News NY Times discloses secret Executive Order: NSA is spying domestically

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The discussion centers around a New York Times report revealing that President Bush authorized the NSA to conduct domestic eavesdropping without court-approved warrants in the wake of the September 11 attacks. This marked a significant shift in U.S. intelligence practices, raising concerns about potential violations of constitutional rights. Many participants express skepticism about the legality and oversight of such surveillance, with some arguing that it has been known for years that the government has extensive surveillance capabilities. Others debate the implications for privacy rights, suggesting that if individuals are not engaged in criminal activity, they should not be concerned about government monitoring. The conversation also touches on historical abuses of surveillance powers and the potential for misuse in political contexts. Participants highlight the need for checks and balances to prevent the erosion of civil liberties, emphasizing that judicial oversight is crucial to maintaining accountability in surveillance practices. The discussion reflects a broader concern about the balance between national security and individual rights in the context of government surveillance.
  • #101
But phcatlantis, what about the theory that the president is above the law. It appears to me that this assertion goes farther than has been noticed, since the president's legal advisors asserted it holds "in time of war", but presidents have notoriously asserted their right to declare a state of war independent of the constitutional requirement for a congressional declaration, and the congress has seemed to bow to this assertion with the war powers act. So putting the two ideas together, the president can declare a ste of war any time he wants and then can do anything he wants without being constrained by law. :mad:
 
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  • #102
Moonbear said:
Keep in mind the presidential oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Well, that explains why the fbi thinks "Defenders of the constitution" are terrorist.

Look at this FBI pamphlet:

http://www.gaianxaos.com/SpecialReports_files/Megiddo_fbi_watch23lg.jpg

It says:
Right-Wing terrorists:
"Defenders" of US constitution against federal government and the UN

And: Those who make numerous references to US constituton.
 
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  • #103
Ever heard of the Yoo memo? This is the legal rationale that the Bush administration is relying on to justify nearly every move related to the War on Terror: the denial of habeas corpus to “enemy combatants,” the torture of individuals for information, and most recently spying on American citizens without warrants. The Yoo memorandum essentially argues that no statute passed by Congress “can place any limits on the president’s determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing and nature of the response.” So, if the country is involved in a war, the president is bound by no law, treaty, or oversight; his power is completely unchecked and absolute — in the words of the administration, “plenary.”

http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/warpowers925.htm
 
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  • #104
selfAdjoint said:
But phcatlantis, what about the theory that the president is above the law.

If there's such a noteworthy theory in American law, I've never heard of it. I'd go as far as to say that there is no Administration that's asserted as much about itself--the phrase "above the law" is inherently pejorative. On the other hand, it reads like you're simply questioning whether presidential power in wartime is as extensive as it is.

It appears to me that this assertion goes farther than has been noticed, since the president's legal advisors asserted it holds "in time of war", but presidents have notoriously asserted their right to declare a state of war independent of the constitutional requirement for a congressional declaration, and the congress has seemed to bow to this assertion with the war powers act.

Which is simply not true in this case. The President consistently and publically refers to Pub. Law No. 107-40 each time he claims special powers, specifically section 2, subsection A. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html ]. We haven't gotten to the point where the executive even feels the need to declare its constitutional wartime privileges in absence of a declaration of war.

So putting the two ideas together, the president can declare a ste of war any time he wants and then can do anything he wants without being constrained by law. :mad:

Except there is no finding in law yet that the President isn't constrained by law or is acting otherwise. Put another way, there's no finding whatsoever that the President's actions are extra-legal. Just a lot of opinion-making.
 
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  • #105
Burnsys said:
Ever heard of the Yoo memo? This is the legal rationale that the Bush administration is relying on to justify nearly every move related to the War on Terror: the denial of habeas corpus to “enemy combatants,” the torture of individuals for information, and most recently spying on American citizens without warrants. The Yoo memorandum essentially argues that no statute passed by Congress “can place any limits on the president’s determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing and nature of the response.” So, if the country is involved in a war, the president is bound by no law, treaty, or oversight; his power is completely unchecked and absolute — in the words of the administration, “plenary.”
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/warpowers925.htm

The President is bound by Congress' power of the purse and power to pursue impeachment and trial. And plenary does not mean unchecked or absolute; or did you think ambassadors in the age of sail simply did as they wished with no strictures whatsoever?
 
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  • #106
President Bush is apparently still asserting what his lawyers told him.

Your recourse to the record of the law sensa strictu is valuable, but the extra-legal affairs are not just persiflage either. The Supreme Court seems to always have many members who are either infuenced by public opinion or else overly protective of Congressional decisions, so the 'bully pulpit", plus control of the Congress can often be exchanged for legal validity.

[ADDED] And the recourse to "power of the purse and impeachment" is kind of a joke, isn't it? We have seen in recent years what toothless monsters those two really are.
 
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  • #107
selfAdjoint said:
Your recourse to the record of the law sensa strictu is valuable, but the extra-legal affairs are not just persiflage either. The Supreme Court seems to always have many members who are either infuenced by public opinion or else overly protective of Congressional decisions, so the 'bully pulpit", plus control of the Congress can often be exchanged for legal validity.

This is more of a criticism of how law manifests, exists, behaves, and evolves than specific to the issue at hand, and its a point I've taken up when StatutoryApe approached it from a different point of view. Courts supervise the implementation of policy, and the discipline treats their role as much as engineering would treat its students; intelligent agents that are nevertheless constrained by physical realities (in this case, the inertia of a body of law expressing the psychological mass of an entire society) and also capable of mistake. Regardless of our judicial philosophies, we shouldn't underappreciate the enormous political and social pressure, from childhood to law school to the bench, on justices to actually persuade people to their reasoning--more importantly, persuade from law itself. There is potential for error in an engineer's model of a physical problem; there is also potential for error in a court officer's model of a legal problem

[ADDED] And the recourse to "power of the purse and impeachment" is kind of a joke, isn't it?

Have to disagree. The political and social reality of law compels a stable, constitutional democracy to abide by these explicit, undisputed powers. It would take literally thousands of people in the executive branch to approve of a conspiracy that would divert between 1 and 8 percent of federal outlays a year against Congress' will.

We have seen in recent years what toothless monsters those two really are.

Remember what Congress did to Ford in 1975? Or what this Congress is doing now with the Patriot Act authorization? Absent mind control powers, there is no physical way for the President to act against Congress when it has decided not to authorize; just as a Congress that does not authorize cannot physically bring itself to appropriate on such a large scale.
 
  • #108
phcatlantis said:
If there's such a noteworthy theory in American law, I've never heard of it. I'd go as far as to say that there is no Administration that's asserted as much about itself--the phrase "above the law" is inherently pejorative. On the other hand, it reads like you're simply questioning whether presidential power in wartime is as extensive as it is.
Which is simply not true in this case. The President consistently and publically refers to Pub. Law No. 107-40 each time he claims special powers, specifically section 2, subsection A. [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html ]. We haven't gotten to the point where the executive even feels the need to declare its constitutional wartime privileges in absence of a declaration of war.
Except there is no finding in law yet that the President isn't constrained by law or is acting otherwise. Put another way, there's no finding whatsoever that the President's actions are extra-legal. Just a lot of opinion-making.
Surely, this can't be the law they're citing. Their eavesdropping started almost immediately after 9/11, but this law was passed in the fall of 2002. The law authorizes the President to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" and "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq".

I haven't yet seen a good specific explanation or justification from the administration about why the surveillance is legal, but I may have missed it. But, if this is the specific authorization the President is using, then he's really missed the boat.

