Help me out here, are they trying to persuade al-Qaeda not to "hate us - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 01-18-2007, 03:29 AM

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have told us, time and again, for more than five years, why our terrorist enemies....hate us:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresid...p20010916.html
Sept. 16, 2001

.....VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think he seriously misreads the American people. I think the--I mean, you have to ask yourself, why somebody would do what he does. Why is someone so motivated? Obviously he's filled with hate for the United States and for everything we stand for...

MR. RUSSERT: Why?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: ...freedom and democracy.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0010920-8.html
Sept. 20, 2001

THE PRESIDENT: ....Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. (Applause.)

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...020415-10.html
April 15, 2002

...The President:.... And I look forward to working with him in the Senate on a lot of issues other than those I've discussed. I want to talk about three issues facing America. The first are homeland security. My most important job is to make sure the enemy doesn't hit us again. My most important job is to protect innocent Americans.

You need to know that the nature of the people we're dealing with, they're cold-blooded killers. They hate us. And you know why they hate us? They hate us because we love freedom. They hate us because love the fact and honor the fact that we worship freely in America. They can't stand the thought of free elections, free press. And they're out there....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0020501-2.html
May 1, 2002

....THE PRESIDENT:...You just need to know it's still a dangerous period in Afghanistan. There's still a lot of killers roaming around, and they hate America. They hate us because we're free. Then cannot stand the thought that we have freedom of religion in America; that we respect each other based upon our personal religious beliefs. They cannot stand the thought that there's honest political discourse. There's free press -- confident they hate that. They hate us. And so, wherever they try to hide, we're going to get 'em......

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0020822-3.html
Aug. 20, 2002

....THE PRESIDENT:....The more we speak our mind freely, the more they hate us. The more free our press is, the more they hate us. And therefore, since we're not going to yield to our freedoms, since we're not going to yield the values we hold dear, we've got to do everything we can to defend the homeland.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0021003-6.html
Oct. 3, 2002

....THE PRESIDENT:....We fight a war against cold-blooded killers who hide in caves and send youngsters to their suicidal death. They do so because -- and they hate us because we love freedom. See, they hate for what we love. <h3>We love our freedoms, and we're not going to relinquish our freedoms. And the stronger we hold on to our freedoms the more they hate us.</h3> (Applause.)

And so we've got to button up our homeland. And I spoke to that earlier today......

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0021004-3.html
Oct. 4, 2002

....THE PRESIDENT:....<b>They hate us because we love political discourse</b> and a free society. They hate us because of our free press. They hate everything about us, because of our freedom.......

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040505-2.html
May 5, 2004

... THE PRESIDENT: Sure. Do you remember September the 11th, 2001? Al Qaeda attacked the United States. They killed thousands of our citizens. I will never forget what they have done to us. They declared war on us. And the United States will pursue them. And so long as I'm the President, we will be determined, steadfast, and strong as we pursue those people who kill innocent lives because they hate freedom.

And, of course, al Qaeda looks for any excuse. But the truth of the matter is, they hate us, and they hate freedom, and they hate people who embrace freedom.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060104-2.html
Jan. 4, 2006

....THE VICE PRESIDENT:....Wartime conditions are, in every case, a test of military skill and national resolve. But this is especially true in the war on terror. Four years ago, President Bush told Congress and the country that the path ahead would be difficult, that we were heading into a long struggle, unlike any we have ever known. All this has come to pass. We have faced, and are facing today, enemies who hate us, who hate our country, and who hate the liberties for which we stand.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060717-9.html

......THE VICE PRESIDENT:......That effort includes a home front -- and the home front is every bit as important as the battlefields overseas. We are facing enemies who hate us, who hate our country, and hate the liberties for which we stand......

.....The President also signed the Patriot Act, which is helping us disrupt terrorist activity, break up terror cells within the United States, and protect the lives of Americans. Another vital step the President took in the days after 9/11 was to authorize the National Security Agency to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications. There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al Qaeda that have one end in the United States. If you'll recall, the report of the 9/11 Commission focused criticism on our inability to uncover links between terrorists at home and terrorists abroad. The authorization the President made after September 11th helped address that problem in a manner that is fully consistent with the constitutional responsibilities and the legal authority of the President and with the civil liberties of the American people......

Soooo....they told us why our enemies "hate us".....and when I compare the statements of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney....with just a few reports of current events, I am wondering if I've figured out what their "grand plan" really is....

Is it possible that Bush and Cheney are trying to lessen, or even remove the main reasons that the "terrorists hate us". Does the Bush/Cheney "GWOT" strategy include ending our "freedom", our "political discourse", and our "democracy", so that the "terrorists" will no longer "hate us" ?

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/wa...pagewanted=all
January 18, 2007
Court to Oversee U.S. Wiretapping in Terror Cases
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 — The Bush administration, in a surprise reversal, said on Wednesday that it had agreed to give a secret court jurisdiction over the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program and would end its practice of eavesdropping without warrants on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists.

The Justice Department said it had worked out an “innovative” arrangement with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that provided the “necessary speed and agility” to provide court approval to monitor international communications of people inside the United States without jeopardizing national security.

The decision capped 13 months of bruising national debate over the reach of the president’s wartime authorities and his claims of executive power, and it came as the administration faced legal and political hurdles in its effort to continue the surveillance program.

The new Democratic-led Congress has pledged several investigations. More immediately, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is expected to face hostile questioning on Thursday from the Senate Judiciary Committee on the program. And an appellate court in Cincinnati is scheduled to hear arguments in two weeks on the government’s appeal of an earlier ruling declaring the program illegal and unconstitutional......

.......President Bush has authorized the continuation of the N.S.A. program every 45 days by executive order to allow the N.S.A. to conduct wiretaps on international communications without a court warrant. When the current order expires, however, President Bush has decided not to reauthorize the program, officials said.

The Justice Department said Wednesday that it had obtained multiple orders, or warrants, a week ago from the FISA court allowing it to monitor international communications in cases where there was probable cause to believe one of the participants was linked to Al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist group.

“As a result of these orders,” Mr. Gonzales told leaders of Congressional Intelligence and Judiciary Committees in a letter dated Wednesday, “any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”

Justice Department officials said that the FISA court orders, which were not made public, were not a broad approval of the surveillance program as a whole, an idea that was proposed last year in Congressional debate over the program. They strongly suggested that the orders secured from the court were for individual targets, but they refused to provide details of the process used to identify targets — or how court approval had been expedited — because they said it remained classified. The senior Justice Department official said that discussing “the mechanics of the orders” could compromise intelligence activities......

.........But senior lawmakers said they were still uncertain Wednesday, even after the administration’s announcement, about how the court would go about approving warrants, how targets would be identified, and whether that process would differ from the court’s practices since 1978.

The administration said it had briefed the full House and Senate Intelligence Committees in closed sessions on its decision.

<b>But Representative Heather A. Wilson, Republican of New Mexico</b>, who serves on the Intelligence committee, disputed that, and some Congressional aides said staff members were briefed Friday without lawmakers present.

Ms. Wilson, who has scrutinized the program for the last year, said she believed the new approach relied on a blanket, “programmatic” approval of the president’s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants.

<b>Administration officials “have convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president’s terrorism surveillance program,” Ms. Wilson said in a telephone interview.</b> She said Congress needed to investigate further to determine how the program is run......

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002357.php
Update: Specter Admits Role in Expanding WH Powers
By Paul Kiel - January 17, 2007, 3:33 PM

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) confirmed that as Judiciary Committee chairman last year he made a last-minute change to a bill that expanded the administration's power to install U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval.

Seizing upon the new authority granted by Congress last March, <b>the White House has pushed out several U.S. Attorneys, and begun to replace them without the Senate's consent.</b>

"I can confirm for you that yes, it was a Specter provision," a spokesperson for the senator wrote to me in an email earlier today, responding to repeated inquiries. <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002354.php">Earlier</a> we reported that <b>Specter had been fingered for the last-minute change, made in a select Republicans-only meeting after the House and Senate had voted on earlier versions.</b>

Still, a mystery remains: Why Specter wanted the change, which arguably weakened the Senate's role in selecting federal prosecutors.

The senator made no public comment on the provision at the time of the bill's passage. A congressional report which accompanied the final version of the bill said that Specter's change "addresses an inconsistency in the appointment process of United States Attorneys." It's not clear, however, what exactly that inconsistency was.

In her email to me, Specter's aide did not respond to my request for an explanation of why Specter wanted the change.

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...9-1m13lam.html
<b>Lam stays silent about losing job</b>

Law enforcement defends her record
By Kelly Thornton
and Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

January 13, 2007

Amid news reports that she has been asked to step down, U.S. Attorney Carol Lam declined repeated interview requests yesterday and did not address the matter with her staff.

At a weekly managers meeting, Lam was stoic, conducting business as usual and discussing next week's caseload, according to people who attended. She made no mention of a resignation request by the Bush administration, nor did anyone ask about it.

However, she did discuss the matter with at least one law enforcement colleague. Dan Dzwilewski, head of the FBI office in San Diego, said he spoke to Lam several times yesterday and he feels the criticism and the way the situation was handled are unfair.

“I don't think it's the right way to treat anybody. What's the decision based on?” Dzwilewski said. “I don't share the view of whoever's making the decision back there in Washington that they'd like her to resign. I feel Carol has an excellent reputation and has done an excellent job given her limited resources.”

Dzwilewski said he sympathized with Lam on issues of stretching budgets to meet priorities and felt that criticism that she wasn't giving proper attention to smuggling, drugs and gun crimes was off-base. “What do you expect her to do? Let corruption exist?” he said.

<b>Lam's continued employment as U.S. attorney is crucial to the success of multiple ongoing investigations, the FBI chief said.</b>

As for the reason for any pressure to resign, Dzwilewski said: “I can't speak for what's behind all that, what's the driving force behind this or the rationale. I guarantee politics is involved.”

Dzwilewski declined to discuss Lam's demeanor during their conversations, her state of mind, when or if she will resign or her future plans.

“It will be a huge loss from my perspective,” Dzwilewski said. “What she's going to do, my guess is she's still trying to figure that out herself.”

Other members of the law enforcement community also defended Lam.

“She's been by far the most outstanding U.S. attorney we've ever had,” City Attorney Michael Aguirre said. “By far, she's done more to clean up the corruption in this city than anyone else, and she has won a national reputation as one of the top prosecutors in the country.

Sources have told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Lam was asked to step down because she failed to make smuggling and gun cases a priority, choosing instead to focus on fewer cases that she considered more significant, such as public corruption and white-collar crime.

<b>Some lawyers theorized yesterday that it wasn't just misplaced priorities that led to her impending ouster. The Randy “Duke” Cunningham case has spawned other corruption probes of Republicans in Washington, leading to conjecture that politics played a part in the decision to force her out.</b>

However, Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney in San Antonio, Texas, said everybody in the position knows it's not a permanent job.

“We go when the president goes and sometimes before,” he said....

Quote:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1169028144620
U.S. Attorney Ryan's Departure May Be Part of Bush Administration Purge

Justin Scheck
The Recorder
January 18, 2007

...."It has come to our attention that the Bush Administration is pushing out U.S. Attorneys from across the country under the cloak of secrecy and then appointing indefinite replacements without Senate confirmation," Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in a press statement last week.

She reiterated that sentiment on the Senate floor Tuesday, adding that somewhere between five and 10 U.S. Attorneys are being forced out.

San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam also resigned this week, and on Tuesday, a spokesman for Republican Rep. Darrell Issa told a San Diego paper that Lam had been asked to step down. .....

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives...ke_cunningham/
Questions, Concerns Swirl around Politics of Prosecutor's Forced Exit
By Justin Rood - January 13, 2007, 8:38 AM

The head of the FBI's San Diego office and several former federal prosecutors are publicly questioning the politics behind the Bush administration's effort to force Carole Lam to resign as U.S. Attorney for San Diego.

Lam focused her office's efforts on public corruption, including the sprawling Duke Cunningham scandal. That investigation has touched several Republican lawmakers, leading some to speculate that Lam brought political heat down on herself with that probe, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The top FBI official for San Diego said that Lam's dismissal would jeopardize several ongoing investigations. "I guarantee politics is involved," special agent in charge Dan Dzwilewski told the paper. He did not speculate further.

“It will be a huge loss from my perspective,” Dzwilewski said.

Peter Nunez, who held Lam's post from 1982 to 1988, told the North County (Calif.) Times he was "in a state of shock" from hearing the news of Lam's forced ouster. "It's just like nothing I've ever seen before in 35-plus years. To be asked to resign and to be publicly humiliated by leaking this to the press is beyond any bounds of decency and behavior. It shocks me. It really is outrageous.".....

