interest.” It will include the ability to search government as well as commercial databases. Another project, “The Insider Threat Initiative,” intends to “develop systems able to detect, mitigate and investigate insider threats,” as well as the ability to “identify and document normal and abnormal activities and ‘behaviors,’” according to the Computer Sciences Corp. contract. A separate CIFA contract with a small Virginia-based defense contractor seeks to develop methods “to track and monitor activities of suspect individuals.”

“The military has the right to protect its installations, and to protect its recruiting services,” says Pyle. “It does not have the right to maintain extensive files on lawful protests of their recruiting activities, or of their base activities,” he argues.

Lotz agrees.

“The harm in my view is that these people ought to be allowed to demonstrate, to hold a banner, to peacefully assemble whether they agree or disagree with the government’s policies,” the former DOD intelligence official says.

'Slippery slope'
Bert Tussing, director of Homeland Defense and Security Issues at the U.S. Army War College and a former Marine, says “there is very little that could justify the collection of domestic intelligence by the Unites States military. If we start going down this slippery slope it would be too easy to go back to a place we never want to see again,” he says.

Some of the targets of the U.S. military’s recent collection efforts say they have already gone too far.

“It's absolute paranoia â€" at the highest levels of our government,” says Hersh of The Truth Project.

“I mean, we're based here at the Quaker Meeting House,” says Truth Project member Marie Zwicker, “and several of us are Quakers.”

The Defense Department refused to comment on how it obtained information on the Lake Worth meeting or why it considers a dozen or so anti-war activists a “threat.”


© 2005 MSNBC.com










........... nothing new if you ask me, but am pretty sure the average Joe isn't aware of it.  I know for a fact I've been photographed by government agents at a couple of major events and my licence plates noted.  Hell, it's prolly a good bet sites like this are regularly monitored too.  But for the life of me I couldn't guess why.  Small frys most of us.

[Avery L. Breath]

Well I guess it's official.  Not only spying on U.S. citizens, but doing so without following established channels set in place to authorize it.

I guess it begs the question.  Is the President above the law?  I mean, he certainly seems to think so.  First in authorizing illegal torture techniques in secret illegal prisons abroad no less and now this.  Hell, who needs a patriot act when the president can just walk in and do as he pleases.

Yeah, shutup america, it's for your own good.

I love how he has come out recently and said he did it alwright.  And then turns right around, sais he's going to continue to do it, and then condemns the people who leaked it as compromising national security and calls what they did, illegal.

[TooStonedToType]

Amazing how some people claim to be protecting the Constitution when they are caught violating it.  


OK, I see, if you tell a dozen "lawmakers" you're breakin the law, it's ok?
------


President Forcefully Defends Wiretap Policy
Says Lawmakers Were Briefed More Than a Dozen Times
JENNIFER LOVEN, AP

 
WASHINGTON (Dec. 17) - Facing angry criticism and challenges to his authority in Congress, President Bush on Saturday unapologetically defended his administration's right to conduct secret post-Sept. 11 spying in the United States as "critical to saving American lives."

   
 
AP
President Bush says the wiretaps are used only on people with "a clear link" to terrorist organizations.

Bush said congressional leaders had been briefed on the operation more than a dozen times. That included Democrats as well as Republicans in the House and Senate, a GOP lawmaker said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she had been told on several occasions that Bush had authorized unspecified activities by the National Security Agency, the nation's largest spy agency. She said she had expressed strong concerns at the time, and that Bush's statement Saturday "raises serious questions as to what the activities were and whether the activities were lawful."

Often appearing angry in an eight-minute address, the president made clear he has no intention of halting his authorizations of the monitoring activities and said public disclosure of the program by the news media had endangered Americans.

Bush's willingness to publicly acknowledge a highly classified spying program was a stunning development for a president known to dislike disclosure of even the most mundane inner workings of his White House. Just a day earlier he had refused to talk about it.

Since October 2001, the super-secret National Security Agency has eavesdropped on the international phone calls and e-mails of people inside the United States without court-approved warrants. Bush said steps like these would help fight terrorists like those who involved in the Sept. 11 plot.

"The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time," Bush said. "And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad."

News of the program came at a particularly damaging and delicate time.

Already, the administration was under fire for allegedly operating secret prisons in Eastern Europe and shipping suspected terrorists to other countries for harsh interrogations.