(It amazes me how many of the justifications cited in the lead-in to this law turned out to be wrong - even if this were related to the eavesdropping, the administration would have to be pretty desperate to bringing this back out into the spotlight.)
 
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  • #109
BobG said:
Surely, this can't be the law they're citing.

Good point, I cut and pasted the wrong URL. Here's http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_11/sjres23_eb.htm , Congress' authorization to the President to use military force against "those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
 
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  • #110
Wishbone said:
allright, put down the micheal moore videotapes, its time for a little lesson called, "being the president"
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm"
Micheal Moore...another over-used exaggeration from right-wingers. And for a review on the topic of credible sources:

The Drudge Report is a website hosted by Matt Drudge, which features frequent salacious rumors about politicians and celebrities. Drudge relies heavily on information from Republican party operatives and has repeatedly broadcast claims that were later proven false. His website was also one of the first to publish reports of Monica Lewinsky's affair with President Bill Clinton. However, Drudge had nothing to do with the footwork associated with this scoop. He obtained it from Newsweek magazine, which had decided at the last minute to can the story written by Michael Isikoff.

In the 1990s, Matt Drudge had a short-lived cable television show. He filled in for right-wing talker Rush Limbaugh during Limbaugh's 2003 stint in a drug rehabilitation clinic.

Jeanette Walls, a rival gossip-monger at MSNBC, gave Drudge a taste of his own medicine, reporting that he is gay in her book, Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip (http://www.advocate.com/html/news/030200/030200news04.asp) . Drudge denied the allegation, but former right-wing journalist David Brock also describes Drudge as gay in his book, Blinded by the Right. Brock, who is openly gay, describes receiving flirtatious emails from Drudge and going on a date with him to a gay bar.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Drudge_Report

Lovely group aren't they?

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Back to the OP, if John Dean (who was White House Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon) says this is the first time he has seen a president admit to an impeachable offense, I'm inclined to believe it is.
 
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  • #111
TheStatutoryApe said:
That actually took about a week in March of '33, depending on how you want to look at it, and depended heavily on the illegal arrests and murder of those politicians that stood in the way and Hitler dissolving the current governing body to replace it with Nazi party members. That last part was actually requested for a couple months before the actual burning of the Riechstag and the Riechstag Fire Decree. Either way it wasn't done through gradual erosion of rights, it was just done.
In follow-up to edward's reply,

The Rise of Nazism in Germany

THE KILLING OF MILLIONS OF JEWS and other "non-Aryans" in the Holocaust is the greatest crime against humanity recorded in history. It was made possible by a unique combination of factors: the total control over the machinery of a modern state by the totalitarian regime of the National Socialists; the active cooperation or passive consent of a large part of the German population; the collaboration of like-minded regimes and people in the occupied territories; and a deeply rooted anti-Semitism common to all Christian countries in Europe. The catastrophic loss of humane standards in German society took place after the prolonged political and economic crisis of the 1920s.
For more - http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/english/47.html
And:

Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power

Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1927, which focused on "how to obtain and retain political power, how to use propaganda and terrorism, and how to build a political organization." ...Mein Kampf "struck a responsive chord among its target and those Germans who believed it was their destiny to dominate Europe."

...Once released from prison, Hitler decided to seize power constitutionally rather than by force of arms. Using demagogic oratory, Hitler spoke to scores of mass audiences, calling for the German people to resist the yoke of Jews and Communists, and to create a new empire which would rule the world for 1,000 years.

Rise to Power: 1930-1933
http://www2.dsu.nodak.edu/users/dmeier/Holocaust/hitler.html

So, from the end of WWI in 1919 conditions evolved until Hitler rose to power in the 1930's = a decade.

TheStatutoryApe said:
Just... wow...
Please see the last comment in the post above regarding John Dean.

As for the term "cabal" once again I don't know what news you follow, but the term cabal has become quite common beginning with reference to the close relationship between Dubya and Jeb in which one hand scratches the other's back (e.g., election irregularities).

A cabal is a number of persons united in some close design, usually to promote their private views and interests in a church, state, or other community by intrigue. Cabals are secret organizations composed of a few designing persons; a political cabal is often called a junta.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabal

Hmm... close knit group...promoting private views...church, state...secretive. Sound familiar yet? Maybe you prefer "junta."

----------

In general...to avoid additional OT posts, if members question a minor comment made, please jump through the google-hoops first yourself and provide (credible) sources to support your question.
 
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  • #112
phcatlantis said:
Good point, I cut and pasted the wrong URL. Here's http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_11/sjres23_eb.htm , Congress' authorization to the President to use military force against "those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
One thing the act doesn't address is how long this authorization lasts. It has no expiration date, so I guess it's implied that its effective until the job is done. When is the job done?

When bin Laden's caught? When his group is too weak to mount a threat (it already is)? Or do we have to eradicate any terrorist group willing to assume the al-Qaida brand name (such as Zarqawi, who attacks the same Islamic theocrats that bin Laden was supposedly championing)? Or do we have to eradicate all terrorist groups?

I think Law 107-40 still has some legitimacy (at least there is no real question of Bush being impeached), if only because Congress has been very slow to figure out how the US should deal with balancing security and liberty in the face of a threat that will never completely disappear.

After four years and with the Patriot Act up for renewal, some decisions about the kind of country we want to be 'forever' are overdue. If we were really on the ball, we wouldn't be in the position of fighting over an extension of the Patriot Act - after four years we would have already decided who we want to be.

Tell the American people that a few of their liberties are gone forever in the interest of security and see how well that works in the next election. The attitude will be "If you're not good enough to give us both, then it's probably time to make way for someone better than you".
 
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  • #113
russ_watters said:
Allow me to be perfectly clear (something these forums have been lacking of late):
If Bush suspends a national election or institutes martial law for any reason short of a national disaster that day, I'll be opposed to it and I'll line up to support impeachment.
Perhaps you guys should bookmark this post so that you can refer to it the next time you think about posting that I'd support anything Bush would do. :rolleyes: You (and pretty much everyone except Bob) completely ignored the explanation. Don't ask for it: scroll back and read it!
I did not address my post specifically to you because you are not the only member who defends Bush, or in this particular thread some are complacent about citizen privacy and spying.
 
  • #114
SOS said:
In follow-up to edward's reply,
You see I believe that we were talking about Bush's legislative actions and your comparison of this to the Nazis. "The Nazis didn't take over Germany in a day". Once appointed chancelor it took Hitler less than two months to make Germany a dictatorship under the Nazi party through his legislative actions. Bush has already been through a whole term of office and still hasn't succeed in this supposed goal of his. I don't think he's any where near it and I don't think he's ever going to get there. When Bush tries to dissolve congress or outlaw any political parties you let me know.
 
  • #115
TheStatutoryApe said:
You see I believe that we were talking about Bush's legislative actions and your comparison of this to the Nazis. "The Nazis didn't take over Germany in a day". Once appointed chancelor it took Hitler less than two months to make Germany a dictatorship under the Nazi party through his legislative actions. Bush has already been through a whole term of office and still hasn't succeed in this supposed goal of his. I don't think he's any where near it and I don't think he's ever going to get there. When Bush tries to dissolve congress or outlaw any political parties you let me know.
Gotcha. Still, erosion due to complacency of the population in regard to similar tactics that are being used took more time and set the stage for next steps. It could be that Bush simply has not been successful to date because there are still those who work hard to oppose the tactics—such as spying on anti-war protestors (not enemy combatants) without court order or proper congressional oversight—and only one tactic on a long list of misuse of power discussed here in this forum.