Cunningham Prosecutor Forced Out
By Justin Rood - January 12, 2007, 11:29 AM

The epic Duke Cunningham scandal gets weirder: Carole Lam, the San Diego U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the corrupt former lawmaker, is being quietly pushed out by the Bush administration. Lam's office has recently been troubling the CIA and Capitol Hill by pushing for documents related to the Cunningham investigation.

According to this morning's San Deigo Union-Tribune, the White House's reason for giving her the axe is that she "failed to make smuggling and gun cases a top priority." But most folks the paper talked to -- supporters and detractors -- said that sounded like a load of hooey.

A belated attempt at a cover-up? That doesn't quite fit. It's not like the Cunningham investigation has earned a place in the Great Scandal Prosecutions Hall of Fame. There have been signs of trouble all along. There was the strange decision to throw him in jail before ensuring he told everything he knew, as well as evidence of poor coordination between the numerous federal agencies involved in investigating the fiasco. If the administration for some reason didn't want the truth to come out about what the Cunningham scandal touched -- well, many folks thought all they had to do was sit back and let the probes tangle themselves in knots......

WSJ: CIA Blocking Cunningham Investigation
By Justin Rood - January 9, 2007, 10:01 AM

The CIA is refusing to cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating the Duke Cunningham scandal, the Wall Street Journal's Scott Paltrow reports today......

Quote:

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/pri...c-7aaa4efa6a3a
Published 12/28/2006

End around

Senators question U.S. attorney appointment.

J. Timothy Griffin was sworn in as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas on Dec. 20, less than a week after his appointment prompted unusual public expressions of outrage from both of the state’s U.S. senators.

The outrage stems from the way Griffin was appointed. Instead of following the normal process, which would involve a presidential nomination and confirmation by the U.S. Senate, the Bush administration utilized a provision in the 2005 reauthorization of the Patriot Act that allows the attorney general to appoint an “interim U.S. attorney” without Senate confirmation. Therefore, Griffin, 38, will serve as interim U.S. attorney until he is formally nominated or replaced by the president.

Interim appointments are usually made to fill vacancies, but Griffin was named to the U.S. attorney post on Dec. 15, while it was still occupied by Bud Cummins.

Cummins resigned on Dec. 20.

“Quite frankly, within the legal community in Central Arkansas and even Eastern Arkansas, they felt Bud was being pushed out so Tim could be rewarded with this position he wanted,” said Michael Teague, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor.

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln said, “Clearly, the president and his administration are aware of the difficulty it would take to get Tim Griffin confirmed through the normal process, and therefore chose to circumvent it in order to name him as interim U.S. attorney. This decision denied the Senate the opportunity to carefully consider and evaluate Mr. Griffin’s qualifications and denied the American people the transparency the standard nomination process provides.”

“The White House worked very hard to get him this job and keep him from going under oath and answer questions about his political life,” Teague added. “We’re not saying there should not be a process to name an interim position, but it should be done in good faith that a permanent replacement will be named at some point. The White House has indicated to the senator that Tim Griffin is their person, so the question is, if he is their person, why not nominate him? It’s an effort to keep him from going under oath.”

Asked to respond to 10 written questions regarding his appointment, Griffin provided the following statement: “As a fifth-generation Arkansan and the spouse of an Arkansas native, I love Arkansas and its people. I am honored to have the opportunity to serve the people of Arkansas as U.S. attorney. The strength of this office lies with the many career professionals who work here. My top priority is to ensure that all Arkansans are treated equally under the law. I look forward to working with federal, state and local law enforcement to make Arkansas a safer place to live.”

Griffin had worked for Cummins as a special assistant since September, after a year of active duty in the U.S. Army — first as a prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Ky., and then as a Judge Advocate General with the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, Iraq.

Before that, Griffin was deputy director of the White House Political Affairs Office (where he served under Political Affairs Director Karl Rove), and Lincoln and Pryor both suggest that Griffin’s appointment as U.S. attorney is a reward for his service in the Bush administration.

“I do not know Tim Griffin personally,” Lincoln said. “However, I have concerns about his partisan activities over a four-year period under Karl Rove in the White House, which causes me to question his ability to perform the duties of U.S. attorney in a fair and impartial manner.”

“We all know what’s going on here,” Teague said. “He’s being rewarded with this post for his political work.”

That political work includes serving from 1995-96 as an associate independent counsel investigating Henry Cisneros, who was President Bill Clinton’s secretary of housing and urban development; senior investigative counsel to the Republican-controlled House Government Reform Committee’s 1997-99 inquiry into foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee; deputy research director for the Republican National Committee from 1999-2000; legal adviser to the Bush/Cheney recount team in Florida following the 2000 election; special assistant to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff from 2001-02; and research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee from 2002-05, after which he joined the White House political affairs office.

The British Broadcasting Corporation unearthed e-mail messages Griffin sent from the RNC in 2004 containing spreadsheet information on thousands of Florida voters. The spreadsheets were titled “caging,” which, according to the BBC, alludes to a voter suppression tactic.

Teague says that episode, and Griffin’s other political work, explains why Griffin won’t submit to the traditional confirmation process.

“Bud had to go through the process,” Teague said. “What makes this guy so special? What are they trying to hide? Why not go under oath and allow the people of Eastern Arkansas to ask questions about his qualifications for the job? His primary professional occupation has been political research and political campaigns.”

Griffin’s legal experience includes a year as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Little Rock while he worked for Chertoff, but Teague says there were more qualified candidates, and that Griffin will be hindered by the controversy surrounding his appointment.

“No one in the Arkansas legal community knows Tim Griffin,” Teague said. “The people of Eastern Arkansas deserve an all-star attorney and there are a bunch of them in this state. … The decisions he makes there will always be suspect. He won’t have the full weight the office would have if he had gone through the nomination process.”

Teague says that Pryor will continue to pressure the Bush administration to formally nominate Griffin or someone else.

“The idea that they will go two years and say they can’t find somebody — it’s an insult to Arkansas,” Teague said. “If he goes through the process and wins, then he’s bona fide. The question for Tim and the White House is: Why not do that? Why not be bona fide?”

Griffin is a native of Magnolia. He graduated from Hendrix College and Tulane Law School, and attended graduate school at Oxford University in England. He is married to the former Elizabeth Crain

Quote:

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/...au/339192.html
Former Bush aide named to U.S. attorney post
Saturday, Dec 16, 2006

By Aaron Sadler
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A former Republican political operative and top aide to President Bush was named late Friday as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

The appointment of Tim Griffin drew criticism from Arkansas senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, both Democrats. Pryor accused the Bush administration of circumventing the traditional nomination process on behalf of a political ally.

The open-ended appointment differs from a normal presidential selection, where Griffin would face Senate hearings and a confirmation vote.

Pryor believes the Senate should be able to quiz Griffin about his qualifications, especially given his background as Bush's deputy director of political affairs under Karl Rove, spokesman Michael Teague said.

Before that, Griffin worked in opposition research for the Republican National Committee.

"We hope it's not the White House's intention to go around the Constitution, go around the nomination process and reward a fellow who's done some political work for them," Teague said.

Rep. John Boozman, R-Rogers, defended the appointment. He said Griffin might face unfair treatment from Senate Democrats because of his political ties.

"There might be a tendency because he did work for the president in that capacity politically to hold that against him and not look at the fact he's very well-qualified," said Boozman, the only Republican in the state's congressional delegation.

<b>"In going before the Senate, there are all kinds of politics," Boozman said.</b>

Griffin, 38, will take over for Bud Cummins, who resigns Wednesday. The Eastern District includes Little Rock and 41 counties in the eastern and north central part of Arkansas.

Griffin on Friday declined to comment on his appointment.

The Magnolia native just completed a year of active duty in the U.S. Army Reserve, including a stint in Iraq. He is a major in the Judge Advocate General's corps.

A graduate of Hendrix College and Tulane University law school, he worked as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the eastern district in 2001-02.

The interim selection leaves open the possibility for Bush to officially appoint Griffin or someone else to the post sometime in the future.

Conceivably, Griffin could serve as interim U.S. attorney indefinitely.

Teague said Pryor hopes the president makes a permanent selection - subject to Senate confirmation - after Congress reconvenes in January.

If Bush acts on a nomination before Congress returns, the appointee would serve as a "recess appointment" and Senate confirmation would not be required until the next congressional session in two years.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and White House Counsel Harriet Miers gave Pryor no time frame for when Bush might select a permanent replacement, Teague said.

Teague said Pryor was not available to comment because he was at the hospital visiting Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who underwent brain surgery this week.

Pryor supports full Senate hearings for the next U.S. attorney and did not rule out support for Griffin.

"He very well may be the person," qualified to serve, Teague said, but "he should have to go through the normal nomination process."

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said in a statement that she was impressed by Cummins' work and his service.

Lincoln said she also would expect Bush to replace Cummins through the normal Senate confirmation process.

Teague said the timing of the announcement late Friday afternoon gave the appearance that the administration was attempting to keep the appointment quiet.

"His actions are always going to be suspect if you're not going to do this in the right way and in an open manner," Teague said. "It's hard to say if you're going to support or not support someone if you don't go through the process of who they are."

A report by the BBC in 2004 connected Griffin to a possible effort to disenfranchise black voters in Florida. The report said an e-mailed list of 1,886 names was to be used to challenge residents' voting status.

In a November 2000 Time magazine report, Griffin was depicted as a zealous researcher who sought to discredit Democratic candidate Al Gore at any opportunity.

<b>The magazine said a poster hanging behind Griffin's desk said: "On my command - unleash hell on Al."....</b>

Quote:

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/a...=.jsp&c_id=mlb
01/18/2007 1:38 AM ET
Federal prosecutor in probe resigns
Associated Press

...U.S. attorney spokesman Luke Macaulay said Tuesday that Ryan reached a "mutually agreeable decision with Washington" to step down.

Ryan is one of 11 top federal prosecutors who have resigned or announced their resignations since an obscure provision in the USA Patriot Act reauthorization last year enabled the U.S. attorney general to appoint replacements without Senate confirmation.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, complained on the Senate floor Tuesday that the White House is using the provision to oust Ryan and other federal prosecutors and replace them with Republican allies.

"The Bush administration is pushing out U.S. attorneys from across the country under the cloak of secrecy and then appointing indefinite replacements," Feinstein said.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales denied the claim, saying administration officials "in no way politicize these decisions."

Macaulay declined to say whether President Bush had asked Ryan to resign....

Quote:

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6403133.html
Library Journal
ALA Criticizes DoJ's Stance on Libraries and Privacy
— January 2, 2007
The American Library Association is criticizing the Department of Justice for "fail[ing] to comprehend the role of libraries and the importance of privacy in the United States."

The American Library Association (ALA) is criticizing the Department of Justice (DoJ) for "fail[ing] to comprehend the role of libraries and the importance of privacy in the United States." ALA President Leslie Burger pointed to a written response to the U.S. Senate from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert S. Mueller regarding whether libraries should be subject to National Security Letters (NSLs). The issue is essentially a dispute about interpretation; read literally, as the FBI does, the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act encompasses libraries as "electronic communication services." However, the intention of leading Senators voting for the reauthorization was to exempt libraries.....

.....as for dissent.....for the notion of free speech:

Quote:

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/b...way_to_dissent
<b>Gregory To Tony Snow: "What's An Appropriate Way To Dissent"?</b>
By Greg Sargent | bio

In today's press briefing, David Gregory pointed out that Dems opposing this or that aspect of President Bush's war policies have long been painted by the White House as friends of the enemy. He then asks the key follow-up question: "What's an appropriate way to dissent?" It's a good question, and Snow has a fair amount of trouble coming up with an answer to it -- <b>at first he appears to start denying that this charge has ever been lodged at Dems before cutting himself off.</b>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPALpNaEzR8&eurl=

So whaddya think ?? The Bush administration, constantly touting the notion, for more than five years, that we are at war with Islamic Fascist terrorists who hate us because of our freedom and democracy.....

How does a secret warrantless, domestic eavesdropping program, approved by the POTUS, in violation of articles in the bill of rights in the constitution, the insertion of secret clause in the Patriot Act revision bill, during a conference of both congressional branches that barred one political party's participation, that resulted in the purge of US Attorneys around the country, intended to eliminate the senate's former authority to rule on the appropriateness of presidential appointments, make our country more "free" or more "democratic"? The fallout from this recent, in a long series of deliberate compromising of our former "freedom and democracy" by Bush, Cheney, and loyal republicans in congress, has so far resulted in the appointment of one of Karl Rove's political "dirt" researcher, the rabidly partisan (judging from his "career" benchmarks), Tim Griffin, as the new US Attorney for Arkansas, with the former ability of the senate to question and to decide whether to confirm his appointment, removed.....and the compromising of the investigation of corruption and possible treason...during wartime....of Rep. Jerry Lewis, former #3 at CIA Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and proven briber of convicted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Brett Wilkes, Foggo's best friend....

