Bush under fire for spying on citizens

JUST when President George W. Bush was expecting to bask in the success of the Iraqi elections, revelations that he secretly authorised telephone taps on Americans without court warrants has plunged his administration into another crisis.

Initially refusing to discuss the eavesdropping program in a television interview on Saturday morning (Australian time), Mr Bush changed his mind within 12 hours and launched a counterattack, confirming yesterday the existence of the program but defending it as "critical to saving American lives".

"Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies," Mr Bush told the nation in his weekly radio address.

"This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security," he said, adding "our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorised disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk".

The controversy comes after The New York Times reported that in the aftermath of September 11, Mr Bush authorised the secretive National Security Agency to spy on hundreds and possibly thousands of US citizens with suspected links to al-Qa'ida. The NSA is the US's largest intelligence agency with listening posts around the world, including personnel stationed at Pine Gap in the Northern Territory.

   

   
   

Despite officials indicating that Mr Bush's secret spy program had disrupted terror plots in the US and abroad, there has been a sense of outrage among politicians in Congress, most of whom read about it for the first time in the newspaper.

Mr Bush said yesterday some congressional "leaders" had been briefed more than a dozen times over the past three years on the NSA's activities.

"I have reauthorised this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qa'ida and related groups," he said.

Aside from raising the spectre of a secret surveillance force operating in the US with no judicial oversight, many congressmen and legal experts are saying the President may have broken the law. Mr Bush countered it was the disclosure of the "secret program" that was illegal.

The President's decision to use executive powers to override restrictions on the NSA was based on classified White House legal opinion, which said the President had the power to overrule the requirement for warrants because of the September 2001 congressional resolution authorising him to conduct a war on terror.

But critics say the NSA's activities strike at the heart of US civil liberties, and politicians say the program circumvents the constitutional checks on the White House, known as the executive branch of government, by the two other branches, the Congress and the judiciary.

"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," senator Russell Feingold, a Democrat from Wisconsin, said.

Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the Senate's Judiciary Committee, said: "There is no doubt that this is inappropriate." He said that there would be hearings into the program early next year and that they would have a "very, very high priority".

His Democrat counterpart on that committee, Patrick Leahy, said: "The Bush administration seems to believe it is above the law. Our Government must follow the laws and respect the constitution while it protects Americans' security and liberty."

James Bamford, author of two books on the NSA, questioned the legitimacy of the secret phone taps because it bypassed the need for court warrants as required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorise 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," Mr Bamford said yesterday in reaction to Mr Bush's comments. "Today, what Bush said is he went around the law, which is a violation of the law -- which is illegal."

By law, the NSA is generally barred from eavesdropping on the communications of US citizens. For years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has handled basically all domestic eavesdropping operations, though the NSA is known to, at times, tap into the communications of foreign embassies operating in the US.

The debate has come at a critical time for the Bush administration, which is trying to extend anti-terror legislation, known as the USA Patriot Act. It is due to expire on December 31. Mr Bush suffered a defeat on the bill when the Senate blocked attempts to renew the Patriot Act on Friday.

The act gives the administration broad powers to investigate US citizens but the controversy that has erupted over the President's secret spy program has further galvanised congressional critics that the administration has been going too far.

One of the four Republican senators blocking the bill was Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a potential 2008 presidential candidate. He said a balance had to be struck between national security and personal freedoms.

"Let's not come loose of our moorings, who we are as a people," Senator Hagel said. "We have to find an equilibrium, a centre of gravity. Confidence and trust in one's government is the only currency there is in life in a democracy."

The Senate's refusal to vote on the bill through the use of a filibuster was the second setback for Mr Bush in a matter of days in his quest to maintain his presidential power in his prosecution of the war on terrorism.

He was forced into an embarrassing climbdown on Thursday, ending his opposition to a new law explicitly banning the torture of terror suspects held in US custody anywhere in the world.

You know what sums up this entire fucking event pretty well? My father said this:

"The President can spy on anyone he wants."

- 60%+ of the country. Illegal? Unconstitutional? Impeachable? Haha, no, no, this is America, we pick and choose when to employ laws and basic rights. Are you afraid, are you apathetic, are you a product of the Cold War? Vote Jeb Bush 2008.

Wanna fuck the twins? They need a good poke from someone outside the family!

It's just more proof, like we needed more, that the little blow-monkey has no real clue what's happening.  He is a deranged psychopath convinced (by his handlers/controllers) that God is speaking and acting THROUGH him.  He truly believes he's above all earthly law.  I put the odds at 50/50 he gets away with this and extends it to domestic survellence of terrorists/political opposition, especially the latter.
>>2
It'll be Condi in '08.  She'll lose as they expect.  They need a Democrat in the White House to try to clean up and repair the damage they've caused.  Four years of that kind of total commitment by all Americans and in '12 it will be all over.

Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior
By AARON NICODEMUS, Standard-Times staff writer

NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."
Although The Standard-Times knows the name of the student, he is not coming forward because he fears repercussions should his name become public. He has not spoken to The Standard-Times.
The professors had been asked to comment on a report that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to spy on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002 in this country.
The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants.
The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung.
In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book.
The student told Professor Pontbriand and Dr. Williams that the Homeland Security agents told him the book was on a "watch list." They brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student, the professors said.
Dr. Williams said in his research, he regularly contacts people in Afghanistan, Chechnya and other Muslim hot spots, and suspects that some of his calls are monitored.
"My instinct is that there is a lot more monitoring than we think," he said.
Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk.
"I shudder to think of all the students I've had monitoring al-Qaeda Web sites, what the government must think of that," he said. "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless."

AmerikkOWNED.
So much for the "land of freedom".