Clash Is Latest Chapter in Bush Effort to Widen Executive Power

By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; Page A01

...The Bush administration...says its assertions of authority in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have been carefully tailored to meet the needs of a 21st-century war against a nebulous foe. At his news conference Monday, Bush bristled at the notion that he sought "unchecked power" and said he had consulted with Congress extensively.
Hmm…the fact that Cheney has lobbied to expand executive power since he was "a young White House chief of staff for President Gerald R. Ford" would indicate this behavior has nothing to do with responding to terrorism. Furthermore it is misplaced:

"He's living in a time warp," said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and Reagan administration official. "The great irony is Bush inherited the strongest presidency of anyone since Franklin Roosevelt, and Cheney acts as if he's still under the constraints of 1973 or 1974."

Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) said: "The vice president may be the only person I know of that believes the executive has somehow lost power over the last 30 years."

…Even before the NSA surveillance program, the Bush administration has asserted its war-making authority in detaining indefinitely U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, denying prisoners access to lawyers or courts, rejecting in some cases the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, expanding its interrogation techniques to include harsher treatment and establishing secret terrorist prisons in foreign countries...

[And] when coupled with the huge expansion of the federal government in general under Bush -- the budget has grown by 33 percent and his administration has broadened the federal role in education and the scope of Medicare -- a growing number of conservatives are expressing concern about the size and reach of government on his watch.

...With both houses of Congress in Republican hands, lawmakers generally have been willing to yield to Bush's views on the balance of power.

...Rarely has the Republican Congress used its subpoena power to investigate Bush policies or programs or to force administration officials to explain them. Even when lawmakers are inclined to challenge the White House, they are restricted by secrecy rules in cases such as the NSA program, which was known to only a handful of key members briefed by the administration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001858.html

We definitely lack balance of power, which has resulted in lack of balance in security versus liberty. If we don’t get these things corrected, what’s next? Bush/Cheney are lunatics who should have never been in the WH, and their removal is overdue.
 
  • #116
SOS said:
Gotcha. Still, erosion due to complacency of the population in regard to similar tactics that are being used took more time and set the stage for next steps. It could be that Bush simply has not been successful to date because there are still those who work hard to oppose the tactics—such as spying on anti-war protestors (not enemy combatants) without court order or proper congressional oversight—and only one tactic on a long list of misuse of power discussed here in this forum.
Germany's political atmosphere as a whole from even before WWI set the Nazis up. It had little to do with their particular actions. They presented the same propaganda as most everyone else, they just did a better job of it.
Bush had a similar situation in the political atmosphere post 9/11. This fractor was temporary though. How he's been able to ride it as far as he has I think even the people who fell for it can't figure out. Bush is receiving more and more resistence and criticism as time goes on and the political climate becomes less and less hospitable to his course of actions.

By the way do you have any sources that show he has been spying on antiwar protesters that were not legitimate targets or similar misuse of power?

SOS said:
We definitely lack balance of power, which has resulted in lack of balance in security versus liberty. If we don’t get these things corrected, what’s next? Bush/Cheney are lunatics who should have never been in the WH, and their removal is overdue.
The congress members who are supposed to be standing up for this need to reach down and find a pair then. It's hard to believe that he's commited so many impeachable offenses when there's so little effort made by his political rivals to impeach him. Either they're cowards, they in reality have little to go on, or they are just as bad as Bush. Maybe a little of all three. Does the republican majority really make it that hard for them to do anything like this? Where are the congress members getting behind the "Impeach Bush" movements?
I'm not trying to say that you are wrong. I just want tro know, if he really has made all these offenses and they aren't just exagerations and propaganda, then why is congress so complacent?
 
  • #117
Maybe part of the problem is some of the technology has expanded beyond what the FISA court normally considers?

Domestic spying indicates changes at the NSA

The White House may not be too confident about what the FISA court would do if this type of surveillance hasn't been presented to the court before. It winds up being random surveillance of thousands of people in hopes of picking patterns out of the noise.
 
  • #118
Reading more on the NSA surveillance, this article, A glimpse inside the supersecret world of intel probably sheds the most light on why the Bush administration would avoid getting warrants from the FISA court. The White House didn't avoid FISA entirely, according to this article: Secret court judges to be briefed on spying.

The program was so highly classified that only Kollar-Kotelly, the head of the FISA court, was briefed, and only four members of Congress, Roberts and Rockefeller of the Senate Intelligence Commitee and Hoekstra and Harman of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed.

It does raise questions about the ability to provide adequate oversight of programs like this. It probably works for most of these super secret programs, but what does a member of Congress do when in Rockefeller's situation?
 
  • #119
TheStatutoryApe said:
Germany's political atmosphere as a whole from even before WWI set the Nazis up. It had little to do with their particular actions. They presented the same propaganda as most everyone else, they just did a better job of it.

Bush had a similar situation in the political atmosphere post 9/11. This fractor was temporary though. How he's been able to ride it as far as he has I think even the people who fell for it can't figure out. Bush is receiving more and more resistence and criticism as time goes on and the political climate becomes less and less hospitable to his course of actions.

By the way do you have any sources that show he has been spying on antiwar protesters that were not legitimate targets or similar misuse of power?
I find your request for sources to be ironic since you have yet to provide sources for your original assertion that Germany came under Nazi control in only a weeks time. The rise of Nazism and Hitler is usually covered in basic history courses and used as an example of population complacency and manipulation, which as pointed out earlier did not happen over night.

The matter of the Bush regime and monitoring of anti-war protestors has been all over the news. If you made the effort, I am certain you could find several reliable sources on the topic.

TheStatutoryApe said:
The congress members who are supposed to be standing up for this need to reach down and find a pair then. It's hard to believe that he's commited so many impeachable offenses when there's so little effort made by his political rivals to impeach him. Either they're cowards, they in reality have little to go on, or they are just as bad as Bush. Maybe a little of all three. Does the republican majority really make it that hard for them to do anything like this? Where are the congress members getting behind the "Impeach Bush" movements?

I'm not trying to say that you are wrong. I just want tro know, if he really has made all these offenses and they aren't just exagerations and propaganda, then why is congress so complacent?
It is only hard for you to believe. You claim you are not a Bush supporter (as has other members), but the constant defense makes if difficult to believe (and if you and these other members did not vote for Bush in either 2000 or 2004, I would be very surprised). As for your questioning of Republican control and/or impeachment, do you not read other member’s posts in this forum; including some above, and once again do you not watch the news?

There have been so many abuses of power prior to current debate about domestic spying (“fixing” intelligence to make a case for invasion of Iraq, the CIA leak, etc.) that it is difficult to choose which offense Bush/Cheney should be impeached for. If it were not for the Republican-controlled congress, and inappropriate impeachment proceedings against Clinton, these idiots would have been impeached long ago. They should be thankful to Clinton.
 
  • #120
1968

Operation CHAOS — The CIA has been illegally spying on American citizens since 1959, but with Operation CHAOS, President Johnson dramatically boosts the effort. CIA agents go undercover as student radicals to spy on and disrupt campus organizations protesting the Vietnam War. They are searching for Russian instigators, which they never find. CHAOS will eventually spy on 7,000 individuals and 1,000 organizations.

Wagergate Break-in — President Nixon sends in a team of burglars to wiretap Democratic offices at Watergate. The team members have extensive CIA histories, including James McCord, E. Howard Hunt and five of the Cuban burglars. They work for the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), which does dirty work like disrupting Democratic campaigns and laundering Nixon’s illegal campaign contributions. CREEP’s activities are funded and organized by another CIA front, the Mullen Company.

1974

CHAOS exposed — Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh publishes a story about Operation CHAOS, the domestic surveillance and infiltration of anti-war and civil rights groups in the U.S. The story sparks national outrage.