The NSA program's existence surfaced as Bush was fighting to save the expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the domestic anti-terrorism law enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Democrats and a few Republicans who say the law gives so much latitude to law enforcement officials that it threatens Americans' constitutional liberties succeeded Friday in stalling its renewal.

So Bush scrapped the version of his weekly radio address that he had already taped - on the recent elections in Iraq - and delivered a live speech from the Roosevelt Room in which he lashed out at the senators blocking the Patriot Act as irresponsible and confirmed the NSA program.

Bush said his authority to approve what he called a "vital tool in our war against the terrorists" came from his constitutional powers as commander in chief. He said that he has personally signed off on reauthorizations more than 30 times.

"The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties," Bush said. "And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I'm the president of the United States."

James Bamford, author of two books on the NSA, said the program could be problematic because it bypasses a special court set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize eavesdropping on suspected terrorists.

"I didn't hear him specify any legal right, except his right as president, which in a democracy doesn't make much sense," Bamford said in an interview. "Today, what Bush said is he went around the law, which is a violation of the law - which is illegal."

Retired Adm. Bobby Inman, who led the NSA from 1977 to 1981, said Bush's authorization of the eavesdropping would have been justified in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks "because at that point you couldn't get a court warrant unless you could show probable cause."

"Once the Patriot Act was in place, I am puzzled what was the need to continue outside the court," Inman added. But he said, "If the fact is valid that Congress was notified, there will be no consequences."

Susan Low Bloch, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center, said Bush was "taking a hugely expansive interpretation of the Constitution and the president's powers under the Constitution.

That view was echoed by congressional Democrats.

"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," Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press.

Added Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.: "The Bush administration seems to believe it is above the law."

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

Government officials have refused to provide details, including defining the standards used to establish such a link or saying how many people are being monitored.

The program is reviewed every 45 days, using fresh threat assessments, legal reviews, and information from previous activities under the program, the president said. Intelligence officials involved in the monitoring receive extensive training in civil liberties, he said.

Bush said leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., told House Republicans that those informed were the top Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and of each chamber's intelligence committees. "They've been through the whole thing," Hoekstra said.

The president had harsh words for those who revealed the program to the media, saying they acted improperly and illegally. The surveillance was first disclosed in Friday's New York Times.

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

Bush has more to worry about on Capitol Hill than his difficulties with the Patriot Act. Lawmakers have begun challenging Bush on his Iraq policy, reflecting polling that shows half of the country is not behind him on the war.

On Sunday, the president was continuing his effort to reverse that by giving his fifth major speech in less than three weeks on Iraq.

One bright spot for the White House was a new poll showing that a strong majority of Americans oppose, as does Bush and most lawmakers, an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The AP-Ipsos poll found 57 percent of those surveyed said the U.S. military should stay until Iraq is stabilized.

Associated Press Special Correspondent David Espo and writers Andrew Bridges and Will Lester contributed to this report.


12/17/05 18:42 EST

[Avery L. Breath]

I don't get it, I mean, how  can he say "the wiretaps are used only on people with "a clear link" to terrorist organizations" and still not even attempt to seek authorization for said wiretaps.  It just doesn't add up.  I mean, if you have probable cause, why would you bypass the judiciary system.

I think this just lends even more credence to the theory that he isn't playing with us with a straight deck.

[winder]

About time this administration was overthrown by coup.

Not the whole government, just the portion elected in 2004.

[Avery L. Breath]

Yeah, seems to me that this is right up there with lying about a blowjob, right?

[Avery L. Breath]

Just a few notes.......

FISA makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to conduct electronic surveillance except as provided for by statute. The only defense is for law government agents engaged in official duties conducting “surveillance authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order.” [50 U.S.C. § 1809]

In the FISA court's 27 year history it has only rejected one (edit.... that number is warrant requests..... out of like 17,700.

Congress has specifically stated, in statute, that the criminal wiretap statute and FISA “shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.” [18 U.S.C. § 2518(f)]

--4th amendment of the United States of America (Article II, sec. 3) that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

[senorsalvia]

I would excercise my right to freedom of expression here, about this matter, but, uh, "they" would have me on some list eh? :wink: ---  Jeez, George Orwell has Nostradamus beat by a mile----------- sal

[Avery L. Breath]

I wonder if descent like posting stuff like this is considered espionage by John Asscroft.

