Did They Hand this MF Decider the Wrong Script, or Is this "Ground Hog Day"? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 07-28-2007, 08:51 AM

If you've wasted the last six years believing the official 9/11 attacks story, and if you've "bought" the "line" about the legitimacy of the "War on Terr-urr", hook, line, and sinker.....can you explain to me why the "decider" looks like an obvious liar about the key reasons for his breaking the FISA laws....and why he risks making the war on terror seem as big of a farce as his radio "address to the nation" was today?

From the movie.... Ground Hog Day:

Quote:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/quotes
.....Phil <h3>(Decider...)</h3>: Can I be serious with you with you for a minute?
Rita: <h3>(the American People)</h3> I don't know. Can you?
Phil: Well, it's Groundhog Day... again... and that must mean we're up here at Gobbler's Knob waiting for the forecast from the world's most-famous groundhog weatherman, Punxsutawney Phil, who's just about to tell us how much more winter we can expect.
Phil: Can I talk to you about a matter that is not work-related?
Rita: You never talk about work.
Phil: What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?
Ralph: That about sums it up for me. ......

In the Ground Hog Day movie, Bill Murray's character, trapped in an existence in which he woke up to the same day, everyday, used his foreknowledge of unfolding events to fashion "pick up lines", directed at attractive women. Our president Bush does the same....he uses his tired, oft repeated "lines" to fuck us out of our constitutional protections intended to protect us, from him and his criminal administration and political party.

When I heard he said the following, <h2>Today.....</h2>, I knew I was living Bill Murray's Ground Hog Day character's, "Ned's", life:

Quote:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...626B8B4F9F8%7D

Text of President Bush's weekly radio address
By MarketWatch
Last Update: 11:55 AM ET <h2>Jul 28, 2007</h2>

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This week I visited with troops at Charleston Air Force Base. These fine men and women are serving courageously to protect our country against dangerous enemies. The terrorist network that struck America on September the 11th wants to strike our country again. To stop them, our military, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals need the best possible information about who the terrorists are, where they are, and what they are planning.
One of the most important ways we can gather that information is by monitoring terrorist communications. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- <h3>also known as FISA -- provides a critical legal foundation that allows our intelligence community to collect this information while protecting the civil liberties of Americans. But this important law was written in 1978, and it addressed the technologies of that era. This law is badly out of date -- and Congress must act to modernize it.
Today we face sophisticated terrorists who use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate with each other, recruit operatives, and plan attacks on our country. Technologies like these were not available when FISA was passed nearly 30 years ago, and FISA has not kept up with new technological developments.</h3> As a result, our Nation is hampered in its ability to gain the vital intelligence we need to keep the American people safe. In his testimony to Congress in May, Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, put it this way: We are "significantly burdened in capturing overseas communications of foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside the United States."
<h3>To fix this problem, my Administration has proposed a bill that would modernize the FISA statute. This legislation is the product of months of discussion with members of both parties in the House and the Senate -- and it includes four key reforms: First, it brings FISA up to date with the changes in communications technology that have taken place over the past three decades.</h3> Second, it seeks to restore FISA to its original focus on protecting the privacy interests of people inside the United States, so we don't have to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located in foreign locations. Third, it allows the government to work more efficiently with private-sector entities like communications providers, whose help is essential. And fourth, it will streamline administrative processes so our intelligence community can gather foreign intelligence more quickly and more effectively, while protecting civil liberties.
<h3>Every day that Congress puts off these reforms increases the danger to our Nation.</h3> Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country. Congress needs to act immediately to pass this bill, so that our national security professionals can close intelligence gaps and provide critical warning time for our country.
As the recent National Intelligence Estimate reported, America is in a heightened threat environment. Reforming FISA will help our intelligence professionals address those threats -- and they should not have to wait any longer. Congress will soon be leaving for its August recess.<h3> I ask Republicans and Democrats to work together to pass FISA modernization now, before they leave town. Our national security depends on it.</h3> Thank you for listening.

My panic today is related to this post that I did on May 24, 2007:

Quote:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...9&postcount=16 May 24

<h2>The Flip:</h2>

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0011026-5.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
<h2>October 26, 2001</h2>

Multi-front Operation, 2001 Video & Timeline President Signs Anti-Terrorism Bill
Remarks by the President at Signing of the Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Legislation
The East Room

... The changes, effective today, will help counter a threat like no other our nation has ever faced. We've seen the enemy, and the murder of thousands of innocent, unsuspecting people. They recognize no barrier of morality. They have no conscience. The terrorists cannot be reasoned with. Witness the recent anthrax attacks through our Postal Service.