Angleton fired — Congress holds hearings on the illegal domestic spying efforts of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s chief of counterintelligence. His efforts included mail-opening campaigns and secret surveillance of war protesters. The hearings result in his dismissal from the CIA.
 
  • #121
BobG said:
It does raise questions about the ability to provide adequate oversight of programs like this. It probably works for most of these super secret programs, but what does a member of Congress do when in Rockefeller's situation?
A question that started coming up in the back of my mind when reading about that is, "What impact have things like C-SPAN coverage had on Congress' role in national security?" When there are television cameras constantly running, does that start forcing people to leave Congress out of the loop? What are the rules regarding holding a completely closed session of Congress? And if they did have such a completely closed session, where nobody except the representatives, the president, and other parties with appropriate security clearance and a need to be present were permitted in, how secure could the proceedings be, especially when you know the first thing the media is going to do is start reporting on this super-secret session of Congress that they've just been kicked out of? Ideally, that's how something like this would be addressed to Congress, where it's more than just a confidential memo to a handful of people who can't then disclose the information to anyone else to get their opinions on the legality of it. Something that involves enough members of Congress to be able to raise those questions and vote, but to keep the session private.

I'm not defending Bush's actions, just wondering if in the interest of making the activities of our leadership more open to the public view, which is generally a good thing, we have set up a system that hinders the sharing of information between the three branches of government in a manner that also hinders the ability to adequately utilize appropriate checks and balances for such sensitive issues.
 
  • #122
BobG said:
The program was so highly classified that only Kollar-Kotelly, the head of the FISA court, was briefed, and only four members of Congress, Roberts and Rockefeller of the Senate Intelligence Commitee and Hoekstra and Harman of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed.
It does raise questions about the ability to provide adequate oversight of programs like this. It probably works for most of these super secret programs, but what does a member of Congress do when in Rockefeller's situation?

Exactly how is briefing four intelligence committee members and one FISC judge on something this sensitive more inadequate than briefing two dozen members of Congress and twelve judges?
 
  • #123
The info below was on page 4 of my local paper?? Apparently one member of the secret court is not happy about the situation.

Updated: 11:21 p.m. ET Dec. 20, 2005
A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John D. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10538136/
 
  • #124
DOD Surveillance of Anti-War Protests in Vermont Provokes Concern

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=857767
MONTPELIER, VT (2005-12-22) Peace activists in Vermont are up in arms following an N-B-C News report last week that a secret Department of Defense database listed 15-hundred suspicious incidents around the country in a ten-month period. Some on the list were in Vermont. A leading Senator from the Green Mountain State is also demanding answers from the Secretary of Defense.

Apparently some of those under surveillance are Quakers - a group of pacifists.

Now if the Bush as Commander in Chief and his military are spying on US citizens because of their pacifist anti-war activities, I am somewhat concerned.

Aren't they supposed to be spying on those who are trying to harm Americans, or otherwise threaten the security of US citizens?

Or perhaps the pacifist Quakers are perceived by Bush as a threat to his war.
 
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  • #125
Astronuc said:
DOD Surveillance of Anti-War Protests in Vermont Provokes Concern
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=857767
MONTPELIER, VT (2005-12-22) Peace activists in Vermont are up in arms following an N-B-C News report last week that a secret Department of Defense database listed 15-hundred suspicious incidents around the country in a ten-month period. Some on the list were in Vermont. A leading Senator from the Green Mountain State is also demanding answers from the Secretary of Defense.
Apparently some of those under surveillance are Quakers - a group of pacifists.
Now if the Bush as Commander in Chief and his military are spying on US citizens because of their pacifist anti-war activities, I am somewhat concerned.
Aren't they supposed to be spying on those who are trying to harm Americans, or otherwise threaten the security of US citizens?
Or perhaps the pacifist Quakers are perceived by Bush as a threat to his war.

I have seen several similar links. It appears that the DOD has been assigned the task of spying on war protestors that was formerly done by the FBI during the Vietnam era.
It appears that the Bush administration has reincarnated Richard Nixon's paranoia.

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.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/
 
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  • #126
Astronuc said:
Now if the Bush as Commander in Chief and his military are spying on US citizens because of their pacifist anti-war activities, I am somewhat concerned.
I think that is the crux of the concern in this case. While we know he's been spying on some group of people, we don't know who. Without the warrants, and without disclosure of who was the target of surveillance, there's no way to know if it was only bona fide terrorist suspects, political opponents, anti-war protesters, absolutely anyone with family in the Middle East who received a phone call from them, etc. It's just my suspicious nature to wonder what does he have to hide if he couldn't disclose the names of these people to a court specifically formed to address these issues. I have no evidence one way or the other, but it sure does raise those questions, and I really want to see them answered.
 
  • #127
phcatlantis said:
Exactly how is briefing four intelligence committee members and one FISC judge on something this sensitive more inadequate than briefing two dozen members of Congress and twelve judges?
You've got a point. Considering this may violate citizens' rights and/or may violate a few laws, it really needs a public debate. If it's so highly classified that that debate can't occur it wouldn't be the first time a new toy was so secret it couldn't be used.
 
  • #128
Moonbear said:
A question that started coming up in the back of my mind when reading about that is, "What impact have things like C-SPAN coverage had on Congress' role in national security?" When there are television cameras constantly running, does that start forcing people to leave Congress out of the loop? What are the rules regarding holding a completely closed session of Congress? And if they did have such a completely closed session, where nobody except the representatives, the president, and other parties with appropriate security clearance and a need to be present were permitted in, how secure could the proceedings be, especially when you know the first thing the media is going to do is start reporting on this super-secret session of Congress that they've just been kicked out of? Ideally, that's how something like this would be addressed to Congress, where it's more than just a confidential memo to a handful of people who can't then disclose the information to anyone else to get their opinions on the legality of it. Something that involves enough members of Congress to be able to raise those questions and vote, but to keep the session private.

I'm not defending Bush's actions, just wondering if in the interest of making the activities of our leadership more open to the public view, which is generally a good thing, we have set up a system that hinders the sharing of information between the three branches of government in a manner that also hinders the ability to adequately utilize appropriate checks and balances for such sensitive issues.
Here are some comments in recent dicussions regarding technology:

MITCHELL: Well, isn‘t there a need because of the change in technology? That‘s the argument.

BIDEN: No, not at all.

MITCHELL: That technology has increased exponentially and they‘ve got to move rapidly and they‘re intercepting, literally, millions of pieces of information an hour.

BIDEN: Let me explain that. I‘m going to tell you my perspective in that. Under the FISA law, the president of the United States can do all of this for 72 hours, for three days, without doing anything. You just do it, period.

So he doesn‘t have to go to a court at all to decide to pick up all this information. If he decides he wants to continue to do that, he has to then go to the court within 72 hours and say, look, these are the guys I‘m eavesdropping on and these are the people and this is the reason why.

And it‘s a very low bar.

Something like 19,000 times—what was it, 19,000, I can‘t remember now, I think it was 19,000 times, they‘ve gone to the courts in almost every case said fine, go ahead.

Now, there‘s another provision no one‘s talking about. The other provision we wrote into the law, back in ‘78, if I‘m not mistaken it was ‘78, we said if there‘s a declaration of war, and by the way a congressional authorization to use force which the president has, is equivalent to a declaration of war, constitutionally. If there‘s a declaration of war, you can go—you know, for 15 days, Mr. President, you can do this.