Secret U.S. court OKs electronic spying

By Declan McCullagh
http://news.com.com/Secret+U.S.+court+O ... 66311.html

 

WASHINGTON--A secretive federal court on Monday granted police broad authority to monitor Internet use, record keystrokes and employ other surveillance methods against terror and espionage suspects.
In an unexpected and near-complete victory for law enforcement, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review overturned a lower court's decision and said that Attorney General John Ashcroft's request for new powers was reasonable.

The 56-page ruling removes procedural barriers for federal agents conducting surveillance under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The law, enacted as part of post-Watergate reforms, permits sweeping electronic surveillance, telephone eavesdropping and surreptitious searches of residences and offices.

At a press conference Monday afternoon, Ashcroft applauded the ruling, characterizing it as a "victory for liberty, safety and the security of the American people."

Ashcroft said the ruling marks a new era of collaboration between police and intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the National Security Agency.

"This decision allows law enforcement officials to learn from intelligence officials, and vice versa, as a means of sort of allowing the information to flow from one community to another," Ashcroft said. "This will greatly enhance our ability to put pieces together that different agencies have. I believe this is a giant step forward."

The lower court, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, had said there must be a well-defined wall separating domestic police agencies from spy agencies. It accused the FBI of submitting incorrect information under oath in more than 75 cases, including one signed by then-FBI Director Louis Freeh.

The lower court's decision, written in May, went so far as to say that changes to the Justice Department's procedures were necessary "to protect the privacy of Americans in these highly intrusive surveillances and searches."

Justice Department lawyers argued that the USA Patriot Act, signed by President George W. Bush last fall, made any such wall obsolete and unnecessary. The Patriot Act also changed the requirements for FISA surveillance, saying that espionage or terrorist acts did not have to be the primary purpose of the investigation but only a "significant purpose."

The review court agreed with Ashcroft, even suggesting that greater use of FISA surveillance conceivably could have thwarted the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It ruled that Ashcroft's proposed procedures, "if they do not meet the minimum Fourth Amendment warrant requirements, certainly come close."

Civil libertarians said they were alarmed by the ruling, the public version of which was censored for security reasons. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers had filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the appeals court to uphold the lower court's decision.

Robert Levy, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said, "Because the FISA now applies to ordinary criminal matters if they are dressed up as national security inquiries, the new rules could open the door to circumvention of the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirements. The result: rubber-stamp judicial consent to phone and Internet surveillance, even in regular criminal cases, and FBI access to medical, educational and other business records that conceivably relate to foreign intelligence probes."

FISA authorizes judges on the secret court, which always meets behind closed doors, to authorize electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes if "there is probable cause to believe" that a terrorist, spy, or foreign political organization is involved. Police are not required to meet the same legal standards that are required under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and eavesdropping, when conducting surveillance in normal investigations.

During the 1980s, the Justice Department began interpreting the law as limiting FISA orders to cases in which no criminal prosecution was planned. In 1995, then-Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a wall created between FBI intelligence agents--who have security clearances--and Justice Department prosecutors in FISA investigations.

But by mid-2001, attitudes inside the Justice Department began to shift in favor of eroding that wall, and Congress virtually eliminated it when enacting the Patriot Act. In March 2002, Ashcroft responded with new "Intelligence Sharing Procedures" that allowed the free exchange of information among the FBI, spy agencies and prosecutors.

The initial FISA court rejected Ashcroft's procedures as not authorized by the Patriot Act, adopting the 1995 Reno guidelines instead. The review court rejected that analysis Monday, saying that Congress "clearly did not preclude or limit the government's use or proposed use of foreign intelligence information, which included evidence of certain kinds of criminal activity, in a criminal prosecution."

[cenacle]

Bush’s Snoopgate
By Jonathan Alter

The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security.

Published December 19, 2005 by Newsweek.com
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10536559/site/newsweek/

Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgateâ€"he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaedaâ€"but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting,
but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.

The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremistsâ€"in fact, all American Muslims, periodâ€"have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that “the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.

No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important storyâ€"which the paper had already inexplicably held for a yearâ€"because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.

What is especially perplexing about this story is that the 1978 law set up a special court to approve eavesdropping in hours, even minutes, if necessary. In fact, the law allows the government to eavesdrop on its own, then retroactively justify it to the court, essentially obtaining a warrant after the fact. Since 1979, the FISA court has approved tens of thousands of eavesdropping requests and rejected only four. There was no indication the existing system was slowâ€"as the president seemed to claim in his press conferenceâ€"or in any way required extra-constitutional action.