Our country is grateful for the courage the Postal Service has shown during these difficult times. We mourn the loss of the lives of Thomas Morris and Joseph Curseen; postal workers who died in the line of duty. And our prayers go to their loved ones.

I want to assure postal workers that our government is testing more than 200 postal facilities along the entire Eastern corridor that may have been impacted. And we will move quickly to treat and protect workers where positive exposures are found.

But one thing is for certain: These terrorists must be pursued, they must be defeated, and they must be brought to justice. (Applause.) And that is the purpose of this legislation. Since the 11th of September, the men and women of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been relentless in their response to new and sudden challenges.

We have seen the horrors terrorists can inflict. We may never know what horrors our country was spared by the diligent and determined work of our police forces, the FBI, ATF agents, federal marshals, Custom officers, Secret Service, intelligence professionals and local law enforcement officials, under the most trying conditions. They are serving this country with excellence, and often with bravery.

They deserve our full support and every means of help that we can provide. We're dealing with terrorists who operate by highly sophisticated methods and technologies, some of which were not even available when our existing laws were written. The bill before me takes account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists. It will help law enforcement to identify, to dismantle, to disrupt, and to punish terrorists before they strike.

For example, this legislation gives law enforcement officials better tools to put an end to financial counterfeiting, smuggling and money-laundering. Secondly, it gives intelligence operations and criminal operations the chance to operate not on separate tracks, but to share vital information so necessary to disrupt a terrorist attack before it occurs.

As of today, we're changing the laws governing information-sharing. And as importantly, we're changing the culture of our various agencies that fight terrorism. Countering and investigating terrorist activity is the number one priority for both law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists. <h3>The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones.

As of today, we'll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology.</h3> Investigations are often slowed by limit on the reach of federal search warrants.

Law enforcement agencies have to get a new warrant for each new district they investigate, even when they're after the same suspect. Under this new law, warrants are valid across all districts and across all states. ......

....... It is now my honor to sign into law the USA Patriot Act of 2001. (Applause.)

(The bill is signed.) (Applause.)

END 10:57 A.M. EDT

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20011027.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
<h3>October 27, 2001</h3>

Radio Address of the President to the Nation

.....The bill I signed yesterday gives intelligence and law enforcement officials additional tools they need to hunt and capture and punish terrorists. Our enemies operate by highly sophisticated methods and technologies, using the latest means of communication and the new weapon of bioterrorism.

<h3>When earlier laws were written, some of these methods did not even exist. The new law recognizes the realities and dangers posed by the modern terrorist. </h3> It will help us to prosecute terrorist organizations -- and also to detect them before they strike....

..... Intelligence operations and criminal investigations have often had to operate on separate tracks. The new law will make it easier for all agencies to share vital information about terrorist activity.

Surveillance of communications is another essential method of law enforcement. <h3>But for a long time, we have been working under laws written in the era of rotary telephones. </h3> Under the new law, officials may conduct court-ordered surveillance of all modern forms of communication used by terrorists.

In recent years, some investigations have been hindered by limits on the reach of federal search warrants. Officials had to get a new warrant for each new district and investigation covered, even when involving the same suspect. As of now, warrants are valid across districts and across state lines.......

...... These measures were enacted with broad support in both parties. They reflect a firm resolve to uphold and respect the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, while dealing swiftly and severely with terrorists.

<h2>Now comes the duty of carrying them out.</h2> And I can assure all Americans that these important new statutes will be enforced to the full.

Thank you for listening.

END

...and what is this....40 months later....could it be????
<h2>The Flop:</h2>

Quote:

http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2006...t-he-says.html

....<h2>Now comes the duty of carrying them out.</h2>
And I can assure all Americans that
these important new statutes will be
enforced to the full. Thank you for
listening.

Within months after making this assurance to the American people, President Bush authorized the NSA to ignore the requirements of the law he had just signed and which he assured the American people would be "enforced to the full." <h3>Now that he's been caught, what is his stated reason for disregarding the law? He tells us the law was too "old" and "outdated" and not designed to deal with the realities and dangers posed by the modern terrorist.</h3>

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0051219-1.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
<h2>December 19, 2005</h2>

Press Briefing by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and General Michael Hayden, Principal Deputy Director for National Intelligence
James S. Brady Briefing Room
......Q General, can you tell us why you don't choose to go to the FISA court?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, we continue to go to the FISA court and obtain orders. It is a very important tool that we continue to utilize. Our position is that we are not legally required to do, in this particular case, because the law requires that we -- FISA requires that we get a court order, unless authorized by a statute, and we believe that authorization has occurred.