You don‘t have to ask anybody. You don‘t just seek any wire tap. For 15 days you can do this. So this idea he has that technology‘s changed. That‘s a bunch of malarkey. Technology has changed, but you have plenty of time.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10565905/

And:

MITCHELL: What about the administration‘s argument that communications are now happening so rapidly and they are so intermingled between domestic and foreign, that to adequately protect American citizens, they need to take these steps?

GRAHAM: I think the administration has to answer a series of questions. One, what are the problems with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

No. 2, if they had identified those problems, why didn‘t they go to the Congress and ask that they be corrected. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Congress would have done almost anything the administration suggested.

And No. 3, of the cases that have been made based on these warrant-less intercepts, would they have been also made, had they followed the legal procedures. Has, in fact, this process of avoiding the law made us safer?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562660/

In regard to whether oversight may jeopardize national security:

STEWART: Well, your colleague and full disclosure, my pal, Jonathan Alter wrote in a “Newsweek” commentary that the only reason that the president did not want the NSA program to become public knowledge was because it was embarrassing and it would make trouble, not because it threatens national security. Does this fall into any pattern in this White House for dealing with sticky situations?

RICHARD WOLFFE [NEWSWEEK]: Sure, it does. The president likes playing the national security card. And frankly, you can see it in his press conference. He has gotten, in some ways he has the Democrats where he wants them to be. He can say, you‘re playing with the security of the nation and it is all about politics.

But, you know, I would agree to some extent with Jon Alter in saying this is more of a political problem than it is about national security in the end. Because as the president pointed out himself, al Qaeda and bin Laden himself are fully aware that this government and the United States in general eavesdrops on communications. The question is can they do it without a court warrant or not? And frankly for al Qaeda that‘s irrelevant. So, national security, it‘s not the problem. It is politics and the law.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10572792/
 
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  • #129
Informal Logic said:
I find your request for sources to be ironic since you have yet to provide sources for your original assertion that Germany came under Nazi control in only a weeks time. The rise of Nazism and Hitler is usually covered in basic history courses and used as an example of population complacency and manipulation, which as pointed out earlier did not happen over night.
As I've already pointed out my points were in the context of the use of legislative power to take control of the country. I also believe that my statement was along the lines of "depending on how you look at it". It is a historical fact that Hitler was appointed chancelor on January 30th of '33 and the actual (legislative) move for control of Germany took place within the next two months with the dissolving of the Reichstag, outlawing of the communist party, the new elections, and the invoking of the Enabling Act. The burning of the Reichstag and the elections one week later with all that happened during that period are generally considered rather pivotal to the Nazi take over of Germany very much like the political events surrounding 9/11 seem rather pivotal to the thrust Bush received to his political career. You can request sources if you don't believe any of this happened or what the time frame for it occurring was but when it actually comes to the question of "How long did it take the Nazis to take over Germany" we're really just dealing with opinion. Do we start with when the party was formed? Since it was out of commision for a while following the Putsch do we start from when the party was reformed? Do we start from before the party existed? This is why I added my caveat "depending on how you look at it".:wink:

Informal Logic said:
You claim you are not a Bush supporter (as has other members), but the constant defense makes if difficult to believe (and if you and these other members did not vote for Bush in either 2000 or 2004, I would be very surprised).
Then be very suprised. I'm notorious for playing devil's advocate. If the conservative view was the one with more voices here I would be arguing the other perspective.
 
  • #130
I would say the issue is pretty clear cut. It was decided by the Supreme Court in 1972 (UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)) In fact, this decision led to the establishment of the FISA court in 1978 (in response to Article IV of Powell's opinion).

The decision was also upheld in 1985 (MITCHELL v. FORSYTH, 472 U.S. 511 (1985). It was determined that John Mitchell couldn't be sued for directing unwarranted wiretaps, but only because the wiretaps in question occurred before the 1972 Supreme Court decision established that the wiretaps violated the Fourth Amendment. (Interesting trivia: Samuel Alito was one of the attorneys arguing Mitchell should have immunity from lawsuits related to the wiretaps).

In other words, the FISA of 1978 provided a legal way for the government to conduct domestic electronic surveillance rather than a way to restrict domestic intelligence gathering.
 
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  • #131
TheStatutoryApe said:
As I've already pointed out my points were in the context of the use of legislative power to take control of the country. I also believe that my statement was along the lines of "depending on how you look at it". It is a historical fact that Hitler was appointed chancelor on January 30th of '33 and the actual (legislative) move for control of Germany took place within the next two months with the dissolving of the Reichstag, outlawing of the communist party, the new elections, and the invoking of the Enabling Act. The burning of the Reichstag and the elections one week later with all that happened during that period are generally considered rather pivotal to the Nazi take over of Germany very much like the political events surrounding 9/11 seem rather pivotal to the thrust Bush received to his political career. You can request sources if you don't believe any of this happened or what the time frame for it occurring was but when it actually comes to the question of "How long did it take the Nazis to take over Germany" we're really just dealing with opinion. Do we start with when the party was formed? Since it was out of commision for a while following the Putsch do we start from when the party was reformed? Do we start from before the party existed? This is why I added my caveat "depending on how you look at it".:wink:
Once you made the clarification, it made more sense what you were saying. I think the point now being made is in regard to requesting sources when not providing sources yourself (an ever-growing sticking point for me). Also, I am often annoyed when the general context of a post is ignored due to obsession over a minor comment within it.

The general context of my original post is that over time conditions become ripe for events. I have made this case in regard to Bush and Palestinian demonstrations for democracy due to the death of Arafat, Reagan and the fall of the Soviet Union because their economic model could not compete with U.S. capitalism/imperialism over decades (not to mention others like the Pope, Margaret Thatcher, etc, who also played a role), etc. Its just BS and it seems to always be in support of Republican presidents (hmm).

TheStatutoryApe said:
Then be very suprised. I'm notorious for playing devil's advocate. If the conservative view was the one with more voices here I would be arguing the other perspective.
In all fairness I often detect a little more passion than I would attribute to the role of devils advocate, and assuming you voted it does not seem you would have voted for Kerry in 2004 (or Nader).

Anyway, back to the OP… Erosion of liberties does not happen overnight. There can be a catalyst, such as 9-11, that can fuel the beginning of erosion. But typically it will be a series of things, like election irregularities, fixing intelligence, leaking a CIA agent’s name to cover up the fixing of intelligence, torturing/secret prisons, use of WP, and domestic spying, etc. over time (and there are other things we don’t know about that could be added to this list). This isn’t a conspiracy theory—we know these things have really been going on.

And as you stated Bush has been in power for going on to six years—and that is a decent amount of time for such a process. Though I would claim it began before Dubya was elected in 2000—with his underhanded tactics to become Governor, Bush family ties, etc., and I pointed out his fascist behavior many times long before public knowledge of many of these activities. So let’s say it took Hitler about a decade to rise to power--Heck, if it did happen overnight, all the more reason to be concerned about Bush. History repeats itself, and if only we could learn from it. Let’s not be a complacent population.
 
  • #132
With all of the billions of dollars spent, and all of the secret spying, Homeland security doesn't seem to have people with a whole lot of common sense. For instance it wasn't until 2004 that TSA started a program to require Hazmat truckers to have background investigations.

It sems to me that this item should have been very high on the priority list, yet even after the idea was suggested by the NYC police department and pressed by a member of congress it still took another 14 months to implement the program.

http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/press_releases/2004/PR02660.Trucksec053004.html

But it's expected to take five years to check all 2.7 million truck drivers, and truckers fear logjams early in the program because there are few places to be fingerprinted.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/31/truckers.fingerprint/

WHAT ARE THEY THINKING ?
 