<b>Mr. Bush....and Mr. Cheney.....I don't feel any more free, or that my government under your "leadership" is more democratic, despite what you've said that you will do to preserve and strengthen the "freedom and democracy" for which you said we "stand".....but I do feel safer, thank you....because thanks to the "hard work" of you guys, there is less and less "freedom and democracy" for the "Islamic Fascist Butcher Killers" to hate us for.....isn't there?</b>

dlish · 01-18-2007, 05:35 AM

simplistic and idiotic thoughts like those of your president and VP do you no favours in the muslim/arab world... basically because what they say it just incorrect...

the arabs hate them cos they're stupid.

mixedmedia · 01-18-2007, 06:01 AM

okay, you're starting to freak me out now.

I just had this vision of GW and Dick removing their "skins" to find that they're really OBL and Al Zawahri. Like aliens do in the movies.

ratbastid · 01-18-2007, 06:05 AM

Why does George Bush hate America?

powerclown · 01-18-2007, 11:12 AM

I think they secretly love us.
I see latent homosexual cravings in the writings of zawahiri, for example.
I think bin laden secretly wants george bush's...respect.

Willravel · 01-18-2007, 11:22 AM

The hypocracy is running rampent, and is tracking mud on our Constitution in the process.

Who hates freedom? Is it freedom fighters, or is it political leaders who are trying to grab power?

Duh.

dc_dux · 01-18-2007, 11:31 AM

The hypocracy and irony is that Maliki threw Bush's tactic right back in his face: -- when criticized for your failures, characterize the critics as soft on terrorism

Quote:

Maliki disputed President Bush's remarks broadcast Tuesday that the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing" and took exception to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Senate testimony last week that Maliki's administration was on "borrowed time."

The prime minister said statements such as Rice's "give morale boosts for the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort and making them believe they have defeated the American administration," Maliki said. "But I can tell you that they have not defeated the Iraqi government."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...011702346.html

Is the new lil pup learning to imitate the worst traits and tactics of the Big Dog? - a frightful thought to consider!

Ch'i · 01-18-2007, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bush

You need to know that the nature of the people we're dealing with, they're cold-blooded killers. They hate us. And you know why they hate us? They hate us because we love freedom. They hate us because love the fact and honor the fact that we worship freely in America. They can't stand the thought of free elections, free press. And they're out there....

Why is the response to such statements as these applause and cheering? I'm reminded of a scene from Borat when he stood in the middle of a Texan audience and said "I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards. And may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq!" The response to this, of course, was cheering and applause.

How many people in this "democracy" actually think for themselves?

host · 01-18-2007, 12:32 PM

Are they destroying "freedom and democracy" so that the "terrorists" won't hate us, or are they removing US Attorneys all over the country and replacing them with political "shills" who will follow Roberto Gonzales instructions and not be subject to senate review or examination by senators, under oath, to set the stage for removal of this guy as US Attorney for the Southern Illinois District ?

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...leaktrial.html
Fitzgerald fights to keep Bush critics in Libby jury pool

By Matt Apuzzo
ASSOCIATED PRESS

7:55 a.m. January 18, 2007

WASHINGTON – Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pushed back Thursday against defense attorneys who have been weeding Bush administration critics out of the jury pool in the perjury trial of former White House aide “Scooter” Libby.

<b>“The jury will not be asked to render a verdict on the war or what they think of the war,” Fitzgerald said Thursday at the onset of the third day of jury selection.</b>

Jury selection has taken longer than expected, in part because attorneys for I. Lewis Libby have grilled potential jurors on their political views. Though several Bush administration critics made it into the potential jury pool, attorneys have successfully disqualified the harshest Bush opponents who said they could not be impartial.

Libby is accused of lying to investigators about what he told reporters regarding outed CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003. Because Plame's husband was one of the administration's most outspoken critics, the trial is set to the backdrop of the war in Iraq and politics.

Fitzgerald and defense attorneys spent more than 15 minutes Thursday morning arguing privately with U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton over whether to dismiss one potential juror, a management consultant. She said her feelings about the administration could spill over into the trial.

“My personal feeling is the Iraq war was a tremendous, terrible mistake. It's quite a horrendous thing,” she said. “Whether any one person or the administration is responsible for that is quite a complex question.”

The woman was ultimately dismissed but Fitzgerald's fight to keep her was his strongest effort yet during the politically charged hearings.

The makeup of the jury pool is a critical pretrial issue. Libby plans to tell jurors that despite what prosecutors say, he didn't lie to investigators. He says he was bogged down by national security issues and simply didn't remember the conversations about Plame correctly.

If jurors come to the trial already skeptical about the credibility of Libby or Cheney, attorneys say they won't get a fair trial.

Walton hopes to have 36 qualified jurors by Thursday afternoon. Attorneys for both sides can then eliminate jurors for any reason until 12 jurors and four alternates are seated.

By Thursday morning, 24 potential jurors were in the pool. Seven administration critics were allowed into the pool Wednesday after they said they could set their political feeling aside.

Opening arguments are slated for Monday in a case expected to last four to six weeks.

Ch'i · 01-18-2007, 01:47 PM

The Bush administration does not want al-Qaeda to hate us less, as they have shown us on numorous occasions (i.e. the war in Iraq, the war on terror, ect.). Unless they are unable to comprehend that their foreign policy feeds any militant Islamic fundementalist entity, such as al-Qaeda. In our actions, we provide more of the antagonism they fight against. If the Bush and Cheney really wanted them to hate us less they wouldn't limit our freedoms; they would remove our occupying forces and withdraw completely. Unless they really are that stupid.

Daniel_ · 01-18-2007, 02:14 PM

My country spent decades fighting terrorists in Northern Ireland, and in the end it was talking to them that slowed down (and not pretty much ended) the violence.

It gets to the point that no matter why it started, it keeps going because "we hate you because you keep trying to kill us", and "we try to kill you because you try to kill us".

As the wise man said "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" (Ghandi).

Eventualy (probably after this PotUS is long gone) someone will pull out the troops, start talks, and Iraq will become just another nation that Americans and Brits go on holiday to in order to see the real locations of all the war films - just like Viet Nam is now.

powerclown · 01-18-2007, 03:13 PM

Gandhi had his problems too...

This is a man obsessed with his own shit.
This is a man who had little girls give him enemas daily.
This is a man who regularly took a dump in public.
This is a man who preached against sex.
This is a man who got married at 13.
This is a man who called his wife a dumb cow, publically.
This is a man who slept naked with naked young girls. (maybe not too major a problem)
This is a man who let his wife die rather than let her be properly medicated.
This is a man who disowned both his sons, one for wanting to get married.

This is a man - I think it fair to say - with Issues.

Ch'i · 01-18-2007, 03:22 PM

Everyone has issues. What's your point, powerclown?

powerclown · 01-18-2007, 03:48 PM

I'm just saying: How wise was he, really?

Willravel · 01-18-2007, 03:52 PM

Wise man once said: "Anyone who idolizes perfection will always fall short.'

Ghandi wasn't perfect. He did manage to defeat the British Empire. That's nothing to sneeze at.

mixedmedia · 01-18-2007, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Gandhi had his problems too...

This is a man obsessed with his own shit.
This is a man who had little girls give him enemas daily.
This is a man who regularly took a dump in public.
This is a man who preached against sex.
This is a man who got married at 13.
This is a man who called his wife a dumb cow, publically.
This is a man who slept naked with naked young girls. (maybe not too major a problem)
This is a man who let his wife die rather than let her be properly medicated.
This is a man who disowned both his sons, one for wanting to get married.

This is a man - I think it fair to say - with Issues.

Gandhi was a man who struggled with asceticism and the practice of his beliefs. The sleeping with young girls thing was to test himself and his dedication to his vow of celibacy. A test which he passed. Some of these things I've never heard of before. His marriage at 13 was arranged and not out of the ordinary for its time and place.

Yes, many of the things he did were "weird" but it doesn't and shouldn't take away from the things he accomplished. In fact, one could conceive that without his obsessive nature he wouldn't have been able to achieve all that he did.

powerclown · 01-18-2007, 04:59 PM

Quote:

He did manage to defeat the British Empire.

Somewhat more complicated than that. Much of the political landsape that Gandhi worked within was established through outright violence. He was a productive leader to his people, I'll give him that. And he has certainly become a cult personality.

Good points, mixedmedia.
Its curious how he acknowledged young, naked girls as the embodiment of sexual temptation. Do we know for certain that he in fact abstained from carnal relations with young girls? Was his biographer present and bedside each and every night? Perhaps he was less abstinent than previously thought. Perhaps this was the source of the foul treatment he conveyed upon his wife? Perhaps these nocturnal releases with young harlots were the source of his...lack of aggression. Thinking aloud here.

mixedmedia · 01-18-2007, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Good points, mixedmedia.
Its curious how he acknowledged young, naked girls as the embodiment of sexual temptation. Curious, I say.

Curious to us perhaps. Not so much in other times and in other places.

ratbastid · 01-18-2007, 05:32 PM

I congratulate Powerclown on an extraordinarily effective threadjack. Why, nobody probably even REMEMBERS the freedom-destroying atrocities this thread was intended to discuss. Instead we get to talk about whether Gandhi was a weirdo. Great work. There's probably a job for you at Fox News!

powerclown · 01-18-2007, 06:19 PM

Thanks ratbastid.
I have a question for you though: are there thread limits here?
Are there limits as to the number of pages within any given thread?
Are people forbidden to re-establish the OP whenver they choose to in the event of an incidental threadjack?
This thread took on a non-serious tone very early on (not by me), and admittedly got sidetracked.
Sometimes threads take on a life of their own, like crystals.
So would you say it is now impossible to re-establish the intended discussion in the op?
I definitely wouldn't.
I have faith in the vigor, vitality and prolificacy of the posters here.
I await the return to the discussion of the Death of Freedom in America, al-Qaeda, the GWOT, etc.
Sorry about the threadjack.

mixedmedia · 01-18-2007, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Thanks ratbastid.
I have a question for you though: are there thread limits here?
Are there limits as to the number of pages within any given thread?
Are people forbidden to re-establish the OP whenver they choose to in the event of an incidental threadjack?
This thread took on a non-serious tone very early on (not by me), and admittedly got sidetracked.
Sometimes threads take on a life of their own, like crystals.
So would you say it is now impossible to re-establish the intended discussion in the op?
I definitely wouldn't.
I have faith in the vigor, vitality and prolificacy of the posters here.
I await the return to the discussion of the Death of Freedom in America, al-Qaeda, the GWOT, etc.
Sorry about the threadjack.

I will admit that I started off the thread on a humorous note. BUT that does not mean I didn't think host made an interesting point via a theory that may or may not have been completely serious.

Yes, I think it is ironic that GW goes on about how much "they" hate us for our freedoms while at the same time effectively chipping away at those very same freedoms when we're not looking. Kind of like the way my middle daughter chipped away at the vinyl covering the arm rests in the back seat of my old Toyota. One day I looked back there...and I all I could see was exposed foam.

uhhhh...yeah.

n0nsensical · 01-18-2007, 11:11 PM

Come on, now, Bush is a freedom-loving kind of guy. For certain definitions of freedom.

Ch'i · 01-19-2007, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

I congratulate Powerclown on an extraordinarily effective threadjack.

I came to the same conclusion.

pai mei · 01-19-2007, 06:22 AM

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. ~John F. Kennedy

Willravel · 01-19-2007, 08:56 AM

"Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 7, 2006

"It's bad in Iraq. Does that help?" --George W. Bush, after being asked by a reporter whether he's in denial about Iraq, Washington, D.C., Dec. 7, 2006

George W. Bush couldn't persuade a starving man to eat a grape. He's just too damn stupid. If you knew you were stupid, you would surround yourself with smart people. Smart people giving advise to a stupid person in charge often try to control that person. Welcome to the worst side of politics.

mixedmedia · 01-19-2007, 09:22 AM

When I think Bush & Co., I don't think stupid...I think:

Quote:

9 results for: myopia
View results from:
Dictionary | Thesaurus | Encyclopedia | All Reference | the Web

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
my·o·pi·a /maɪˈoʊpiə/ Pronunciation Key
[mahy-oh-pee-uh] Pronunciation Key
–noun
1. Ophthalmology. a condition of the eye in which parallel rays are focused in front of the retina, objects being seen distinctly only when near to the eye; nearsightedness (opposed to hyperopia).
2. lack of foresight or discernment; obtuseness.
3. narrow-mindedness; intolerance.