The operators out at NSA tell me that we don't have the speed and the agility that we need, in all circumstances, to deal with this new kind of enemy. <h3>You have to remember that FISA was passed by the Congress in 1978. There have been tremendous advances in technology -- ......</h3>

And for some reason which I cannot begin to fathom, <h2>the press simply ignores all of his previous statements to the contrary.</h2>

...and seven months later, still....no, not more
<h2> Flop ?????</h2>

Mr. President....I thought that you boasted that the surveillance technology "gap" had been fixed....you took credit for fixing it....<b>59 months before you said this:</b>

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060907-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 7, 2006

President Bush Discusses Progress in the Global War on Terror
Cobb Galleria Centre
Atlanta, Georgia

......Last year, details of the Terrorist Surveillance Program were leaked to the news media, and the program was then challenged in court. That challenge was recently upheld by a federal district judge in Michigan. My administration strongly disagrees with the ruling. We are appealing it, and we believe our appeal will be successful. Yet a series of protracted legal challenges would put a heavy burden on this critical and vital program. The surest way to keep the program is to get explicit approval from the United States Congress. <b>So today I'm calling on the Congress to promptly pass legislation providing additional authority for the Terrorist Surveillance Program, along with broader reforms in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.</b> (Applause.)

When FISA was passed in 1978, there was no widely accessible Internet, and almost all calls were made on fixed landlines. <h3>Since then, the nature of communications has changed, quite dramatically. The terrorists who want to harm America can now buy disposable cell phones, and open anonymous e-mail addresses. Our laws need to change to take these changes into account.......</h3>

<h2>The Flip:</h2>
Here is Bush, just weeks after he is alleged to have (by James Comey) directed Card and Gonzales to Ashcroft's ICU unit bed to sign an authorization that Ashcroft was no longer legally authorized to sign...he had relinquished his duties due to illness:

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ges/print.html
And beyond McConnell's plainly false Op-Ed, the lies told by the Bush administration on the issue of eavesdropping have no equal. In light of the revelations from James Comey, just re-visit the statements from Alberto Gonzales in December 2005 -- five days before the New York Times revealed the warrantless eavesdropping program -- in which he assured his audience: "All wiretaps must be authorized by a federal judge." <h3>That is the same Alberto Gonzales who barged into John Ashcroft's hospital room to coerce his consent to their ongoing warrantless eavesdropping activities.

Worse, the President himself -- literally one month after the dispute with Comey and Ashcroft over warrantless eavesdropping -- one month -- ran around the country as part of his re-election campaign insisting that the only eavesdropping done by the government was one done with warrants:</h3>

Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. <b>Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so.</h3>

The same President who ordered warrantless eavesdropping -- and who almost had the entire top level of the DOJ resign as a result -- told Americans weeks later that the Government only eavesdrops with warrants. To call that "lying" is to understate the case. It really is to our great discredit that we have acquiesced to this level of presidential deceit.

<h3>McConnell's Op-Ed demonstrates that this level of deceit with regard to eavesdropping continues unabated. The notion that the administration would demand, and that Congress would entertain, further expansions of FISA under these circumstances is just staggering.</h3>

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040420-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 20, 2004

President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security
Remarks by the President in a Conversation on the USA Patriot Act
Kleinshans Music Hall
Buffalo, New York

.... Part of the problem we face was that there was laws and bureaucratic mind-sets that prevented the sharing of information. And so, besides setting up the Homeland Security Department and beefing up our air travel security, and making sure that we now fingerprint at the borders and take those fingerprints, by the way, and compare to a master log of fingerprints of terrorists and known criminals, to make sure people coming into our country are the right people coming into our country. I mean, we do a lot of things. But we change law, as well, to allow the FBI and -- to be able to share information within the FBI.

Incredibly enough, because of -- which Larry and others will discuss -- see, I'm not a lawyer, so it's kind of hard for me to kind of get bogged down in the law. (Applause.) I'm not going to play like one, either. (Laughter.) The way I viewed it, if I can just put it in simple terms, is that one part of the FBI couldn't tell the other part of the FBI vital information because of law. And the CIA and the FBI couldn't talk. Now, these are people charged with gathering information about threats to the country; yet they couldn't share the information. And right after September the 11th, the Congress wisely acted, said, this doesn't make any sense. If we can't get people talking, how can we act? We're charged with the security of the country, first responders are charged with the security of the country, and if we can't share information between vital agencies, we're not going to be able to do our job. And they acted.

So the first thing I want you to think about is, when you hear Patriot Act, is that we changed the law and the bureaucratic mind-set to allow for the sharing of information. It's vital. And others will describe what that means.