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  • #133
SOS said:
Once you made the clarification, it made more sense what you were saying. I think the point now being made is in regard to requesting sources when not providing sources yourself (an ever-growing sticking point for me). Also, I am often annoyed when the general context of a post is ignored due to obsession over a minor comment within it.
I know that sourcing is something that you are particular about and that many people are chastised for not doing. I do it when I think it is necessary and am willing to do it when asked but often find that people seem to ignore those things that I source. I doubt Informal Logic needed any links, but if he really wanted them he could have asked politely no?
I am rather annoyed with the way people accuse and catagorize so confidently.
I apologize for my side track on your comment but certain parallels being continually drawn were kind of irking me at that moment.

finish this in a bit...
 
  • #134
A major CIA blunder in Italy has me even more worried that our intellegence agencies are not quite up to par for the task that they are trying to do. I hope that they are better at spying on, than they are at covering their own trail.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3546937.html
 
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  • #135
SOS said:
The general context of my original post is that over time conditions become ripe for events.
What I saw was a parallel between Bush's actions(the OP) and that of Hitler/Nazis combined with paranoia about a fascist totalitarian state forming. I apologize for not being very clear about my point. In my opinion the very nature of our government and political system (or any like it for that matter) would make a gradual transition very unlikely and it did in fact require an aggressive seizing of power when the Nazis took control of Germany. If they had bided their time and waited for a slow transition, instead of coercion, violence, bribery, ect., I doubt it would have happened.
I think that here in the US while the balance between the two major political parties tips back and forth it stays relatively stable. I know that you have a nagging fear that Bush may somehow preemt the next elections and turn this into a real Totalitarian state, and I think that this is possible, but I doubt that it is very likely. I think that the conservatives are just having an upswing as a natural part of sociopolitical cycles and that it could easily go the other way again real soon.
What I worry about is that the left in their zeal to vilify the right are going to shoot themselves in the foot. The number of people I have met here, in CA of all the places, that have been involved with skinheads because they reacted adversely to the left's propaganda is really disheartening. I can only imagine how bad the phenomena is in other places where it's not so socially unacceptable to be associated with racists.

SOS said:
In all fairness I often detect a little more passion than I would attribute to the role of devils advocate, and assuming you voted it does not seem you would have voted for Kerry in 2004 (or Nader).
I didn't vote anyone for president to be honest.
Like I said I take what ever seems to be the underrepresented side. I almost worried about loosing my job once because I criticised Bush invading Afghanistan in front of a regular customer who blew up on me and didn't return to the store for a few months after that. My best friend's mother who is a hardcore conservative has bitten my head off over just about every political discussion we have ever had. She doesn't even want to see me or have anything to do with me anymore.

I think the rest of your post I have already adressed to some degree really.
I don't think we should be complacent but I don't think we should be overzealous either. You don't need to persuade the lefties just like the right doesn't need to persuade the righties. The ones that need persuading (or can be persuaded) are the ones in around the center and they tend to be put off by extremism(which is why they are centrists). When such a person isn't sure what to think of ID they aren't going to be persuaded by people implying they are stupid. Religeous people (and there are a whole hell of a lot of them) who aren't sure what to think about gay marriage are going to be put off by being told they must be bigots. People who aren't sure what to think about abortion won't take to well to being told they must want to take away womens rights..
 
  • #136
Why does the media think they knew everything I do think that there was domestic spying but why does the NY times have the authority to disclose secert oders?
 
  • #137
scott1 said:
Why does the media think they knew everything I do think that there was domestic spying but why does the NY times have the authority to disclose secert oders?
1st amendment to the constitution.
 
  • #138
scott1 said:
Why does the media think they knew everything I do think that there was domestic spying but why does the NY times have the authority to disclose secert oders?
They shouldn't have and, regardless of whether one agrees with domestic wiretapping policies, I'd tend to agree with Bush's assessment of the person who leaked Top Secret info.

It wasn't even necessary. There's plenty of unclassified info about this and you don't even have to do much searching yourself. The Federation of American Scientists have assembled quite a few unclassified documents on FISA on one page.

From unclassified sources, one could confidently infer a general idea of how the government conducts domestic surveillance, which leads to two points:

1) An anonymous source stating the government definitely does do this makes a better news story than one saying it would be shocking if the government isn't doing this.

2) The program itself is probably a little over classified, since only the details of how the program is conducted needs to be protected, not the existence of the program, itself. Potential public reaction to the program probably has a little to do with over classifying the program.

Edit: Some of the documents on the FAS page were used by the 9/11 commission to make their report. Going through them is kind of interesting. In general, Congress and the judicial branch have been very involved in trying to find the proper balance.

You have cases where people "crossed the line" violating the controls placed on domestic surveillance information and cases where people applied overly strict controls on domestic surveillance information. In other words, you have the mistakes you would expect in just about any process where humans are involved.
 
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  • #139
They avoided judicial review - that is the point and not the spying in and of itself. To argue that this is about spying, as opposed to unregulated abuse of power, is confusion at best, and obfuscation or outright lying at worst.

Btw, I watched an interview with Ann Coulter this morning. Holy cow! What an offensive and disgusting mouthpiece she is. Everything that came out was spin. It was like listening to Bush.
 
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  • #140
Excerpts from an interview last night on MSNBC with John Dean, former White House Councel:

OLBERMANN: Mr. Bush's defenders on this have said, in fact, he himself has quoted Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution. It says, he says, that it gives him the authority, requires him to protect this country in any way necessary. Is that absolute?

DEAN: Well, I've never read Article 2 quite as broadly as it's being read now, and I've often thought what would have happened if Richard Nixon had said, Well, you know, what this is really about is my commander-in-chief power. That's why I'm breaking into Daniel Ellsberg's office, to see if he's passing out these Pentagon papers to the communists.

That's the parallel argument…
----------
OLBERMANN: Two years ago, when you were writing your book “Worse Than Watergate,” you entitled a chapter “Scandals or Worse,” and you listed 11 specific areas where trouble might be brewing. And then you wrote less specifically about two other areas of concern.

Let me just review those 13 points, if you will, quickly here. One, character issues would meet Mr. Bush's past conduct, service record, and what not. Two, his prior business conduct, how to get a company and your own ball club without really trying or paying. Number three, whether or not the vice president had been truthful about his own health. And number four, Mr. Cheney's past business conduct. Hello, Halliburton.

Five, the possibility of civil rights violations in keeping protesters out of the Bush and Cheney events. Six, the president's executive order dismantling the Presidential records Act. Seven, those pesky little national energy policy development meetings that Mr. Cheney had chaired. Eight, the president's effort to prevent a 9/11 commission.
Nine, the failure to update the continuity-of-government plan. Ten, the possible misleading of Congress about Iraq. Eleven, the leaking of Valerie Plame's name by the White House.

And then, as I said, less formally, 12, what you quoted Orin Gross (ph) as saying, “Terrorism presents its real threat in provoking democratic regimes to embrace and employ authoritarian measures.” Sounds kind of like a forecast of this NSA spying story.

And lastly in this group here, efforts by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to expand the powers of the presidency.

I'm gathering that, two years later, you'd probably say we should be watching numbers 10 through 13 most closely. Or is there something new on the list?

DEAN: I think 10 through 13 would be a good place to start. And I think if, for example, the composition of the Congress changes in the House or the Senate in 2006, it's going to be Katy, bar the door. This administration has an awful lot of things they're going to have to explain.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10626716/

All I can say is we need to get balance back in Washington, so get yourself and others out to the polls to elect more Democrats in 2006.
 