This will all play out eventually in congressional committees and in the United States Supreme Court. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974.

In the meantime, it is unlikely that Bush will echo President Kennedy in 1961. After JFK managed to tone down a New York Times story by Tad Szulc on the Bay of Pigs invasion, he confided to Times editor Turner Catledge that he wished the paper had printed the whole story because it might have spared him such a stunning defeat in Cuba.

This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reasonâ€"and less out of genuine concern about national securityâ€"that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

© 2005 MSNBC.com

[Avery L. Breath]

O.K., I just emailed this to my senator and I posting it in the hopes that some of you might send symiliar letters to yours.......

Dear Senator ....,

I am writing in regards to the recent allegation about the President of the United States sidestepping judicial oversight of FISA and spying on American citizen communications abroad without seeking warrants.    I would very much like you to publicly ask the President the following question:

Mr. President as you recall, you took a sacred oath when you took office to protect our great nations constitution and uphold the law.  I’d like to ask, in regards to your sidestepping the constitution and judicial oversight for the purpose of monitoring certain international communications of U.S. citizens, that you claim the necessity of expedience as reason enough to do this and that these cases involve people with known ties to terrorist organizations.  However the FISA courts set in place for this type of intelligence gathering recognizes the necessity of speedy intelligence gathering and allow you to authorize wiretaps initially without even seeking a warrant as long as you have probable cause and apply for permission after the fact.  Your explanation makes no sense in claiming the necessity of expedience because there are legal avenues to seek the things you seek.  It is clear either you have other undisclosed reasoning’s for taking the approach you have or you have no regard to the constitution you swore to uphold.  I ask you Mr. President do you think you are above the law?  What right do you have to sidestep the constitution you swore to uphold?  Are you above the law sir?

……. Thank you Senator for the opportunity to put this question into your hands to ask the president.  The question has yet to be asked properly, or answered sufficiently so.  I feel it is the responsibility of elected officials such as yourself to step up and fulfill your own oath to protect our rights and not to be bullied into relinquishing them easily.

Sincerely

[TooStonedToType]

It would be great if everyone kept asking him these questions - but he ain't going to answer.

Look at the transcript from Bush's speech yesterday.  Shameful.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/19/ ... index.html

He didn't answer anything.  He was angry, defensive and rude to the reporters.  I don't think it shows in the transcript as it did live, but that part where he responds: "To say 'unchecked power' basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject." came across like a threat to everyone in the room that they better watch their questions.  That reporter really pissed him off.

Also noticed he didn't wish us all a Merry Christmas.  He said "Happy Holidays".  Where are the protesters?

Group Fights Wal-Mart on 'Happy Holidays'

[Avery L. Breath]

Quote President Bush as of last year---

  "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretaps, it requires â€" a wiretap requires a court order," the president said in a speech in Buffalo, N.Y. on April 20, 2004, in which he discussed enactment of the Patriot Act.

    "Nothing has changed, by the way," Bush continued in the speech. "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."

[cenacle]

Bush is sweating bullets and he should be: Where Bush's spy scandal stands now, and how he and Republicans are likely to proceed
by August Keso
 
Published December 20th, 2005 by the Progressive Daily Beacon
http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/c ... php?id=895
Where we are today: Spying and Lying

Bush can kick, whine, cry, yell, scream, and throw all the tantrums he wishes - when he ordered NSA to spy on American citizens he broke the law; he knows it, and it is an impeachable offense. Not only did Bush commit an impeachable offense, but he admitted on national television -- twice -- to authorizing the Constitution shredding and law-breaking activity. Bush and his administration are sweating bullets...and they should be.

According to Newsweek, in an effort to snuff out the New York Times piece that broke the spy scandal, Bush summoned both the paper's editor and publisher to his office. Not in an effort to protect "national security" however, but to cover his back-side. "...Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story -- which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year -- because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker."

Once the story broke, what choice did Bush have, but to come out swinging at shadows? The defense he, Rice, Cheney, and Gonzales have offered -- the statutory and Constitutional rationalizations -- blew up in their faces fast as they placed them before the public.

Bush says, as Commander-in-Chief, Article Two of the Constitution gave him the authority to circumvent current laws and Constitutional Amendments. Other than his own lawyers and inner-circle, no person familiar with federal law and Constitutional law have agreed with his assertion. Strike one!