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. <h3>Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so.</h3> It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

But a roving wiretap means -- it was primarily used for drug lords. A guy, a pretty intelligence drug lord would have a phone, and in old days they could just get a tap on that phone. So guess what he'd do? He'd get him another phone, particularly with the advent of the cell phones. And so he'd start changing cell phones, which made it hard for our DEA types to listen, to run down these guys polluting our streets. And that changed, the law changed on -- roving wiretaps were available for chasing down drug lords. They weren't available for chasing down terrorists, see? And that didn't make any sense in the post-9/11 era. If we couldn't use a tool that we're using against mobsters on terrorists, something needed to happen.

The Patriot Act changed that. So with court order, law enforcement officials can now use what's called roving wiretaps, which will prevent a terrorist from switching cell phones in order to get a message out to one of his buddies.

Thirdly, to give you an example of what we're talking about, there's something called delayed notification warrants. Those are very important. I see some people, first responders nodding their heads about what they mean. These are a common tool used to catch mobsters. In other words, it allows people to collect data before everybody is aware of what's going on. It requires a court order. It requires protection under the law. We couldn't use these against terrorists, but we could use against gangs.

We had real problems chasing paper -- following paper trails of people. The law was just such that we could run down a problem for a crooked businessman; we couldn't use the same tools necessary to chase down a terrorist. That doesn't make any sense. And sometimes the use of paper trails and paper will lead local first responders and local officials to a potential terrorist. We're going to have every tool, is what I'm telling you, available for our people who I expect to do their job, and you expect to do their jobs.

We had tough penalties for drug traffickers; we didn't have as tough a penalty for terrorists. That didn't make any sense. The true threat to the 21st century is the fact somebody is trying to come back into our country and hurt us. And we ought to be able to at least send a signal through law that says we're going to treat you equally as tough as we do mobsters and drug lords.

There's other things we need to do. We need administrative subpoenas in the law. This was not a part of the recent Patriot Act. By the way, the reason I bring up the Patriot Act, it's set to expire next year. I'm starting a campaign to make it clear to members of Congress it shouldn't expire. It shouldn't expire, for the security of our country. (Applause.)

Administrative subpoenas mean it is -- speeds up the process whereby people can gain information to go after terrorists. Administrative subpoenas I guess is kind of an ominous sounding word, but it is, to put everybody's mind at ease about administrative subpoenas -- we use them to catch crooked doctors today. It's a tool for people to chase down medical fraud. And it certainly makes sense to me that if we're using it as a tool to chase medical fraud cases, we certainly ought to use it as a tool to chase potential terrorists.

I'll tell you another interesting part of the law that needs to be changed. Judges need greater authority to deny bail to terrorists. Judges have that authority in many cases like -- again, I keep citing drug offenses, but the Congress got tough on drug offenders a while ago and gave judges leeway to deny bail. They don't have that same authority to deny bail to terrorists now. I've got to tell you, it doesn't make any sense to me that it is very conceivable that we haul in somebody who is dangerous to America and then they are able to spring bail and out they go.

It's hard to assure the American people that we've given tools to law enforcement that they need if somebody has gone through all the work to chase down a potential terrorist, and they haul them in front of a court and they pay bail, and it adios. It just doesn't make any sense.

The Patriot Act needs to be renewed and the Patriot Act needs to be enhanced. That's what we're talking about. And it's better for others to explain to you how this Patriot Act works. After all, they're charged with protecting our citizens. They're on the front line. You see, I try to pick the best I can at the federal government and say, here's our mission -- our mission is to protect our country. I say that to the Defense Department -- our mission is to protect the country. I say it to the Justice Department, and to the FBI. After 9/11, I said to the Justice Department and the FBI, your job, your primary focus now is to prevent attack. Listen, I still want you chasing down the criminals; that's what's expected of you. But there's a new mind-set, and that is, because of what happened on 9/11, we've got to change the way we think, and therefore, your job now is to prevent attack.....

.... THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Attorney. (Laughter.) It's good I didn't break any rules. (Laughter.)

The point is, is that -- what he's telling you is, is that we needed to share this information throughout our government, which we couldn't do before. And it just doesn't make any sense. We got people working hard overseas that are collecting information to better help us protect ourselves. And what 9/11 was, is that -- said -- is that a threat overseas now must be taken seriously here at home. It's one thing to protect our embassies, and we work hard to do so. But now a threat overseas could end up being a threat to the homeland. And in order to protect the homeland, these good people have got to be able to share information.

Those who criticize the Patriot Act must listen to those folks on the front line of defending America. <b>The Patriot Act defends our liberty, is what it does, under the Constitution of the United States. (Applause.)</b> ...