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

[Origin: 1685–95; < NL < Gk myōpía, equiv. to myōp- (s. of mýōps) near-sighted, lit., blinking (mý(ein) to shut + ps eye) + -ia -ia]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
American Heritage Dictionary
my·o·pi·a (mī-ō'pē-ə) Pronunciation Key
n.
A visual defect in which distant objects appear blurred because their images are focused in front of the retina rather than on it; nearsightedness. Also called short sight.
Lack of discernment or long-range perspective in thinking or planning: "For Lorca, New York is a symbol of spiritual myopia" (Edwin Honig).

[Greek muōpiā, from muōps, muōp-, nearsighted : mūein, to close the eyes + ōps, eye; see okw- in Indo-European roots.]

my·op'ic (-ŏp'ĭk, -ō'pĭk) adj., my·op'i·cal·ly adv.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
WordNet

myopia
noun
(ophthalmology) eyesight abnormality resulting from the eye's faulty refractive ability; distant objects appear blurred [ant: farsightedness]

WordNet® 2.1, © 2005 Princeton University
The American Heritage Science Dictionary

myopia (mī-ō'pē-ə)
A defect of the eye that causes light to focus in front of the retina instead of directly on it, resulting in an inability to see distant objects clearly. Myopia is often caused by an elongated eyeball or a misshapen lens. Also called nearsightedness. Compare hyperopia.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition

myopia [(meye-oh-pee-uh)]
Nearsightedness. Myopia is a visual defect in which light that enters the eye is focused in front of the retina rather than directly on it, so that distant objects appear blurred. Myopia can be corrected with eyeglasses, contact lenses, or LASIK.

Note: The term is often used to indicate an inability to see into the future: “The new policy is incredibly myopic, and puts future generations at a great disadvantage for the sake of a few short-term gains.”

reconmike · 01-19-2007, 10:29 AM

Funny thing Host is that you always seen to leave out Slick Willie Dick was doing the same evesdropping. Why Is that?

Willravel · 01-19-2007, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Funny thing Host is that you always seen to leave out Slick Willie Dick was doing the same evesdropping. Why Is that?

So...Clinton invaded Iraq? Clinton suspended Habeaus Corpus? Clinton bypassed FISA to spy on Americans?

Clinton was far from perfect, but even mentioning him in a thread like this is only a distraction from the reality we face today.

host · 01-19-2007, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Funny thing Host is that you always seen to leave out Slick Willie Dick was doing the same evesdropping. Why Is that?

yeah mike, Clinton was the problem....but people with sentiments aligned to your own, can't seem to agree if he was a proponent of too much openness (the people's "right to know"....aka government accountability, aka "freedom"), or too little. The bottomline, reconmike is, is this all you got, is this your entire response to the my point that the main terrorist threat to the "freedom and democracy" prized by the US people, comes from the white house....that they are the ones who "hate us because of our freedom" ?

Click on the "print it" link when you display Gaffney's column....you can see the logo of the owner of townhall.com, "freedom loving" CNP sponsor, Salem Communications......

Quote:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/F...o_need_to_know
No 'need to know'
By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Tuesday, January 15, 2002
A "need to know" is one of the most time-tested principles of information security. According to this principle, if you don't have such a need, you should not be given access to classified or other sensitive data. Even if you think you have a "need to know," moreover, unless appropriate background checks have been performed -- establishing that you can be trusted to treat such information confidentially -- and the requisite security clearances (known in the government as "tickets") issued, you do not qualify. In sum, the basic rule has been: No tickets, no access. That, at least, was the general practice until the Clinton administration came to office, empowering a number of individuals who were critical of governmental secrecy in general and the so-called "abuse" of classification procedures in particular. Madeleine Albright, Tobi Goti, Hazel O'Leary, Anthony Lake, Morton Halperin and John Podesta were among the senior officials who, during the Clinton years in one way or another, pursued a different approach. For example, former Secretary of State Albright, and her Department's intelligence chief, Mrs. Goti, believed that "sharing" sensitive U.S. intelligence with other nations would demonstrate the validity of American charges about their involvement in proliferation. The predictable result was confirmed in a front-page article in Sunday's Washington Post about Russian-Iranian missile cooperation over the past decade: The recipients of such information were generally more interested in ascertaining -- and terminating -- the ways in which it was obtained than in ending their proliferation activities. All too often, putting them "in the know" meant that, thereafter, we would be kept in the dark, having lost irreplaceable intelligence collection "sources and methods." Then there was the security-wrecking operation engaged in by former Secretary of Energy O'Leary and the anti-nuclear activists she chose to staff key jobs in her department. For instance, she blithely ended the nuclear weapons laboratories' traditional practice of giving different colored badges to lab personnel based on their "need to know" and levels of security clearance. Her rationale? It would be discriminatory to those (notably, Chinese, Russian, Iranian and other foreign nationals) who had neither. We may never fully know how much damage was done as a direct or indirect result of the climate of insecurity and dysfunctionality created in the nuclear weapons complex by O'Leary and Company. An even more ominous legacy, however, may be that resulting from the compulsory declassification requirements promulgated by President Clinton at the urging of his then-National Security Advisor Tony Lake, Mort Halperin (at the time one of his chief lieutenants on the NSC staff) and John Podesta, who ultimately served as White House Chief of Staff. According to the champions of this approach, everybody had a "need to know" about most government secrets; Clinton directed that -- in the interest of good government -- after a certain number of years, basically all of them were to be put into the public domain. In some cases (prominent among them the Department of Energy), the arbitrary deadline and the quantity of secrets to be revealed meant that those responsible for declassifying old, but potentially still highly sensitive, information were obliged to give documents containing such data only the most cursory of security reviews. As a result, whole boxes full of classified information were sometimes summarily deemed declassified and made accessible to anyone who wanted to review their contents. Presumably, among that number were scientists from nuclear wannabe states like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Findings in the caves of Afghanistan suggest that they may have included operatives of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, as well. Fortunately, to build even primitive atomic weapons, let alone thermonuclear arms, one must have not only know-how but access to fairly complex and expensive manufacturing capabilities. The bad news is that that is not the case with biological weapons (BW). Knowledgeable people can use commercially available fertilizer and pharmaceutical equipment to create batches of viruses that can be employed with devastating effect. Now, the New York Times reports that the Clinton declassification requirements have caused U.S. government agencies to make publicly available what amount to BW "cook books" -- "hundreds of formerly secret documents that tell how to turn dangerous germs into deadly weapons." According to Sunday's Times, "For $15, anyone can buy 'Selection of Process for Freeze-Drying, Particle Size Reduction and Filling of Selected BW Agents,' or germs for biological warfare. The 57-page report, dated 1952, includes plans for a pilot factory that could produce dried germs in powder form, designed to lodge in human lungs." In the wrong hands, this recipe could enable a future terrorist attack that would make the recent anthrax letters, and even the destruction of the World Trade Center, pale by comparison. In a number of areas, the Bush Administration has, since coming to office a year ago, taken steps to undo lunatic policies inherited from its predecessor. These include, notably: the unworkably expensive and inequitable Kyoto Protocol; business-crippling ergonomics rules; open-ended adherence to the vulnerability-dictating Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; inaction on the Yucca Mountain repository for nuclear waste and other impediments to national energy self-sufficiency; and an invitation to industrial and governmental espionage masquerading as a protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention. A no less worrisome legacy is the Clinton declassification agenda. Particularly in the midst of the war on terrorism, it is imperative that President Bush reestablish proven and prudential information security practices. Given the very serious stakes, should Mr. Bush fail to take corrective action on this score, the American people will certainly have a legitimate need to know the reason why.

Frank Gaffney Jr. is the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy and author of War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World .

reconmike · 01-19-2007, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

So...Clinton invaded Iraq? Clinton suspended Habeaus Corpus? Clinton bypassed FISA to spy on Americans?

Clinton was far from perfect, but even mentioning him in a thread like this is only a distraction from the reality we face today.

Question #1 No Clinton allowed UN inspectors to be thrown out of Iraq without a response, leaving the US and the Holy UN without any knowledge as to his WMD status.

Question # 2 Can you say Echelon? I knew you could.

Question # 3 Can you say Echelon? I knew you could again.

And I brought Clinton up for the sole reason that when Bush does something that Slick Willie did he is a dictator taking away rights but it was perfectly ok for the slick one to do it.

Willravel · 01-19-2007, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Question #1 No Clinton allowed UN inspectors to be thrown out of Iraq without a response, leaving the US and the Holy UN without any knowledge as to his WMD status.

Oh if only it were that simple. I guess you don't remember the endless bombings of Iraq in the 90s by a certian liberal president. I guess you don't remember him going after and proclaiming OBL a threat, only to be met with a perss that wanted blood for seamen. I also guess you don't remember the countless times weapons inspectors WERE allowed into Iraq and found jack.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Question # 2 Can you say Echelon? I knew you could.

What are you talking about? Echelon? What echelon? Do you mean that the president is on such a high echelon that he is above the law?

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

And I brought Clinton up for the sole reason that when Bush does something that Slick Willie did he is a dictator taking away rights but it was perfectly ok for the slick one to do it.

Slick Willie didn't spy on Americans and bypass a legal requirement like getting a FISA warrent. Slick Willie didn't invade Iraq and mislead congress to get support for said invasion.

Again, Clinton wasn't a perfect president, but standing next to dubbuyuh, he sure is. Bush has made any indescretions or mistakes made by Clinton pale in comparison to his own massive blunders and vendettas.

pai mei · 01-19-2007, 05:02 PM

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=722

Quote:

It was bad enough George Bush Senior found it necessary to blame bloggers for creating what he deems an “adversarial and ugly climate” (never mind his particular bit of ugliness in Iraq more than a decade ago, eventually resulting in the murder of more than a million people), last month we had the Manchurian candidate, John McCain, introducing legislation “that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards, effectively nixing the open exchange of ideas on the Internet, providing a lethal injection for unrestrained opinion, and acting as the latest attack tool to chill freedom of speech on the world wide web,” as Paul Joseph Watson writes for Prison Planet.

What does everybody think about this ?

Willravel · 01-19-2007, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pai mei

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=722

What does everybody think about this ?

I think that I'll sooner die than lose free speech and free press. These idiots, despite having some power, are not powerful enough to suspend free speech or free press on any real level. They are trying to hold newspapers responsible for outing illegal government activity....and the newspaper is still running strong.

Bloggers have an interesting place in that: 1) there are a ton of us, 2) we are hard to keep track of and 3) we are harder to demonize than a newspaper.

reconmike · 01-19-2007, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Oh if only it were that simple. I guess you don't remember the endless bombings of Iraq in the 90s by a certian liberal president. I guess you don't remember him going after and proclaiming OBL a threat, only to be met with a perss that wanted blood for seamen. I also guess you don't remember the countless times weapons inspectors WERE allowed into Iraq and found jack.

What are you talking about? Echelon? What echelon? Do you mean that the president is on such a high echelon that he is above the law?

Slick Willie didn't spy on Americans and bypass a legal requirement like getting a FISA warrent. Slick Willie didn't invade Iraq and mislead congress to get support for said invasion.

Again, Clinton wasn't a perfect president, but standing next to dubbuyuh, he sure is. Bush has made any indescretions or mistakes made by Clinton pale in comparison to his own massive blunders and vendettas.

Endless bombings? All he did was attempt to enforce the no-fly zones.

Now your OBL comment is really funny, is this the same president who was offered OBL by Sudan and told them that he didnt have any evidence he was involved in anything?

Quote:

Under Clinton, NY Times called surveillance "a necessity"
By William Tate

The controversy following revelations that U.S. intelligence agencies have monitored suspected terrorist related communications since 9/11 reflects a severe case of selective amnesia by the New York Times and other media opponents of President Bush. They certainly didn't show the same outrage when a much more invasive and indiscriminate domestic surveillance program came to light during the Clinton administration in the 1990's. At that time, the Times called the surveillance 'a necessity.'

'If you made a phone call today or sent an e—mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency.' (Steve Kroft, CBS' 60 Minutes)

Those words were aired on February 27, 2000 to describe the National Security Agency and an electronic surveillance program called Echelon whose mission, according to Kroft,

'is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world.'