Bush and his supporters claimed FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) wasn't flexible enough, and did not give him the maneuverability he and agencies needed. FISA however, allows the government to begin tapping phones and communication equipment immediately, and 72 hours to submit a case to be reviewed by the FISA court. Strike two!

Finally, Bush insisted a 2001 Congressional resolution, which gave him authority to use all force necessary against those responsible for 911, provided him the power to disregard the nation's laws and Constitution. That resolution he claimed, was the statutory requirement he needed as required in FISA.

The administration used a similar argument relating to a US citizen, Yaser Hamdi, whom they were holding as an enemy combatant and in which the Supreme Court -- 8 to 1 -- rejected the administration's claim that Federal Courts had no oversight authority in the imprisonment of US citizens. Writing for the majority, Sandra Day O'Connor penned, "We long have made it clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." Strike three!

What comes next: Spin, securing the base, and secret hearings

Bush and his people know he is in serious trouble. They will treat this Constitutional crisis, as they treat all things: saving themselves by any means necessary...for them, neither the Constitution, nor what is best for America will be a factor. They want to make Bush's illegal act about national security...it isn't. It is about a rogue President running amuck; violating the law; disregarding the Constitution; dismantling civil liberties; destroying "freedom and liberty" in order to save it; and above all hubris...or if one prefers, absolute power corrupting absolutely.

The Bush political hit-squads will attempt to paint Democrats as caring less about the safety of the people, and more about political one-upmanship. They'll insist Bush's ridiculous authorization to spy on the American people isn't about spying on the American people, but keeping them safe. Never mind FISA all ready, as stated above, provided the administration and agencies all the flexibility they needed to monitor nefarious communication. Without the ability to illegally wiretap American citizen's phone conversations, the Bush people will say, American people would die. They would die...will die, and it will all be the Democrat's fault.

As an aside: Absurd as it might at first sound, it wouldn't be surprising if the nation didn't find itself experiencing a rash of "terror alerts". Let's just hope, as Bush grows more desperate - it isn't something more sinister. We are after all, talking about saving Bush's Presidency. Scare tactics via "threats and alerts" would provide the Bush gang with a healthy set of fingers they could wag at Democrats, and their supposed disregard for the American people's safety. If that sounds impossible - how many would have believed Bush would spy on possibly, according to some reports, thousands of U.S. citizens? With Bush, anything is possible.

Moving beyond the "possibilities" and returning to the probabilities, the American people can expect the administration to continue muddying the political waters with their baseless claims that Bush had phantom authorities to order the spying. Yes, every legal leg they've tried to stand on has been sawed out from beneath them. They aren't interested however, in convincing legal scholars, Democrats, and Independents - they will want to continue manipulating their base, and keep them onboard. They'll be vital in Bush's quest for survival.

Bush and Republicans will also continue to insist his secret citizen spy plan, was all about national security. They will do all they can to convince the American people, that disclosing any facts concerning the highly illegal spy policy could result in bin-Laden and al-Qaeda -- once so long forgotten, soon to become once again important -- gaining knowledge about how the government is tracking them, and keeping the people safe. This notion of national security too, will be highly critical if Bush is to weather this storm.

Then, as the walls threaten to close in, Bush and Rove will call upon their base to apply pressure to fence-sitting Republicans...those real Conservatives that are growing ever more-weary over this administration's Big Brother tendencies. Should someone in the Republican Congress or Senate begin to waver, and it looks like he or she might support open hearings or impeachment, Bush and Rove can use the base to pressure them into backing off.

Bush's ability to reach end of term will depend greatly on preventing the Republican Congress from bowing to pressure, as it builds toward his impeachment. The Congress won't be able to do that, if the American people fully grasp and understand the true nature, and scope of the threat Bush's illegal spying has posed to their civil liberties. Look for Bush and his people to use their "national security" cover, and base to force Republicans into holding private hearings only.

Expect too, everyone present at the hearings will require the highest security clearance, and to be sworn by oath not to leak any details under threat of federal prosecution. This is Bush's only hope for survival...they'll do all they can to prevent the public from knowing the truth. Using their base to apply pressure, hiding behind "national security" and keeping everything hidden will be Bush, Rove, and Republican's roadmap to avoiding impeachment.

Bush and his administration are sweating bullets...and they should be.

Update: As if looking into a crystal-ball - "The White House brushed aside calls for hearings. 'This is still a highly classified program and there are details that it's important not be disclosed,' spokesman Scott McClellan said."

[winder]

Please, be impeached.