......THE PRESIDENT: .... It's an honor to have been here today. I hope, as a result of this discussion, our fellow citizens have a better understanding of the importance of the Patriot Act and why it needs to be renewed and expanded -- <b>the importance of the Patriot Act, when it comes to defending America, our liberties, and at the same time, that it still protects our liberties under the Constitution.</b> But more importantly, I hope our fellow citizens recognize that there are hundreds of their fellow citizens working on a daily basis to do their duty to make this country as secure as possible. And for your work I say thank you, and may God continue to bless you. Thank you for coming. (Applause.)

END 10:33 A.M. EDT

Quote:

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/20/...aught-on-tape/
Bush Caught on Tape: “A Wiretap Requires A Court Order. Nothing Has Changed.”

Bush, April 2004:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. <b>Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.</b> It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060101.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 1, 2006

President Visits Troops at Brooke Army Medical Center
Brooke Army Medical Center
San Antonio, Texas

...Q In 2004, when you were doing an event about the Patriot Act, in your remarks you had said that any wiretapping required a court order, and that nothing had changed. <b>Given that we now know you had prior approval for this NSA program, were you in any way misleading?

THE PRESIDENT: I was talking about roving wire taps, I believe, involved in the Patriot Act. This is different from the NSA program. The NSA program is a necessary program.</b> I was elected to protect the American people from harm. And on September the 11th, 2001, our nation was attacked. And after that day, I vowed to use all the resources at my disposal, within the law, to protect the American people, which is what I have been doing, and will continue to do. And the fact that somebody leaked this program causes great harm to the United States.

There's an enemy out there. They read newspapers, they listen to what you write, they listen to what you put on the air, and they react. And it seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated with al Qaeda and/or an al Qaeda affiliate, and they're making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why. They attacked us before, they will attack us again if they can. And we're going to do everything we can to stop them.

Yes, Ed. ...

9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......
9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......9/11......

Quote:

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/p....cfm?id=274166
Rockefeller and Bond Announce Committee Completes Section of Phase II Looking at Accuracy of Pre-War Intelligence on Post-War Iraq

--Report to be Sent for Declassification and Could be Released Within Weeks--

Contact: Wendy Morigi (Rockefeller) (202) 224-6101;
Shana Marchio (Bond) (202) 224-0309
Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Washington, DC - The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, and the Vice Chairman, Senator Kit Bond, announced today that the Committee has adopted its Phase II report on prewar intelligence assessments about postwar Iraq. The Committee will submit the report to the Director of National Intelligence for classification review. Following declassification, the Committee will release the report to the public.

The Senate Intelligence Committee released their first report dealing with Intelligence Community failures related to Iraq's weapons capabilities on July 9, 2004. The findings and recommendations of that report were an important impetus leading to landmark legislation reforming the United States Intelligence Community.

Last fall, the Committee released reports on two of the five sections of Phase II: 1) the postwar findings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and weapons programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with prewar assessments; and 2) the use by the Intelligence Community of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress.

Since Mr. Bush is obviously lying about this matter....not once, and he is doing it blatantly.....how can you trust anything else that he says?

dksuddeth · 07-28-2007, 10:20 AM

Host, as fervently as you believe the material in your post...I have to tell you that it doesn't matter. None of it matters. You know this deep inside. The USSC is beholden to maintaining a social engineering precedent so that none of this matters. There are people on this board who will neve care that what you have to say is truth, just that it's subject is damaging to their cause.

Willravel · 07-28-2007, 10:32 AM

None of it may matter to you, dk, but that hardly means it doesn't matter to everyone. As we're headed into a showdown between Congress and the POTUS, how can you suggest that no one cares?

seretogis · 07-28-2007, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

None of it may matter to you, dk, but that hardly means it doesn't matter to everyone. As we're headed into a showdown between Congress and the POTUS, how can you suggest that no one cares?

"A showdown" would imply that the Democratic Congress would step up to the plate, rather than hide under their beds while claiming to be powerless. Get real.

I'd love to see "a showdown" as it would probably help my cause in the end, but it won't happen.

Kadath · 07-28-2007, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seretogis

"A showdown" would imply that the Democratic Congress would step up to the plate, rather than hide under their beds while claiming to be powerless. Get real.

I'd love to see "a showdown" as it would probably help my cause in the end, but it won't happen.

Like the gay agenda needs any help.

host · 07-29-2007, 01:54 PM

Please understand that....beneath my calm exterior, I am more than a little irritated by the Ground Hog Day, "FISA is a law from the days of rotary telephones...it needs to be modernized, I call on congress...." "Op"...and about the "blow back" caused by a failed and now disintegrating, two term US presidency:

Quote:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe...day/index.html
White House: Bush altered radio address in deference to Democrats

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One sentence in President Bush's weekly radio address was deleted overnight after some Democrats privately complained that it was overly partisan on the explosive subject of reforming the administration's warrantless wiretap program, White House officials confirmed Saturday.