Echelon was, or is (its existence has been under—reported in the American media), an electronic eavesdropping program conducted by the United States and a few select allies such as the United Kingdom.

Tellingly, the existence of the program was confirmed not by the New York Times or the Washington Post or by any other American media outlet — these were the Clinton years, after all, and the American media generally treats Democrat administrations far more gently than Republican administrations — but by an Australian government official in a statement made to an Australian television news show.

The Times actually defended the existence of Echelon when it reported on the program following the Australians' revelations.

'Few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers and terrorists....'

And the Times article quoted an N.S.A. official in assuring readers

'...that all Agency activities are conducted in accordance with the highest constitutional, legal and ethical standards.'

Of course, that was on May 27, 1999 and Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush, was president.

Even so, the article did admit that

'...many are concerned that the system could be abused to collect economic and political information.'

Despite the Times' reluctance to emphasize those concerns, one of the sources used in that same article, Patrick Poole, a lecturer in government and economics at Bannock Burn College in Franklin, Tenn., had already concluded in a study cited by the Times story that the program had been abused in both ways.

'ECHELON is also being used for purposes well outside its original mission. The regular discovery of domestic surveillance targeted at American civilians for reasons of 'unpopular' political affiliation or for no probable cause at all... What was once designed to target a select list of communist countries and terrorist states is now indiscriminately directed against virtually every citizen in the world,' Poole concluded.

The Times article also referenced a European Union report on Echelon. The report was conducted after E.U. members became concerned that their citizens' rights may have been violated. One of the revelations of that study was that the N.S.A. used partner countries' intelligence agencies to routinely circumvent legal restrictions against domestic spying.

'For example, [author Nicky] Hager has described how New Zealand officials were instructed to remove the names of identifiable UKUSA citizens or companies from their reports, inserting instead words such as 'a Canadian citizen' or 'a US company'. British Comint [Communications intelligence] staff have described following similar procedures in respect of US citizens following the introduction of legislation to limit NSA's domestic intelligence activities in 1978.'

Further, the E.U. report concluded that intelligence agencies did not feel particularly constrained by legal restrictions requiring search warrants.

'Comint agencies conduct broad international communications 'trawling' activities, and operate under general warrants. Such operations do not require or even suppose that the parties they intercept are criminals.'

The current controversy follows a Times report that, since 9/11, U.S.
intelligence agencies are eavesdropping at any time on up to 500 people in the U.S. suspected of conducting international communications with terrorists. Under Echelon, the Clinton administration was spying on just about everyone.

'The US National Security Agency (NSA) has created a global spy system, codename ECHELON, which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world,'

Poole summarized in his study on the program.

According to an April, 2000 article in PC World magazine, experts who studied Echelon concluded that

'Project Echelon's equipment can process 1 million message inputs every 30 minutes.'

In the February, 2000 60 Minutes story, former spy Mike Frost made clear that Echelon monitored practically every conversation — no matter how seemingly innocent — during the Clinton years.

'A lady had been to a school play the night before, and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a——a lousy job. Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she said to her friend something like this, 'Oh, Danny really bombed last night,' just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation w——was referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and her phone number in the database as a possible terrorist.'

'This is not urban legend you're talking about. This actually happened?'
Kroft asked.

'Factual. Absolutely fact. No legend here.'

Even as the Times defended Echelon as 'a necessity' in 1999, evidence already existed that electronic surveillance had previously been misused by the Clinton Administration for political purposes. Intelligence officials told Insight Magazine in 1997 that a 1993 conference of Asian and Pacific world leaders hosted by Clinton in Seattle had been spied on by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Further, the magazine reported that information obtained by the spying had been passed on to big Democrat corporate donors to use against their competitors. The Insight story added that the mis—use of the surveillance for political reasons caused the intelligence sources to reveal the operation.

'The only reason it has come to light is because of concerns raised by high—level sources within federal law—enforcement and intelligence circles that the operation was compromised by politicians —— including
mid— and senior—level White House aides —— either on behalf of or in support of President Clinton and major donor—friends who helped him and the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, raise money.'

So, during the Clinton Administration, evidence existed (all of the information used in this article was available at the time) that:

—an invasive, extensive domestic eavesdropping program was aimed at every U.S. citizen;

—intelligence agencies were using allies to circumvent constitutional restrictions;

—and the administration was selling at least some secret intelligence for political donations.

These revelations were met by the New York Times and others in the mainstream media by the sound of one hand clapping. Now, reports that the Bush Administration approved electronic eavesdropping, strictly limited to international communications, of a relative handful of suspected terrorists have created a media frenzy in the Times and elsewhere.

The Times has historically been referred to as 'the Grey Lady.' That grey is beginning to look just plain grimy, and many of us can no longer consider her a lady.

William Tate is a writer and researcher and former broadcast journalist. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/...es_called.html at January 19, 2007 - 11:20:04 PM EST

That IS Echelon, and some more endless cut and pastes because I am in a Host is my pasting hero mood.

Quote:

60 MINUTES
Television Broadcast February 27, 2000

ECHELON; WORLDWIDE CONVERSATIONS BEING RECEIVED BY THE ECHELON SYSTEM MAY FALL INTO THE WRONG HANDS AND INNOCENT PEOPLE MAY BE TAGGED AS SPIES

STEVE KROFT, co-host:

If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency and four English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

The mission is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world.

How does it work, and what happens to all the information that's gathered? A lot of people have begun to ask that question, and some suspect that the information is being used for more than just catching bad guys.

(Footage of satellite; person talking on cell phone; fax machine; ATM being used; telephone pole and wires; radio towers)

KROFT: (Voiceover) We can't see them, but the air around us is filled with invisible electronic signals, everything from cell phone conversations to fax transmissions to ATM transfers. What most people don't realize is that virtually every signal radiated across the electromagnetic spectrum is being collected and analyzed.

How much of the world is covered by them?

Mr. MIKE FROST (Former Spy): The entire world, the whole planet--covers everything. Echelon covers everything that's radiated worldwide at any given instant.

KROFT: Every square inch is covered.

Mr. FROST: Every square inch is covered.

(Footage of Frost; listening post)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Mike Frost spent 20 years as a spy for the CSE, the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, and he is the only high-ranking former intelligence agent to speak publicly about the Echelon program. Frost even showed us one of the installations where he says operators can listen in to just about anything.

Mr. FROST: Everything from--from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs...

KROFT: Baby monitors?

Mr. FROST: Oh, yeah. Baby monitors give you a lot of intelligence.

(Footage of listening posts)

KROFT: (Voiceover) This listening post outside Ottawa is just part of a network of spy stations, which are hidden in the hills of West Virginia, in remote parts of Washington state, even in plain view among the sheep pastures of Europe.

This is Menwith Hill Station in the Yorkshire countryside of Northern England. Even though we're on British soil, Menwith Hill is an American base operated by the National Security Agency. It's believed to be the largest spy station in the world.

(Footage of Menwith Hill Station; aerial footage of NSA headquarters; supercomputers)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Inside each globe are huge dishes which intercept and download satellite communications from around the world. The information is then sent on to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, where acres of supercomputers scan millions of transmissions word by word, looking for key phrases and, some say, specific voices that may be of major significance.

Mr. FROST: Everything is looked at. The entire take is looked at. And the computer sorts out what it is told to sort out, be it, say, by key words such as 'bomb' or 'terrorist' or 'blow up,' to telephone numbers or--or a person's name. And people are getting caught, and--and that's great.

(Footage of National Security Agency; Carlos the Jackal; two Libyans in court)

KROFT: (Voiceover) The National Security Agency won't talk about those successes or even confirm that a program called Echelon exists. But it's believed the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal was captured with the assistance of Echelon, and that it helped identify two Libyans the US believes blew up Pan-Am Flight 103.

Is it possible for people like you and I, innocent civilians, to be targeted by Echelon?

Mr. FROST: Not only possible, not only probable, but factual. While I was at CSE, a classic example: A lady had been to a school play the night before, and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a--a lousy job. Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she said to her friend something like this, 'Oh, Danny really bombed last night,' just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation w--was referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and her phone number in the database as a possible terrorist.

KROFT: This is not urban legend you're talking about. This actually happened?

Mr. FROST: Factual. Absolutely fact. No legend here.

(Vintage footage of Fonda; Spock; King; congressional hearing; the Capitol building)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Back in the 1970s, the NSA was caught red-handed spying on anti-war protesters like Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock, and it turns out they had been recording the conversations of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King in the 1960s. When Congress found out, it drafted strict, new laws prohibiting the NSA from spying on Americans, but today, there's enough renewed concern about potential abuses that Congress is revisiting the issue.

Representative BOB BARR (Republican, Georgia): (From C-SPAN) One such project known as Project Echelon engages in the interception of literally millions of communications involving United States citizens.

(Footage of Barr; NSA sign; Goss and Kroft)

KROFT: (Voiceover) But even members of Congress have trouble getting information about Echelon. Last year, the NSA refused to provide internal memoranda on the program to Porter Goss, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

What exactly was it that you requested?

Representative PORTER GOSS (Chairman, House Intelligence Committee): Well, I can't get too specific about it, but there was some information about procedures in how the NSA people would employ some safeguards, and I wanted to see all the correspondence on that to make sure that those safeguards were being completely honored. At that point, one of the counsels of the NSA said, 'Well, we don't think we need to share this information with the Oversight Committee.' And we said, 'Well, we're sorry about that. We do have the oversight, and you will share the information with us,' and they did.

(Footage of Goss and Kroft)

KROFT: (Voiceover) But only after Goss threatened to cut the NSA's budget. He still believes, though, that the NSA does not eavesdrop on innocent American citizens.

If the NSA has capabilities to screen enormous numbers of telephone calls, faxes, e-mails, whatnot, how do you filter out the American conversations, and how do you--how can you be sure that no one is listening to those conversations?

Rep. GOSS: We do have methods for that, and I am relatively sure that those procedures are working very well.

(Footage of Madsen; epic.org Web site; Amnesty International gathering; Greenpeace members in a boat; Princess Diana)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Others aren't so sure. Wayne Madsen works with a group called the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which is suing the NSA to get a copy of the documents that were finally turned over to Congressman Goss. Madsen, a former naval officer who used to work for the NSA, is concerned about reports that Echelon has listened in on groups like Amnesty International and Greenpeace. Last year, the NSA was forced to acknowledge that it had more than 1,000 pages of information on the late Princess Diana.

Mr. WAYNE MADSEN (Electronic Privacy Information Center): Princess Diana, in her campaign against land mines, of course, was completely at odds with US policy, so her activities were of tremendous interest to--to the US policy-makers, of course, and--and, therefore, to the National Security Agency eavesdroppers.

KROFT: Do you think the--the NSA only monitored her conversations that involved land mines?

Mr. MADSEN: Well, when NSA extends the big drift net out there, it's possible that they're picking up more than just her conversations concerning land mines. What they do with that intelligence, who knows?

(Footage of newspaper headlines; Menwith Hill Station)

KROFT: (Voiceover) In the early 1990s, some of Diana's personal conversations, as well as those of some others associated with the royal family, mysteriously appeared in the British tabloids. Could some of those conversations have been picked up by that US spy station in England?

Mr. MADSEN: (Voiceover) There's been some speculation that Menwith Hill may have been involved in the intercepts of those communications as--as well.

And how--how could that be legal? Well, British intelligence could say, 'Well, we didn't eavesdrop on members of the British royal family. These happened to be conducted by, you know, one of our strategic partners.' And, therefore, they would skirt the--skirt the British laws against intercepts of communications.

(Footage of National Security Agency sign)

KROFT: (Voiceover) The US admits it often shares intelligence with its allies, but never to get around the law.

Mr. FROST: Never, Steve, will governments admit that they can circumvent legislation by asking another country to do for them what they can't do for themselves. They will never admit that. But that sort of thing is so easy to do. It is so commonplace.

KROFT: Do you have any first-hand experience?

Mr. FROST: I do have first-hand experience where CSE did some dirty work for Margaret Thatcher when she was prime minister. She...

KROFT: What kind of dirty work?

Mr. FROST: Well, at the time, she had two ministers that she said, quote, "They weren't on side," unquote, and she wanted to find out, not what these ministers were saying, but what they were thinking. So my boss, as a matter of fact, went to McDonald House in London and did intercept traffic from these two ministers. The British Parliament now have total deniability. They didn't do anything. They know nothing about it. Of course they didn't do anything; we did it for them.

(Footage of Newsham and Kroft)

KROFT: (Voiceover) One of the few people to acknowledge that they have listened to conversations over the Echelon system is Margaret Newsham, who worked at Menwith Hill in England back in 1979. She had a top secret security clearance.