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  • #141
Here is an interesting take from conservative columnist Steve Chapman
with the Chicago Tribune.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/premium/printedition/Sunday/perspective/chi-0512250256dec25,1,4979840.column?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
The disclosure that the president authorized secret and probably illegal monitoring of communications between people in the United States and people overseas again raises the question: Why?

The government easily could have gotten search warrants to conduct electronic surveillance of anyone with the slightest possible connection to terrorists. The court that handles such requests hardly ever refuses. But Bush bridles at the notion that the president should ever have to ask permission of anyone.

He claims he can ignore the law because Congress granted permission when it authorized him to use force against Al Qaeda. But we know that can't be true. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales says the administration didn't ask for a revision of the law to give the president explicit power to order such wiretaps because Congress--a Republican Congress, mind you--wouldn't have agreed. So the administration decided: Who needs Congress?

What we have now is not a robust executive but a reckless one. At times like this, it's apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need it to protect the nation, but because they want more power. Another paradox: In their conduct of the war on terror, they expect our trust, but they can't be bothered to earn it.
An excellent piece, he also gives other examples of wanting power for the sake of power.
 
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  • #142
Well as I mentioned in the beginning of this thread, I think that bush is spying on reporters. Here is the first hint that that may be the case.

Was the NSA listening?

Does NBC's Andrea Mitchell know something about the Bush administration's domestic spying program that the rest of us don't? As AMERICAblog's John Aravosis notes, Mitchell put a question to the New York Times' James Risen Tuesday that suggests that she might.

In an interview with Risen, Mitchell asked if he had any information suggesting that the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Risen said he hadn't heard that. Has Mitchell heard something to that effect, or was she just using Amanpour's name as the example of what might have gone wrong with the spying program?

We don't know the answer to that, and neither does Aravosis. But as Aravosis notes, the implications of tapping Amanpour's phone lines could be enormous. There's the chilling thought that government officials might be listening in on the conversations of a reporter, and then there's this: Amanpour's husband, who like any husband might have had occasion to use his wife's phone, happens to be Jamie Rubin, the former Clinton administration official who served as a foreign policy advisor for John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Update: As several readers note in the comments below, the exchange between Mitchell and Risen about Amanpour has rather mysteriously disappeared from the transcript of the interview posted on the MSNBC Web site. If MSNBC has an explanation for why Mitchell's question and Risen's answer have disappeared, we'd sure like to hear it. Did Mitchell not ask the question -- that seems unlikely, doesn't it? -- or does someone at MSNBC just wish she hadn't?

-- Tim Grieve
This just keeps getting more and more interesting.

A net gain of fifteen House seats and we can get subpoena power and find out what is really going on with the Bush/Cheney cabal.
 
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  • #143
Skyhunter said:
Well as I mentioned in the beginning of this thread, I think that bush is spying on reporters. Here is the first hint that that may be the case.
We don't know the answer to that, and neither does Aravosis. But as Aravosis notes, the implications of tapping Amanpour's phone lines could be enormous. There's the chilling thought that government officials might be listening in on the conversations of a reporter, and then there's this: Amanpour's husband, who like any husband might have had occasion to use his wife's phone, happens to be Jamie Rubin, the former Clinton administration official who served as a foreign policy advisor for John Kerry's presidential campaign.
This just keeps getting more and more interesting.
A net gain of fifteen House seats and we can get subpoena power and find out what is really going on with the Bush/Cheney cabal.
This kind of thing is the most bothersome part of allowing anyone to eavesdrop or snoop into anyone's business without a warrant.

The argument that a private citizen has nothing to fear from surveillance as long as they have nothing to hide may be true, but monitoring of political opponents or of reporters that might put out unfavorable stories goes beyond infringing on the rights of a private citizen. These are the kind of things that affect the political direction of the country.

The result is a serious dampening of democracy, especially in the current climate where Republicans and Democrats are practically at war with each other. It's insanity to think either party should have access to these kinds of tools without some close supervision by a neutral party (presumably the judiciary).
 
  • #144
BobG said:
The result is a serious dampening of democracy, especially in the current climate where Republicans and Democrats are practically at war with each other. It's insanity to think either party should have access to these kinds of tools without some close supervision by a neutral party (presumably the judiciary).
I still have not heard an argument yet as to why the secret FISA courts should not be petitioned for warrants. What do they not want the judges to know?

It is quite obvious that Bush broke the law. The law that he took an oath to uphold.
 
  • #145
Skyhunter said:
I still have not heard an argument yet as to why the secret FISA courts should not be petitioned for warrants.
We haven’t and won’t because there is absolutely no excuse for this.

WASHINGTON — The nonpartisan research arm of Congress on Friday questioned the legal foundation of President Bush's decision to order eavesdropping on Americans without court warrants.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002725671_spying07.html

Skyhunter said:
What do they not want the judges to know?
Bush authorized the eavesdropping operation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He's said that it's limited to tracking Americans who are suspected of belonging to or aiding al-Qaida or its allies.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002725671_spying07.html

I understand something like an average of 500 calls a day are monitored. How can there be that many Al Qaida terrorists communicating with U.S. citizens on a daily basis? They aren’t.

NEW YORK - The volume of information gathered from telephone and Internet communications by the National Security Agency without court-approved warrants was much larger than the White House has acknowledged… the NSA technicians combed large amounts of phone and Internet traffic seeking patterns pointing to terrorism suspects.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10592932/

They also didn’t want courts/judges to know about this:

On December 14, NBC Nightly News revealed the existence of a hitherto secret 400-page Defense Department document listing more than 1,500 "suspicious incidents" that occurred during the pervious ten months. Among those incidents was a meeting by activists at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth , Florida , to plan a protest against military recruiting at local high schools. Other "suspicious incidents" include an anti-war protest in Los Angeles featuring an effigy of the President and a December 2004 meeting to plan a protest against military recruiters in Boston.

…Heavily-censored documents obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request has revealed a pattern of spying by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces on anti-war groups and others that work on environmental issues, animal rights and poverty relief. Groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been labeled "domestic terrorists" in FBI files.
http://www.aclu-mass.org/update/

And people aren’t worried about how the term “terrorist” is thrown around? Not to mention UN officials and diplomats under constant surveillance.

Skyhunter said:
It is quite obvious that Bush broke the law. The law that he took an oath to uphold.
In an article printed Friday on the op-ed page of The Washington Post, Daschle… wrote that Congress explicitly denied a White House request for war-making authority in the United States.

"This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas ... but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens," Daschle wrote.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/23/politics/main1165139.shtml

It is obvious the Bush administration knew it was illegal or they would not have made such attempts to get the authorization legally, and that they knowingly placed themselves above the law just the same. In further cover-up:

Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller had been summoned to the Oval Office by the President on December 6 in an effort to stave off publication. Once the piece was published, Bush, Cheney, Rice and other administration officials launched an aggressive offensive attacking the messenger - "Our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies and endangers our country," Bush declared in a December 17 radio address.
http://www.aclu-mass.org/update/

Aside from confusing “whistleblower” with treason, the sad irony is our civil liberties are being compromised for nothing. The huge amount of data collected is impossible to search properly, and more importantly terrorists have known their communications are monitored so have long since found other ways to communicate undetected.

"September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to do so to ourselves.” — From US political counselor at the United States Embassy in Athens, Greece, John Brady Kiesling’s letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Feb. 24, 2003. Kiesling was a career diplomat who had served in United States embassies for nearly 20 years, from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan.

The people who still defend/support the Bush administration are off their rock.
 