In the initial radio address, which was taped Friday, Bush charged that the country is less safe because of Democratic delays in passing legislation that would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"Every day that Congress puts off these reforms increases the danger to our nation," the president originally said.

White House officials say that line of audio was deleted after Democrats saw a transcript of the remarks distributed Friday afternoon.

"We've been making good progress with the Democrats on this legislation," and the administration "felt the sentence sounded too political," a senior White House official told CNN. (Posted 3:43 p.m.)

Is it any wonder that Dick Cheney, after he accidentally shot his friend in the face, in a hunting accident, and then refused to submit to police questioning in the local investigation of the shooting......turned to foxnews anchor, Britt Hume, to ask Cheney the probing questions, about what happened:

Quote:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/0...rly-seriously/

Brit Hume attacks Democrats on terrorism issue: “They do not treat it particularly seriously”
By: John Amato on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 12:32 PM - PDT

fox_fns_hume_terror_scam_070729b.jpg Brit Hume follows the GOP/Giuliani script by saying that most Democrats think the war on terror is some kind of a political scam. Notice how fiercely he breathes these words.

video_wmv Download (691) | Play (983)

Hume: Make no mistake about. This is what a lot of Democrats and those who support them think. They think the war on terror is some kind of a political scam which the administration is using to undermine civil liberties and expand the power of the executive branch of the government. They do not treat it particularly seriously.

Juan Williams called him a propagandist..

Williams: This is unbelievable to me. Wait a minute, when you say it’s likely to be passed, why doesn’t the administration therefore let’s just fix exactly this issue? (crosstalk). Let’s not put the addition…let me just say one other thing…

Hume: Excuse me, Juan, that is what McConnell is proposing.

<h3>Williams: No, McConnell and the administration have a great deal more to say, Brit, and they’re interested in advancing the idea that you don’t have to go before the FISA court in order to get the warrant. That you can do things and get retroactive approval.</h3> But here is the larger point about being scared: who is it, you know, Republicans or Democrats that didn’t properly arm this force to go out and fight this war? Who didn’t put enough boots on the ground in order to get the job done early? Who is it that confused the mission? And then you say, “oh no, it’s somehow Democrats who are running scared.” On the contrary, Democrats this week put in place money to protect the homeland and make it tougher for terrorists to crack our defenses here at home. I don’t see how you can say it’s anything but scare-mongering and puppeting propaganda to say, “oh no, it’s the Democrats, those bad guys.”

FOX has infested their “prime time” news broadcast during the day with a major GOP hack…It wasn’t the Democratic Party that used phony terror alerts or attack a country that had nothing to do with 9/11…Add to the list…

Fred Barnes wanks at the end…

....and now, back for another dose of the Bush, <h3>Ground Hog Day "op" !</h3>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...pt_072407.html
U.S. Senate Judiciary Commmittee Hearing on Oversight of the Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez Testifies

CQ Transcripts Wire

<h2>JULY 24, 2007</h2>

.......LEAHY: Thank you very much.

And I might mention Senator Specter has requested a hearing on OxyContin. And I think he's absolutely right on that.

We will have one, at your request.

Mr. Attorney General, please stand and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give at this time will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

GONZALES: I do.

LEAHY: Go ahead, Mr. Attorney General.

GONZALES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman........

....GONZALES: The department's many accomplishments are, in reality, their accomplishments. As attorney general, I have worked with these fine men and women to keep our country safe from terrorists, our neighborhoods safe from violent crime and our children safe from predators. As my written statement explains in more detail, when it comes to keeping our neighborhoods safe and protecting our children, the department has made great progress.

In my brief remarks this morning, I want to focus on the department's number one priority, keeping our country safe from terrorists and the urgent need, quite frankly, for more help from Congress in this fight.

As the recent National Intelligence Estimate has -- as well as the attempted car bombings in London and Scotland demonstrate, the threat posed to America and its allies by Al Qaida and other terrorist groups remains very strong.

To respond effectively to this threat, it is imperative that Congress modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, known as FISA. Doing so is critically important to intelligence gathering, and it really just makes plain sense.

<h3>When Congress drafted FISA in 1978, it defined the statute's key provisions in terms of telecommunications technologies that existed at that time. As we all know, there have been sweeping changes in the way that we communicate since FISA became law and these changes have had unintended consequences on FISA's operation.