So who--you--you knew that conversations were being pulled off satellites.

Ms. MARGARET NEWSHAM: Yes. But to my knowledge, all it was going to be would be like Russian, Chinese or, y--you know, foreign.

(Footage of Newsham)

KROFT: (Voiceover) But soon, she says, she discovered it wasn't only the Russians and the Chinese who were the targets.

Ms. NEWSHAM: I walked into the office building and a friend said, 'Come over here and listen to--to this thing.' And--and he had headphones on, so I took the headphones and I listened to it, and--and I looked at him and I'm going, 'That's an American.' And he said, 'Well, yeah.'

KROFT: And it was definitely an American voice?

Ms. NEWSHAM: It was definitely an American voice, and it was a voice that was distinct. And I said, 'Well, who is that?' And he said it was Senator Strom Thurmond. And I go, 'What?'

KROFT: Do you think this kind of stuff goes on?

Mr. FROST: Oh, of course it goes on. Been going on for years. Of course it goes on.

KROFT: You mean the National Security Agency spying on politicians in...

Mr. FROST: Well, I--I...

KROFT: ...in the United States?

Mr. FROST: Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? Sounds like the world of fiction. It's not; not the world of fiction. That's the way it works. I've been there. I was trained by you guys.

Rep. GOSS: Certainly possible that something like that could happen. The question is: What happened next?

KROFT: What do you mean?

Rep. GOSS: It is certainly possible that somebody overheard me in a conversation. I have just been in Europe. I have been talking to people on a telephone and elsewhere. So it's very possible somebody could have heard me. But the question is: What do they do about it? I mean, I cannot stop the dust in the ether; it's there. But what I can make sure is that it's not abused--the capability's not abused, and that's what we do.

KROFT: Much of what's known about the Echelon program comes not from enemies of the United States, but from its friends. Last year, the European Parliament, which meets here in Strasbourg, France, issued a report listing many of the Echelon's spy stations around the world and detailing their surveillance capabilities. The report says Echelon is not just being used to track spies and terrorists. It claims the United States is using it for corporate and industrial espionage as well, gathering sensitive information on European corporations, then turning it over to American competitors so they can gain an economic advantage.

(Footage of report; plane; report; Raytheon sign; Ford and Kroft)

KROFT: (Voiceover) The European Parliament report alleges that the NSA 'lifted all the faxes and phone calls' between the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and Saudi Arabian Airlines, and that the information helped two American companies, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, win a $ 6 billion contract. The report also alleges that the French company Thomson-CSF lost a $ 1.3 billion satellite deal to Raytheon the same way. Glen Ford is the member of the European Parliament who commissioned the report.

Mr. GLEN FORD (European Parliament Member): It's not the--if you want, the Echelon system that's the problem. It's how it's being used. Now, you know, if we're catching the bad guys, we're completely in favor of that, whether it's you catching the bad guys, us or anybody else. We don't like the bad guys. What we're concerned about is that some of the good guys in my constituency don't have jobs because US corporations got an inside track on--on some global deal.

(Footage of encryption machine; Clinton and several men walking; Ford)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Increasingly, European governments and corporations are turning to something called encryption, a system of scrambling phone, fax or e-mail transmissions so that the Echelon system won't be able to read them. The US is worried about the technology falling into the hands of terrorists or other enemies. The Clinton administration has been trying to persuade the Europeans to give law enforcement and intelligence agencies a key with which they can unlock the code in matters of national security. Glen Ford, the European parliamentarian, agrees it's a good idea, in principle.

Mr. FORD: However, if we are not assured that that is n--not going to be abused, then I'm afraid we may well take the view, 'Sorry, no.' In the United Kingdom, it's traditional for people to leave a key under the doormat if they want the neighbors to come in and--and do something in their house. Well, we're neighbors, and we're not going to leave the electronic key under the doormat if you're going to come in and steal the family silver.

KROFT: Y--you said that you think that this is basically a good idea, that we have to do this at some...

Mr. FROST: Oh, in a perfect world, we would not need the NSA, we would not need CSE. But, you know, we have to. We have to in the areas of terrorism, drug lords. We--we'd be lost without them. My concern is no accountability and nothing--no safety net in place for the innocent people that fall through the cracks. That's my concern.

KROFT: Accountability isn't the only issue that's of interest to Congress. There is growing concern within the intelligence community that encryption and the worldwide move to fiber-optic cables, which Echelon may not be able to penetrate, will erode the NSA's ability to gather the intelligence vital to national

Willravel · 01-19-2007, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Endless bombings? All he did was attempt to enforce the no-fly zones.

What's this "all he did" business? You think two rounds of cruise missle strikes is small somehow? I guess I could understand that, considering Clinton never invaded Iraq or was directly responsible for increasing global terrorism.
Clinton's record:
93: Clinton, shortly after the first WTC bombing, bombed Iraq because Saddam attempted to kill President George H. W. Bush.
9/96: Clinton, with bipartisan support, launches two rounds of cruise missle strikes into Baghdad.
12/98 Clinton orders multilateral attacks on military and security targets in Iraq in order to hinder any nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs that could threaten Iraq's neighbors.

Unfortunately, Clinton was not strong enough to avoid following in the foolish footsteps of Bush 1, when he made his "New World Order" announcement as bombs dropped on Baghdad in 1991. Clinton fell into the opinion that we are a violent and dangerous state and we have no qualms attacking anyone for any reason.

BUT, what Clinton did pales in comparison to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Now your OBL comment is really funny, is this the same president who was offered OBL by Sudan and told them that he didnt have any evidence he was involved in anything?

Only that's not true. The Sudanese never offered Clinton OBL, even though they later claimed it. Hassan Absurabi was friends and buisness partners with OBL, and would not have made such an offer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

That IS Echelon, and some more endless cut and pastes because I am in a Host is my pasting hero mood.

OH, the Echelon spy system/network. Sorry. I misunderstood what you meant. I'm still not 100% clear on the context.

host · 01-20-2007, 12:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Endless bombings? All he did was attempt to enforce the no-fly zones.

Now your OBL comment is really funny, is this the same president who was offered OBL by Sudan and told them that he didnt have any evidence he was involved in anything?

That IS Echelon, and some more endless cut and pastes because I am in a Host is my pasting hero mood.

reconmike...take my advice, if you're gonna post a cut and paste, don't pick easily impeachable articles or "hit pieces". This is an example of a solid one:

Quote:

https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affai...ch_041200.html
Statement by Director of Central Intelligence
George J. Tenet
Before the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
(as prepared for delivery)

12 April 2000

<h3>Mr. Chairman, I am here today to discuss allegations about SIGINT activities and the so-called Echelon program of the National Security Agency</h3> with a very specific objective: To assure this Committee, the Congress, and the American public that the United States Intelligence Community is unequivocally committed to conducting its activities in accordance with US law and due regard for the rights of Americans.

Intelligence agencies normally do not, and should not, publicly reveal sensitive details about their operations. For this reason, signals intelligence—or SIGINT—activities may not be known or understood by the public at large. Their limits are well known to the members of this committee but, like me, you too cannot speak publicly as much as you would wish. As the Director of Central Intelligence with overall responsibility for establishing requirements and priorities for the collection of intelligence vital to our national security, I understand that the Intelligence Community must have the confidence of the American public to ensure we have an aggressive intelligence capability. I also know that our foreign allies have to be reassured that their trust in us is justified and that our relationships are beneficial from their perspectives.

There have been recent allegations that the Intelligence Community through NSA has improperly directed our SIGINT capabilities against the private conversations of US persons. That is not the case.

There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we—the CIA, the NSA and the FBI—scrupulously adhere to whenever the conversations of US persons are involved—directly or indirectly.

<b>We do not collect against US persons unless they are agents of a foreign power, as that term is defined in law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department. And we do not target their conversations for collection overseas unless Executive Order 12333 has been followed and the Attorney General has personally approved collection.</b>

There also have been allegations that the Intelligence Community is conducting industrial espionage to provide unfair advantages to US companies. I recognize that it is standard practice for some countries to use their intelligence services to conduct economic espionage, but that is not the policy or practice of the United States. If we lose the confidence of the American people because they think we are violating their privacy rights, or if we were to violate the trust of our allies and steal their business secrets to help US companies increase their profits, we would put your support for our SIGINT programs in jeopardy, and risk losing our eyes and ears—as well as US influence—around the world. I cannot afford to let that happen.

For this reason, I welcome the opportunity, in the face of provocative allegations about NSA that have attracted national and international attention, as well as legitimate congressional interest, to allay concerns that have arisen in recent months about the conduct of SIGINT activities. I will say a few words, then turn to NSA Director General Hayden so that he can address more specifically the system under which NSA operates and some of the specific questions that have been raised.

As you know, signals intelligence is one of the pillars of US intelligence. Along with our other intelligence collection activities, we rely on SIGINT to collect information about the capabilities and intentions of foreign powers, organizations, and persons to support the foreign policy and other national interests of the United States. SIGINT is critical to monitoring terrorist activities, arms control compliance, narcotics trafficking, and the development of chemical and biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction. We could not monitor regional conflicts affecting US interests or assess foreign capabilities and protect our military forces and civilian personnel overseas as effectively without SIGINT.

As DCI, I am responsible for ensuring that requirements for intelligence collection are clearly established and assigned to appropriate Intelligence Community elements for action. I look to my Assistant Directors of Central Intelligence for Collection and for Analysis and Production to help ensure that SIGINT collection is addressing and satisfying high priority intelligence needs. NSA and an interagency process under my overall cognizance specifically address intelligence needs identified by the policy community, military commands, and the Intelligence Community. This long-standing process and the regular review of proposed activities help ensure that SIGINT collection and reporting is consistent both with approved needs and with US laws and policies to protect personal privacy and the rights of US persons.

We conduct SIGINT to protect US national security and the lives of Americans. Our targets are foreign. There are, as you know, some special circumstances recognized in the law in which collection on Americans is permitted. US persons, both individuals and companies, who engage in activities on behalf of foreign powers, terrorist groups, and others working against the US are of great concern to us. General Hayden will explain in more detail how NSA can lawfully obtain such information.

I can assure this Committee that the Intelligence Community adheres to a strict legal regime for approval, implementation, conduct, minimization and use, which involves the General Counsels Offices of each of the Agencies involved as well as the Attorney General herself. We protect the rights of Americans and their privacy; we do not violate it.

With respect to allegations of industrial espionage, the notion that we collect intelligence to promote American business interests is simply wrong. We do not to target foreign companies to support American business interests.....

reconmike, the difference between your "cut and pastes" and mine is that you apparently do not even factcheck the garbage that is Mr. Tate's americanthinker.com article. Nothing that I've seen written on that site is anything other than partisan propaganda that plays well to it's conservative audience, but falls apart when the points that are attempted are held up for comparison to what is easily observed in a wider, "real world" context:

The nytimes.com article about Echelon does not, as Mr. Tate tried to excerpt it into seeming, defend or dismiss the intrusion on privacy of Americans that Mr. Tate wants you to believe that it does. The article is not a polictical piece, it was written in 1999 section of the Ny Times called "Technology Cybertimes"

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/...27network.html
<img src="http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/1bancyber.gif">
May 27, 1999

<b>Lawmakers Raise Questions About International Spy Network</b>
By NIALL McKAY

An international surveillance network established by the National Security Agency and British intelligence services has come under scrutiny in recent weeks, as lawmakers in the United States question whether the network, known as Echelon, could be used to monitor American citizens.

Last week, the House Committee on Intelligence requested that the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency provide a detailed report to Congress explaining what legal standards they use to monitor the conversations, transmissions and activities of American citizens.

The request is part of an amendment to the annual intelligence budget bill, the Intelligence Reauthorization Act. It was proposed by Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican and was supported by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, a Florida Republican. The amendment was passed by the House on May 13 and will now go before the Senate.

Barr, a former CIA analyst, is part of a growing contingent in the United States, Europe and Australia alarmed by the existence of Echelon, a computer system that monitors millions of e-mail, fax, telex and phone messages sent over satellite-based communications systems as well as terrestrial-based data communications. The system was established under what is known as the "UKUSA Agreement" after World War II and includes the security agencies of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Although Echelon was originally set up as an international spy network, lawmakers are concerned that it could be used to eavesdrop on American citizens.

"I am concerned there are not sufficient legal mechanisms in place to protect our private information from unauthorized government eavesdropping through such mechanisms as Project Echelon," Barr said in an interview on Tuesday.