Someone leaked details to the New York Times, a paper that ceased long ago to be seriously credible to anyone outside the Beltway.  The problems are that, first, the Times (and most Democrats attacking Bush) want us to believe that there was no history before 2001, and second, that this program started in the early '90s under the orders of *gasp!* President Bill Clinton.

>>7 that this program started in the early '90s under the orders of *gasp!* President Bill Clinton.

Uhh, program? I thought this had to do with the President "authorizing" the actions, and that there was a specially created way to go about authorizing (legally) the monitoring of US citizens through a court. If what you're saying is true, that neither exempts Clinter nor Bush from breaking the law- they still broke it, whether its been going on for a long time or not.

I love how the latest trend among rightist bloggers and 'pundits' is to say "THIS HAS BEEN GOIN ON SINCE THE COLD WAH THE LIBERALS IS JUST TURNIN IT AROUND AND MAKIN IT OUT LIKE REPUBLICANS DONE BAD WHEN THEY DONE IT." Yeah, push the blame back and forth across the abyss even if the abyss is where everything takes place anyway.

How many of these 30 wiretapped calls were domestic calls?  That is, how many of them were placed from one phone in the United States and answered by another phone in the United States?  Pls cite source for answer, thx.

They've had, for years, a friggin court of eleven judges who will even approve a wiretap RETRO-ACTIVELY.  They've approved over 18k wiretaps and dissallowed FIVE!  Sounds like a very friendly court to the government.  Bush, bypassed even that. 
Why?

Late-breaking:
Well.  The Op Ed page of the NY Times has an interesting read.  Seems Bush asked the senate for exactly the powers in question right after 9-11.  They said "No".  On that same day, letters containing highly weaponized Anthrax were postmarked. One of them at least, addressed to one of the Senators that said no.
What this means is that Bush was told this was a no-no. There was never, ever, any "Implied Consent" from Congress.  Ever.
Other Presidents have shit on the Constitution, this one seems determined to flush it also.

>>10
If it's such a rubber stamp court why bother in the first place?

|  The Op Ed page of the NY Times

HA HA HA HA HA HA

Oh, classic!  LOL

Indeed, the NYT can't even get its facts straight _outside_ the op-ed pages.  How can any NYT op-ed piece be considered default fact?  Hint: Op Ed is short for Opinions and Editorials, and it was designed to be a rumormill where facts are _not_ required.

In a special pre-holiday address to the American people, President George W. Bush today said that the upcoming holiday season affords all Americans a unique opportunity to spy on their neighbors, and urged his fellow citizens to do so.

“My fellow Americans, over the holidays many of you will be receiving new camcorders as gifts,” President Bush told his national television audience. “Instead of making boring home movies of your children, point the camera at the house next door and see what your neighbors are up to.”

Saying that the people next door “might be evildoers,” Mr. Bush said that by spying on one’s neighbors, “You’re going to find out who’s naughty or nice.”

Coming just days after he defended his own practice of wiretapping phone conversations without a court warrant, Mr. Bush’s exhortation to the American people to snoop on one another over the holidays was the latest indication that he intends to ramp up domestic spying in the new year.

“Invasion of privacy is the gift that keeps on giving,” the president said.

Perhaps in an attempt to preempt criticism of his domestic spying program, Mr. Bush added that he was “more than willing” to let the government spy on him.

“Go ahead, get a list of every library book I’ve taken out in the last five years,” he said. “You won’t find anything.”

Elsewhere, a new report shows that China now has the fourth largest economy in the world, after the United States, Japan, and Vice President Dick Cheney.

>>12
Then why are even right-wingers calling for impeachment?  A sudden urge for bi-partisanship?  BTW it turns out it's not "a few thousand" conversations illegaly intercepted, it's Hundreds of Thousands minimum.
The timing here is brilliant. Who reads the news?  Then there's the "shiny object" distraction for the base;  "The War On Christmas", and one for the liberals--"Intelligent Design".
When the dullards pull their heads out of the Nog they'll say "Old news, who cares".

>>14
Which right-wingers?  And where did you get the news that thirty became a few thousand, then hundreds of thousands?  Fill me in, please.  TIA

>>14 What are you reading? Far from being "under fire" President Bush seems to merely be being slightly hassled.

Voters don't give a fuck, and even if they did, who are they going to vote for -- the Democrats?!!? Anyone with half a brain knows they're just as psychopathically authoritarian and -shall we say- "casual" when it comes to civil liberties as the Rethuglicans.

The figurehead may change (probably not, however) but the march towards America as a Chinese/Soviet style Police State will carry on regardless.

See, this is why it's going to be such a bumpy road though, they're using moralism and anti-terror buzzwords to get the camcorders placed on every corner.
Just tell people you're giving them all free cameras on every corner for naughty catch'em-in-the-shower reasons. Might even drop rape stats a little since they'll be content to thwack it in the privacy of their own homes watching the sexy latino bitch next door playing with the showerhead.

Leftards wrong again:

December 28, 2005--Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.
Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans believe the NSA should be allowed to listen in on conversations between terror suspects and people living in the United States. That view is shared by 51% of Democrats and 57% of those not affiliated with either major political party.

>>16

Actually both American parties are virtually the same and like the hug the "moderate" line for votes. This becomes more and more true the longer two parties run against each other.

The only exceptions are on major issues that are split down the middle such as abortion and then such issues have supporters on both sides causing a political apathy. A severe issue, such as slavery, can destroy a party altogether and give rise to people pushing away from the middle line.

We're not heading towards a fascist state, just a virtual one party system.

nixon all over again?

>>20
Moar like nothing all over again. Another democrat wash that will amount to nothing and no one will be talking about in a few weeks.

>>20
Nah. Nixon was smarter and hated jews. There's a difference!
It's also why nobody will vote for this asshole again but would vote for Nixon if he ran.
Also, he turns into a giant robot.