For example, without any change in FISA, technological advancements have actually made it more difficult to conduct surveillance on suspected terrorists and other subjects of foreign intelligence surveillance overseas. </h3>

In April, at the request of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, <h3>the director of national intelligence transmitted a comprehensive FISA modernization proposal to Congress.</h3> The proposal builds upon thoughtful (ph) bills introduced during the last Congress, and the bill would accomplish several key objectives. Most importantly, the administration's proposal restores FISA's original focus on protecting the privacy of U.S. persons in the United States.

FISA generally should apply when conducting surveillance on those in the United States, but it should not apply when our intelligence community targets persons overseas. Indeed, it was advancements in technology and not any policy decision of Congress that resulted in wide-scale application of FISA and its requirement to go to court to overseas targets.

This unintended consequence has clogged the FISA process and, quite frankly, hurts national security and civil liberties.

GONZALES: As amended, FISA's scope would focus on the subject of the surveillance and the subject's location, rather than on the means by which the subject transmits a communication or the location where the government intercepts the communication.

FISA would become technology-neutral. Its scope would no longer be affected by changes in communications technologies.

The bill would also fill a gap in current law by permitting the government to direct communications companies to assist in the conduct of lawful communications intelligence activities that do not constitute, quote, "electronic surveillance" under FISA.

This is a critical provision that is a necessary companion to any change in FISA's scope.

Importantly, the administration's proposal would provide a robust process of judicial review for companies that wish to challenge these directives.

The administration's proposal would also provide protections from liability to companies that are alleged to have assisted the government in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks.

The bill also streamlines the FISA application process to make FISA more efficient, while at the same time ensuring that the FISA Court has the information it needs to make the probable cause findings required.

Finally, the administration's proposal would amend the statutory definition of an agent of a foreign power to ensure that it includes groups who are engaged in international proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or who possess or who are expected to transmit or receive foreign intelligence information while in the United States.

FISA modernization is critically important and we urge the Senate to reform this critical statute as soon as possible.

I am hopeful that this is an area that we can work together with the Congress and this committee. I think we can find common ground on the central principles underpinning the administration's proposal and in particular on the fact that we should not extent FISA's protections to terrorist suspects located overseas.

We already have had several helpful sessions with the Intelligence Committees in the Senate and House on this issue. We look forward to continuing to work with the Senate and this committee on this important endeavor.....

....and, as Gonzales stated the other day, here's the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, inspiring our confidence by either blatantly attempting to mislead us by omitting the less than six years old "modernizing" of FISA, which was done in the age of all of the technological advancements that McConnell described in this propaganda essay.....OR he is too stupid (i.e., not qualified to supervise all of civilian national intelligence activities..) to have awareness that Bush said this:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0011026-5.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 26, 2001

...The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones.

As of today, we'll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20011027.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 27, 2001

Radio Address of the President to the Nation

.....The bill I signed yesterday gives intelligence and law enforcement officials additional tools they need to hunt and capture and punish terrorists. Our enemies operate by highly sophisticated methods and technologies, using the latest means of communication and the new weapon of bioterrorism.

....When earlier laws were written, some of these methods did not even exist. The new law recognizes the realities and dangers posed by the modern terrorist. ....

But for a long time, we have been working under laws written in the era of rotary telephones.
Under the new law, officials may conduct court-ordered surveillance of all modern forms of communication used by terrorists.....

...... These measures were enacted with broad support in both parties. They reflect a firm resolve to uphold and respect the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, while dealing swiftly and severely with terrorists.

Now comes the duty of carrying them out.
And I can assure all Americans that these important new statutes will be enforced to the full.

If they are methodically stripping all of the constitutional safeguards that were intended to minimize the conflict of interests of those who investigate our activities, arrest and confine us, and judge us. convict us, and mete out our punitive sentences, <h3>do they have to insult us, too, by using the same exact lines of bullshit that they used to initially jusitfy "trimming" away our protections against unreasonable search and seizure ?</h3>

Here's McConnell, using the same script that Bush used in October 2001, that Gonzales used in December, 2005, and in July, 2007, and that Bush recited "one mo' time"....yesterday:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn..._Comments.html
A Law Terrorism Outran
We Need a FISA For the 21st Century

By Mike McConnell
<h3>Monday, May 21, 2007; A13</h3>

In 1978, the first cellular mobile phone system was still being tested, a personal computer's memory had just been expanded to 16 kilobytes and our greatest threat was the largest nation-state on Earth, the Soviet Union. That same year, the framework governing electronic surveillance of foreign powers and agents of foreign powers -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- was signed into law.

Today, cellular phones are the size of credit cards, you would be hard-pressed to find a computer with memory less than 512 megabytes and our greatest threats are independent transnational terrorists and terror networks.