The finished report will outline the legal bases and other criteria used by United States intelligence agencies when assessing potential wiretap targets. It will be submitted to the House and made available to the public.

"If the agencies feel unable to provide a full account to the public, then a second classified report will be provided to the House Committee on Intelligence," Barr said. "This is to stop the agencies hiding behind a cloak of secrecy."

Judith Emmel, chief of public affairs for the NSA, declined to comment about the UKUSA Agreement but said the agency was committed to responding to all information requests covered by Barr's amendment. "The NSA's Office of General Counsel works hard to ensure that all Agency activities are conducted in accordance with the highest constitutional, legal and ethical standards," she said.

Until last Sunday, no government or intelligence agency from the member states had openly admitted to the existence of the UKUSA Agreement or Echelon. However, on a television program broadcast on Sunday in Australia, the director of Australia's Defence Signals Directorate acknowledged the existence of the agreement. The official, Martin Brady, declined to be interviewed for the "Sunday Program," but provided a statement for its special on Echelon. "DSD does cooperate with counterpart signals intelligence organizations overseas under the UKUSA relationship," the statement said.

Meanwhile, European Parliament officials have also expressed concern about the use of Echelon to gather economic intelligence for participating nations. Last October, the spying system came to the attention of the Parliament during a debate on Europe's intelligence relationship with the United States. At that time, the Parliament decided it needed more information about Echelon and asked its Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel to commission a report.

The report, entitled "Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information", was published on May 10 and provides a detailed account of Echelon and other intelligence monitoring systems.

According to the report, Echelon is just one of the many code names for the monitoring system, which consists of satellite interception stations in participating countries. The stations collectively monitor millions of voice and data messages each day. These messages are then scanned and checked against certain key criteria held in a computer system called the "Dictionary." In the case of voice communications, the criteria could include a suspected criminal's telephone number; with respect to data communications, the messages might be scanned for certain keywords, like "bomb" or "drugs." The report also alleges that Echelon is capable of monitoring terrestrial Internet traffic through interception nodes placed on deep-sea communications cables.

<b>While few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers and terrorists</b>, many are concerned that the system could be abused to collect economic and political information.

<h3>"host comment": Note that in reconmike's article, it's author, William Tate, dropped "while" when he quoted the preceding paragraph, and cut the paragraph in two after the word, "terrorist" to support his false accusation that the Times defended Echelon because of Clinton......</h3>

"The recent revelations about China's spying activities in the U.S. demonstrates that there is a clear need for electronic monitoring capabilities," said Patrick Poole, a lecturer in government and economics at Bannock Burn College in Franklin, Tenn., who compiled a report on Echelon for the Free Congress Foundation. "But those capabilities can be abused for political or economic purposes so we need to ensure that there is some sort of legislative control over these systems."

On the "Sunday Program" special on Echelon, Mike Frost, a former employee of Canada's Communications Security Establishment, said that Britain's intelligence agency requested that the CSE monitor the communications of British government officials in the late 1980s. Under British law, the intelligence agency is prohibited from monitoring its own government. Frost also said that since the cold war is over, the "the focus now is towards economic intelligence."

Still, Echelon has been shrouded in such secrecy that its very existence has been difficult to prove. Barr's amendment aims to change that.

"If this report reveals that information about American citizens is being collected without legal authorization, the intelligence community will have some serious explaining to do," Barr said.

From this link (click on the word, "study"...) in your americanthinker article, Mike:

Quote:

....Despite the Times’ reluctance to emphasize those concerns, one of the sources used in that same article, Patrick Poole, a lecturer in government and economics at Bannock Burn College in Franklin, Tenn., had already concluded in a <a href="http://fly.hiwaay.net/%7Epspoole/echelon.html">study</a> cited by the Times story that the program had been abused in both ways.......

<b>We find this early in the executive summary of the "study" of Echelon....the abuses described occurred during the two republican administrations that preceded Clinton's Jan. 20, 2003 inauguration:</b>

Quote:

http://fly.hiwaay.net/%7Epspoole/echelon.html

.....But apart from directing their ears towards terrorists and rogue states, ECHELON is also being used for purposes well outside its original mission. The regular discovery of domestic surveillance targeted at American civilians for reasons of “unpopular” political affiliation or for no probable cause at all in violation of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution – are consistently impeded by very elaborate and complex legal arguments and privilege claims by the intelligence agencies and the US government. The guardians and caretakers of our liberties, our duly elected political representatives, give scarce attention to these activities, let alone the abuses that occur under their watch. Among the activities that the ECHELON targets are:

Political spying: Since the close of World War II, the US intelligence agencies have developed a consistent record of trampling the rights and liberties of the American people. Even after the investigations into the domestic and political surveillance activities of the agencies that followed in the wake of the Watergate fiasco, the NSA continues to target the political activity of “unpopular” political groups and our duly elected representatives. One whistleblower charged in a 1988 Cleveland Plain Dealer interview that, while she was stationed at the Menwith Hill facility in the 1980s, she heard real-time intercepts of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. A former Maryland Congressman, Michael Barnes, claimed in a 1995 Baltimore Sun article that under the Reagan Administration his phone calls were regularly intercepted, which he discovered only after reporters had been passed transcripts of his conversations by the White House. One of the most shocking revelations came to light after several GCHQ officials became concerned about the targeting of peaceful political groups and told the London Observer in 1992 that the ECHELON dictionaries targeted Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and even Christian ministries. ....

Excerpt from reconmike's cut and paste of William Tate's "article" on americanthinker.com website:

Quote:

.....In the February, 2000 60 Minutes story, former spy Mike Frost made clear that Echelon monitored practically every conversation — <b>no matter how seemingly innocent — during the Clinton years.......</b>

Compare William Tate's total bullshit to the following facts:

<b>There is much more to call into question any validity to your highly partisan and inaccurate "hit piece", reconmike, but to keep it simple here...(feel free to read and factcheck the entire refutation of Mr. Tate's americanthinker "article" and CBS 60 minute's interview of Mr. Frost, as well as of the 1997 Insight magazine article)....I'll end this with some observations about Tate's linking of Clinton with the comments of Mr. Frost:</b>

Quote:

http://cathyyoung.blogspot.com/2006/...grey-lady.html
Friday, January 13, 2006
Playing "gotcha" with the Grey Lady
A much-blogged article at the American Thinker website accuses The New York Times, and the mainstream media in general, of blatant hypocrisy and political bias in its approach to domestic spying......

....It gets better. Tate writes:

In the February, 2000 60 Minutes story, former spy Mike Frost made clear that Echelon monitored practically every conversation – no matter how seemingly innocent – during the Clinton years.

“A lady had been to a school play the night before, and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a-a lousy job. Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she said to her friend something like this, ‘Oh, Danny really bombed last night,’ just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation w-was referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and her phone number in the database as a possible terrorist.”

“This is not urban legend you’re talking about. This actually happened?” Kroft asked.
“Factual. Absolutely fact. No legend here.”

<h3>During the Clinton years? That's a good one. Mike Frost, you see, is Canadian, and <a href="http://cryptome.org/echelon-60min.htm">he was discussing</a> his work for the CSE, the Canadian equivalent of the NSA.</h3> (Edited to add: Since Echelon was a collaboration between the intelligence agencies of several countries under the aegis of the NSA, and included the CSE, it's possible that this alleged incident happened in the U.S. <h3>However, considering that Frost <a href="http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/frostspy.htm">retired in 1990</a>, it's pretty certain that he wasn't talking about the Clinton years.)</h3>

Undaunted, Tate sums up:

So, during the Clinton Administration, evidence existed (all of the information used in this article was available at the time) that:

-an invasive, extensive domestic eavesdropping program was aimed at every U.S. citizen;

-intelligence agencies were using allies to circumvent constitutional restrictions;

(Actually, the European Union report that is presumably Tate's source for the latter assertion says that this was done "between 1967 and 1975" and also "following the introduction of legislation to limit NSA's domestic intelligence activities in 1978"; it says nothing about the Clinton era specifically.)....

reconmike, if Echelon existed it was part of an evolution of prgrams that came about through a cooperative alliance of the english speaking world that dated back to 1948. The contribution that Mr. Frost brought to the CBS 60 minutes program had to do with what he knew working for a Canadian spy agency and his firsthand experience ended in 1990, with the last ten years of his career spanning 8 years of Reagan's presidency and two years of GHW Bush''s.

The info in the 1997 Insight article is uncorroborated, and the 1999 NY Times article cited by William Tate does not speak favorably about Echelon, as Tate claimed.....read it and show us what the f*ck Tate is talking about ! Consider that the article also refers heavily to what Bob Barr thinks, says, and is doing in reaction to Echelon, and that less than six months before the NY Times' 1999 article, Barr was one of 3 repub, house members in charge of drawing up articles of impeachment against Clinton, and then prosecuting him in an impeachment trial in the senate, a trial which failed to convict Clinton and exposed Bob Barr to criticism for his extreme partisanship.

Not to pick on you specifically, reconmike, but you did allude to me as a "cut and paste" poster. Show me an example of the last time anything that I cut and pasted collapsed as easily as the cut and paste of William Tate's article and the 60 minutes piece that featured "former spy", Frost....

reconmike · 01-20-2007, 07:04 AM

Really Host, so a Clinton crony is above lying while under oath? When the Slick One did so himself?
Maybe he was afraid to end up dead like the other Clinton detractors.

host · 01-20-2007, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reconmike

Really Host, so a Clinton crony is above lying while under oath? When the Slick One did so himself?
Maybe he was afraid to end up dead like the other Clinton detractors.

mike....mike....mike !!!! No come back from you related to the implosion of your americanthinker.com/william tate "article" or the CBS 60 minutes "interview" that relied so heavily on the "revelations" of retired Canadian spy, Frost, to support Tate's accusations about "what went on" during the "Clinton years"?

<b>In order for your dismissal of Tenet's April, 2000 congressional testimony as merely "a Clinton crony is above lying while under oath", to be valid, wouldn't it follow that FISA court judge, James Robertson, would also have to have been fooled, as well as some of the other ten judges on that court, by Tenet's "lying"? No FISA court judge, resigned in protest, Mike, after Tenet's April, 2000 testimony....but one did....a Rehnquist appointee to FISA court...</b>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...122102253.html
RNC Points To Spy Orders By Carter, Clinton

Thursday, December 22, 2005; Page A12

As members of Congress from both parties continued to criticize the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping yesterday, the Republican National Committee issued a news release portraying the critics as Democrats seeking to "play politics again with national security."

The RNC asserted that Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter both authorized comparable forms of "search [or] surveillance without court orders."

The RNC quoted fragments of Clinton's Executive Order 12949, authorizing the attorney general to "approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information," and Carter's Executive Order 12139, authorizing the attorney general to "approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order."

<b>The Clinton and Carter orders, which were published</b>, permitted warrantless spying only on foreigners who are not protected by the Constitution. Bush's secret directive permitted the NSA to eavesdrop on the overseas calls of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

The RNC's quotation of Clinton's order left out the stated requirement, in the same sentence, that a warrantless search not involve "the premises, information, material, or property of a United States person." Carter's order, also in the same sentence quoted, said warrantless eavesdropping could not include "any communication to which a United States person is a party."

reconmike.... please click the link in the first quote box, it is rich with other links to actual news reports that are not influenced by Brett Bozell "fronts" like newsmax, cnsnews, aim.org, etc. and read actual news reporting. NO judge who resigned from the FISA court, in protest, when Clinton was president, and several senators of republican party affiliation have been "sucked in by the "conspiracy of lies" you are attempting to pin on Tenet,
Mike:

Quote:

http://www.americanprogressaction.or...7&ct=1742133#3
NATIONAL SECURITY
Warrantless Spying Apologetics Continue

Concern over President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program is growing. <h3>U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret FISA Court, took the extraordinary step of resigning on Monday "in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program." Associates of Judge Robertson, who was appointed to the court by late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, said he had "privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work."</h3> Also yesterday, a bipartisan group of senators, including Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), called "for a joint investigation by the Senate judiciary and intelligence panels into the classified program."

Meanwhile, the Bush administration and its supporters in Congress continue to mount defenses of the President's activities. Some are simply rhetorical flourish: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said on Monday, "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead." Sen. Russ Feingold's (D-WI) retort, borrowed from Patrick Henry, was fitting: "Give me liberty or give me death." But other defenses of the program require deeper analysis: President Bush has argued that his authority to spy on Americans without a court order derives from the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress after September 11. Others have issued defenses that boil down to the claim, "President Clinton did it too." None are accurate.