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  • #146
NEW YORK - The volume of information gathered from telephone and Internet communications by the National Security Agency without court-approved warrants was much larger than the White House has acknowledged… the NSA technicians combed large amounts of phone and Internet traffic seeking patterns pointing to terrorism suspects.
Bulk mining of communications for 'suspicious patterns' has to be what the White House is bypassing the FISA court for. How do you get a warrant for random searches when you don't even know who you'll be searching yet?

The 'threat' isn't big enough to warrant this kind of reaction. However, given the emotional reaction to 9/11, no government leader would want to face the probable reaction of the public towards a government leader that didn't take advantage of every tool available to them if another terrorist attack occurred. I doubt any politician could imagine themselves explaining "I was busy protecting Americans' civil liberties" when asked what they were doing to prevent another 9/11.

Terrorism works exactly because it does cause a terror far out of proportion to its actual damage. (In fact, if terrorist groups flew planes into populated cities once a month, their 'real' threat would rise large enough for you to be as terrified of a terrorist attack as you are driving your car).

The proper response to 9/11 would have been to invade Afghanistan to debilitate al-Qaida, taking out the Taliban if they stood in the way, then leave the country once the job was done. Would al-Qaida or some other terrorist group re-established themselves in Afghanistan or another country with almost no government control? Of course. And we would have to mount another invasion.

I don't think you can ever eliminate terrorist groups completely, but you could eventually establish the idea that association with or protection of any terrorist group guarantees elimination of the 'enablers'. Without a stable base of operations, none of these terrorist groups can mount more than small scale attacks.

While small scale terrorist attacks are a problem, they aren't a big enough problem to warrant giving up your civil liberties for.
 
  • #147
BobG said:
Bulk mining of communications for 'suspicious patterns' has to be what the White House is bypassing the FISA court for. How do you get a warrant for random searches when you don't even know who you'll be searching yet?
The 'threat' isn't big enough to warrant this kind of reaction. However, given the emotional reaction to 9/11, no government leader would want to face the probable reaction of the public towards a government leader that didn't take advantage of every tool available to them if another terrorist attack occurred. I doubt any politician could imagine themselves explaining "I was busy protecting Americans' civil liberties" when asked what they were doing to prevent another 9/11.
Terrorism works exactly because it does cause a terror far out of proportion to its actual damage. (In fact, if terrorist groups flew planes into populated cities once a month, their 'real' threat would rise large enough for you to be as terrified of a terrorist attack as you are driving your car).
The proper response to 9/11 would have been to invade Afghanistan to debilitate al-Qaida, taking out the Taliban if they stood in the way, then leave the country once the job was done. Would al-Qaida or some other terrorist group re-established themselves in Afghanistan or another country with almost no government control? Of course. And we would have to mount another invasion.
I don't think you can ever eliminate terrorist groups completely, but you could eventually establish the idea that association with or protection of any terrorist group guarantees elimination of the 'enablers'. Without a stable base of operations, none of these terrorist groups can mount more than small scale attacks.
While small scale terrorist attacks are a problem, they aren't a big enough problem to warrant giving up your civil liberties for.
I don't believe we know yet how and for what reasons Bush was circumventing the FISA courts. I agree that data mining was probably (hopefully) a big part of it. I think it goes beyond that though, and if congress will do it's duty and provide oversight we might learn more. We will not learn everything, much of the evidence, recordings etc have already been disposed of.

I agree about Afghanistan, and destroying the terrorist organizations. (I wish Bush would do the same.) I think that terrorism could be eliminated, but it requires that humanity evolve, and that starts with the affluent working toward providing for the self maintenance needs of all humans. When people are not constantly exposed and subjected to injustice, they are far less likely to lash out violently in desperation.

Corporatism, and the exploitation of people and resources for profit is not the system that will bring about this spiritual leap in human consciousness. I tend to agree with Smurf, that anarchism is a better ideology for an enlightened world. We have the technology, the wealth and the resources. All we lack is the political will.
 
  • #148
BobG said:
However, given the emotional reaction to 9/11, no government leader would want to face the probable reaction of the public towards a government leader that didn't take advantage of every tool available to them if another terrorist attack occurred.
I think we can all appreciate this predicament… Since many of us asked this very question regarding prior attacks, most notably 9-11. In that case the intelligence was made available--without breaking the law--but was not acted upon appropriately. Also, I would have more leniencies toward Bush’s claims that he is protecting our national security if other more obvious efforts were being made such as border control.

Then it comes down to this question:

…in addition to questions about the legality of the program, another question certain to be asked by Congress is what the secret surveillance accomplished.

So far the White House has offered only one conflicting example (video), Stewart reports. That was the case of Iyman Faris, an Ohio truck driver and naturalized U.S. citizen, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to cut down the Brooklyn bridge with a blowtorch. The NSA spy program was necessary because it "helped uncover" the Faris plot, the White House told The New York Times, which broke the surveillance story. But last summer the president gave credit for the Faris case to the Patriot Act, which does require court approval for wiretaps.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/23/politics/main1165139_page2.shtml

And returning to the points made in my earlier post above:

If we only "connect the dots" from diverse sources we can catch people before they have a time to act. Recent history indicates that this has not worked well. We have had attacks in Spain, the UK, Indonesia and several other places just in the past year or two. None of these impending attacks was uncovered. Why not?

Here we get into the awful truth of all data mining and pattern recognition techniques. ...In addition they [terrorists] will use a made up vocabulary to communicate, hence no key words.*

The next problem with finding patterns of unknown activists is the volume of material that must be scanned. The 9/11 commission stressed the fact that there were links in the gathered data which showed connections between the aircraft hijackers. They assumed that the failure to make the connections was do to poor management, or "barriers" between intelligence agencies, or some other organizational failing. In point of fact the real reason was that there is just too much information and finding the parts that are significant is essentially impossible.
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/12/27/152645/75

*And terrorists use other tactics such as posting messages in a website, for example. This dragnet surveillance isn’t thwarting terrorists, and isn’t even inconveniencing them in any significant way.

What it has been doing is causing even mainstream sites/blogs to spell Iraq as Iraw or Irac to avoid being monitored. I personally avoid subject headings with key words when I send emails. Good Lord, think what all this has come to. This is far beyond Nixon.
 
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  • #149
So far in this thread we have primarily been concerned with NSA doing a lot of data mining on Americans who supposedly are communicating with foreign entities.

In the meantime the CIA, FBI, military and Homeland security are probably data mining on a much grander scale domestically. Still my biggest concern is that with all of that info floating around so many agencies, they are going to stumble over it.

There is no real guarantee that this greatly expanded security gathering conglomerate is going to be any less disfunctional than preceding agencies were when they bungled 911, even though a Phoenix FBI agent handed them a smoking gun.
 
  • #150
Gore's Challenge to Congress and the Media

The issue of domestic syping and the possiblity of the president exceeding constitutional authority were the subject of Al Gore's address on Martin Luther King Day.

Geez, if only Gore had presented himself that way in 2000, perhaps the country would not be so bad off. :rolleyes:
Gore's remarks have already created a firestorm on the right, with the Republican National Committee decrying the speech as a diatribe "laden with inaccuracies and anger."

But don't settle for the RNC spin, nor for that of its media acolytes.

Gore's speech, while surely controversial, contained a dramatic and significant critique not merely of the Bush administration's wrongdoing but of the failure of Congress and major media to expose and challenge abuses of power.

What was said in Washington on Monday mattered. Indeed, it mattered so much that the the spin machine of the president's party is hard at work seeking to mischaracterize the former vice president's remarks -- remarks that bluntly criticized both Republicans and Democrats.

Here is a transcript of what Al Gore had to say:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20060117/cm_thenation/150069_1
 
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