DEBUNKING THE WAR RESOLUTION MYTH: President Bush said on Monday that he did not have to secure warrants to spy on Americans because "after September the 11th, the United States Congress also granted me additional authority to use military force against al Qaeda." Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made the same case, in greater detail. But Congress clearly did not intend for the AUMF passed after 9/11 to authorize such activities. When the authorization was debated on September 14, 2001, members of Congress were extremely clear about the limited authority it gave the President. Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) noted that it provided "no new or additional grant of powers to the President." Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) argued, "Some people say that is a broad change in authorization to the Commander in Chief of this country. It is not. It is a very limited concept." Several additional statements here.

DEBUNKING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER MYTH: Conservative activist Matt Drudge yesterday posted the following headline on his popular website: "Clinton Executive Order: Secret Search on Americans Without Court Order." This is false. Drudge highlights one sentence from an executive order issued by President Clinton in February 1995: "The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order." But the order also includes the following text: "Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) [50 U.S.C. 1822(a)] of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance] Act (FISA), the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section." That section of FISA requires the Attorney General to certify that the search will not involve "the premises, information, material, or property of a United States person." That means U.S. citizens or anyone inside of the United States. In stark contrast, Bush’s program permits, for the first time ever, warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and other people inside of the United States. Neither Clinton’s 1995 executive order, nor President Carter's 1979 executive order (which Drudge also claims allows warrantless searches of Americans) authorizes that.

DEBUNKING THE GORELICK MYTH: A related argument was made yesterday by Byron York in a National Review article titled "Clinton Claimed Authority to Order No-Warrant Searches." The article cites then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick’s July 14, 1994 testimony that "the President has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes." Sen. Cornyn cited the testimony several times yesterday. What York obscures is that, at the time of Gorelick's testimony, physical searches were not covered under FISA. It’s not surprising that, in 1994, Gorelick argued that physical searches were not covered by FISA. They weren't. With Clinton’s backing, the law was amended in 1995 to include physical searches. The distinction is clear. The Clinton administration viewed FISA, a criminal statute, as the law. The Bush administration viewed FISA as a set of recommendations they could ignore.

DEBUNKING THE ECHELON MYTH: Another variation of the "Clinton did it" argument involves a top-secret surveillance program employed by the Clinton administration, code-named Echelon. The conservative outlet NewsMax presents the basic case: "During the 1990’s under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon…all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks." This is false. The Echelon program complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained. Then-CIA director George Tenet testified to this before Congress on 4/12/00: "We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department."

[/quote]
....and I know that all of this confronts not your POV, but the underpinnings of your entire belief system:

Quote:

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/20/the-echelon-myth/

The Echelon Myth

Prominent right-wing bloggers – including <a href="http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004110.htm">Michelle Malkin</a>, <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_12_18_corner-archive.asp#085075">the Corner</a>, <a href="http://wizbangblog.com/archives/007850.php">Wizbang</a> and <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1543982/posts">Free Republic</a> — are pushing the argument that President Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program isn’t news because the Clinton administration did the same thing.

The right-wing outlet NewsMax <a href="http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/12/18/221452.shtml">sums up the basic argument:</a>

During the 1990’s under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon…all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.

That’s flatly false. The Clinton administration program, code-named Echelon, complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained. CIA director George Tenet testified to this before Congress on 4/12/00:

I’m here today to discuss specific issues about and allegations regarding Signals Intelligence activities and the so-called Echelon Program of the National Security Agency…

There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the FBI scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of U.S. persons are involved, whether directly or indirectly. We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department.

Meanwhile, the position of the Bush administration is that they can bypass the FISA court and every other court, even when they are monitoring the communications of U.S. persons. <b>It is the difference between following the law and breaking it.</b>

If George Tenet lied to congress in April, 2000, why did all the 11 FISA court judges, Bush, Cheney, Rove, (in the middle of a heated campaign against Al Gore) and Ken Starr, ignore Tenet's "coverup"?

reconmike, Clinton was investigated by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Starr">Ken Starr</a> for more than six years, everything that he and his wife did, before and during his presidency was exhaustively investigated. Richard Mellon Scaife rewarded Starr for his vigilance by installing him as dean of Pepperdine Law School, on Malibu Beach, where Starr thrives today.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have yet to be investigated, to any extent. You'll get your first glimpse of what their futures will look like, during the next six weeks, in Libby's trial. My advice, if your plan is to stay in your bubble of denial, is to go to Lowes or to Home Depot, and buy some "quick patch" to repair all of the cracks that the wall of your bubble will be subjected to, if you don't stop ceding your ability to think for yourself to William Tate, Brett Bozell, Malkin, and the rest of their ilk.

Accepting their propaganda without fact checking, is an easily avoidable trap, mike.

powerclown · 01-20-2007, 11:40 AM

The supervision of the American citizenry is a foregone conclusion.
Whether more or less conspicuously than during Clintons
or Reagans
or Fords
or Carters
or Nixons
or Johnsons
or Kennedys
or Trumans
or Eisenhowers time can be debated.
Bush scribbled a little outside the lines, and the System activated.
The People's System.
Everything in working order.
Back to the ritual of diplomacy and legislation.
Clamor for calmer surveillance publicly and ceremoniously acknowledged.
Eye in the Sky maintains its eternal vigil.
The People's Vigil.
Checks and Balances.
Equilibrium restored.

reconmike · 01-20-2007, 12:46 PM

Host I still do not understand what you mean by "fact checking" .
You paste 2 clips from holyshitiamsofarleftmynamemightaswellbeKhrushchev.org and they are supposed to be facts.
Ofcouse Starr investigated The Slick one for years, and anytime he had a witness they mysteriously wound up dead.

During the 2000 campaign Bush, Cheney and Rove were not privy to classified information, so how would they have known what Echelon was being used for?

Oh and by the way I just heard today Hellary has thrown her pointy hat into the ring, one good might come out of her winning the presidency, we the people might get back all the Lincoln china she stole.

01-18-2007, 05:35 AM	#2 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	simplistic and idiotic thoughts like those of your president and VP do you no favours in the muslim/arab world... basically because what they say it just incorrect... the arabs hate them cos they're stupid. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

01-18-2007, 06:01 AM	#3 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	okay, you're starting to freak me out now. I just had this vision of GW and Dick removing their "skins" to find that they're really OBL and Al Zawahri. Like aliens do in the movies. __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

01-18-2007, 02:14 PM	#11 (permalink)
Daniel_ Evil Priest: The Devil Made Me Do It! Location: Southern England	My country spent decades fighting terrorists in Northern Ireland, and in the end it was talking to them that slowed down (and not pretty much ended) the violence. It gets to the point that no matter why it started, it keeps going because "we hate you because you keep trying to kill us", and "we try to kill you because you try to kill us". As the wise man said "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" (Ghandi). Eventualy (probably after this PotUS is long gone) someone will pull out the troops, start talks, and Iraq will become just another nation that Americans and Brits go on holiday to in order to see the real locations of all the war films - just like Viet Nam is now. __________________ ╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗ Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air, And deep beneath the rolling waves, In labyrinths of Coral Caves, The Echo of a distant time Comes willowing across the sand; And everthing is Green and Submarine ╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

01-19-2007, 10:29 AM	#27 (permalink)
reconmike Thank You Jesus Location: Twilight Zone	Funny thing Host is that you always seen to leave out Slick Willie Dick was doing the same evesdropping. Why Is that? __________________ Where is Darwin when ya need him?

01-20-2007, 07:04 AM	#37 (permalink)
reconmike Thank You Jesus Location: Twilight Zone	Really Host, so a Clinton crony is above lying while under oath? When the Slick One did so himself? Maybe he was afraid to end up dead like the other Clinton detractors. __________________ Where is Darwin when ya need him?

01-18-2007, 06:05 AM	#4 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Why does George Bush hate America?

01-18-2007, 11:12 AM	#5 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	I think they secretly love us. I see latent homosexual cravings in the writings of zawahiri, for example. I think bin laden secretly wants george bush's...respect.

01-18-2007, 11:22 AM	#6 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	The hypocracy is running rampent, and is tracking mud on our Constitution in the process. Who hates freedom? Is it freedom fighters, or is it political leaders who are trying to grab power? Duh.

01-18-2007, 01:47 PM	#10 (permalink)
Ch'i Artist of Life	The Bush administration does not want al-Qaeda to hate us less, as they have shown us on numorous occasions (i.e. the war in Iraq, the war on terror, ect.). Unless they are unable to comprehend that their foreign policy feeds any militant Islamic fundementalist entity, such as al-Qaeda. In our actions, we provide more of the antagonism they fight against. If the Bush and Cheney really wanted them to hate us less they wouldn't limit our freedoms; they would remove our occupying forces and withdraw completely. Unless they really are that stupid.

01-18-2007, 03:13 PM	#12 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	Gandhi had his problems too... This is a man obsessed with his own shit. This is a man who had little girls give him enemas daily. This is a man who regularly took a dump in public. This is a man who preached against sex. This is a man who got married at 13. This is a man who called his wife a dumb cow, publically. This is a man who slept naked with naked young girls. (maybe not too major a problem) This is a man who let his wife die rather than let her be properly medicated. This is a man who disowned both his sons, one for wanting to get married. This is a man - I think it fair to say - with Issues.

01-18-2007, 03:22 PM	#13 (permalink)
Ch'i Artist of Life	Everyone has issues. What's your point, powerclown?

01-18-2007, 03:48 PM	#14 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	I'm just saying: How wise was he, really?

01-18-2007, 03:52 PM	#15 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Wise man once said: "Anyone who idolizes perfection will always fall short.' Ghandi wasn't perfect. He did manage to defeat the British Empire. That's nothing to sneeze at.

01-18-2007, 05:32 PM	#19 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	I congratulate Powerclown on an extraordinarily effective threadjack. Why, nobody probably even REMEMBERS the freedom-destroying atrocities this thread was intended to discuss. Instead we get to talk about whether Gandhi was a weirdo. Great work. There's probably a job for you at Fox News!

01-18-2007, 06:19 PM	#20 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	Thanks ratbastid. I have a question for you though: are there thread limits here? Are there limits as to the number of pages within any given thread? Are people forbidden to re-establish the OP whenver they choose to in the event of an incidental threadjack? This thread took on a non-serious tone very early on (not by me), and admittedly got sidetracked. Sometimes threads take on a life of their own, like crystals. So would you say it is now impossible to re-establish the intended discussion in the op? I definitely wouldn't. I have faith in the vigor, vitality and prolificacy of the posters here. I await the return to the discussion of the Death of Freedom in America, al-Qaeda, the GWOT, etc. Sorry about the threadjack.

01-18-2007, 11:11 PM	#22 (permalink)
n0nsensical Junkie Location: San Francisco	Come on, now, Bush is a freedom-loving kind of guy. For certain definitions of freedom.

01-19-2007, 06:22 AM	#24 (permalink)
pai mei Insane	I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. ~John F. Kennedy

01-19-2007, 08:56 AM	#25 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	"Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 7, 2006 "It's bad in Iraq. Does that help?" --George W. Bush, after being asked by a reporter whether he's in denial about Iraq, Washington, D.C., Dec. 7, 2006 George W. Bush couldn't persuade a starving man to eat a grape. He's just too damn stupid. If you knew you were stupid, you would surround yourself with smart people. Smart people giving advise to a stupid person in charge often try to control that person. Welcome to the worst side of politics.

01-20-2007, 11:40 AM	#39 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	The supervision of the American citizenry is a foregone conclusion. Whether more or less conspicuously than during Clintons or Reagans or Fords or Carters or Nixons or Johnsons or Kennedys or Trumans or Eisenhowers time can be debated. Bush scribbled a little outside the lines, and the System activated. The People's System. Everything in working order. Back to the ritual of diplomacy and legislation. Clamor for calmer surveillance publicly and ceremoniously acknowledged. Eye in the Sky maintains its eternal vigil. The People's Vigil. Checks and Balances. Equilibrium restored.

01-20-2007, 12:46 PM	#40 (permalink)
reconmike Thank You Jesus Location: Twilight Zone	Host I still do not understand what you mean by "fact checking" . You paste 2 clips from holyshitiamsofarleftmynamemightaswellbeKhrushchev.org and they are supposed to be facts. Ofcouse Starr investigated The Slick one for years, and anytime he had a witness they mysteriously wound up dead. During the 2000 campaign Bush, Cheney and Rove were not privy to classified information, so how would they have known what Echelon was being used for? Oh and by the way I just heard today Hellary has thrown her pointy hat into the ring, one good might come out of her winning the presidency, we the people might get back all the Lincoln china she stole. __________________ Where is Darwin when ya need him?