FISA was created to guard against domestic government abuse and to protect privacy while allowing for appropriate foreign intelligence collection. <h3>Technology and threats have changed, but the law remains essentially the same.</h3> If we are to improve our ability to protect the country by gathering foreign intelligence, this law must be updated to reflect changes in technology and the ways our adversaries communicate with one another.

Many Americans would be surprised at just what the current law requires. To state the facts plainly: In a significant number of cases, our intelligence agencies must obtain a court order to monitor the communications of foreigners suspected of terrorist activity who are physically located in foreign countries. We are in this situation because the law simply has not kept pace with technology.

The failure to update this law comes at an increasingly steep price. The congressional joint inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks recognized that there were systemic problems with covering communications of potential terrorists.

As director of national intelligence, I see every day the results of FISA-authorized activity and its contribution to our efforts to protect America. This surveillance saves lives -- the lives of our children and grandchildren. I also see the flaws inherent in the current law.

Because the law has not been changed to reflect technological advancements, we are missing potentially valuable intelligence needed to protect America. We simply cannot predict how communications technology will change in the coming years, but these changes may widen the gap between the law and technology. We need to adopt that understanding into FISA -- a law that does not address today's global systems in today's terms.

In seeking to update the law, in response to bipartisan congressional requests, the intelligence community is keeping faith with the foundation of credibility and legitimacy in which the law was grounded. Just as Congress in 1978 could not have anticipated today's technology, we cannot know how technology will advance in the next 30 years. Our job is to make the country as safe as possible by providing the highest possible quality intelligence available. We should not tie the nation's security to a snapshot of outdated technology.

I am encouraged that in my discussions with members of Congress, and in congressional hearings on this subject over the past year, there is recognition of the need to improve our intelligence efforts and close critical gaps created by changes in technology. We will continue to collect intelligence under strong congressional, executive and judicial oversight mechanisms. Protecting our nation against terrorist attacks and safeguarding privacy protections and civil liberties is not an either/or proposition.

The first responsibility of intelligence is to achieve understanding and provide warning. As the head of the nation's intelligence community, it is my duty to encourage changes in policies, procedures and legislation to improve our ability to warn of terrorist attacks and other threats to our security. Bringing FISA into the 21st century is one such improvement that can and should be made now. The recommended changes will protect the civil and privacy rights of our citizens while enabling the U.S. intelligence community to provide a higher level of protection against terrorist attacks.

The writer is director of national intelligence.

Here is the first reader's comment posted at the comments link that followed the preceding article, on the WaPo web page:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn..._Comments.html
Your Comments On...
A Law Terrorism Outran
Terrorists use up-to-date technology. Too bad our surveillance laws haven't kept pace.
-
By Mike McConnell

Bartron wrote:
<h2>Mr. McConnell, you are LYING.</h2>

"Technology and threats have changed, but the law remains essentially the same."

In fact, the FISA Act was amended in October 2001. When he signed the FISA amendments into law, George Bush stated that <h3>"This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones.</h3> As of today, we'll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology."

<h3>Weirdly enough, the words you yourself have written in this article as an explanation for why FISA "needs" [further] amendment closely parallel the statements given by President Bush in 2001</h3>, when he claimed that the newly-amended FISA Act fixed exactly the problems which you claim were never addressed.

Let's compare what you wrote here with what Bush said in 2001:

You: "Technology and threats have changed, but the law remains essentially the same. If we are to improve our ability to protect the country by gathering foreign intelligence, this law must be updated to reflect changes in technology and the ways our adversaries communicate with one another."

Bush, in 2001: "When earlier laws were written, some of these methods did not even exist. The new law recognizes the realities and dangers posed by the modern terrorist. It will help us to prosecute terrorist organizations -- and also to detect them before they strike. . . .

Surveillance of communications is another essential method of law enforcement. But for a long time, we have been working under laws written in the era of rotary telephones. Under the new law, officials may conduct court-ordered surveillance of all modern forms of communication used by terrorists."

In short, Mr. McConnell, your boss asked for and GOT everything which you claim he did not get, and which you are demanding today.

I deeply suspect that the new changes you are pushing for will enable you to continue to hide the illegal FISA violations which Mr. Bush has been covering up these past five years. You, sir, have no business running a whelk stall, let holding the position of Director of National Intelligence.

And the Washington Post would do well to start fact-checking its guests' editorials.
5/23/2007 11:35:32 AM

....and here is the latest on how the "centerpiece" of "the Decider", Bush's.... "War on Terr-urrr", is actually coming along:

Quote:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/0...aeus-the-boot/
July 29th, 2007
Iraqi Prime Minister Asks Bush To Give General Petraeus The Boot
By: Logan Murphy @ 1:32 PM - PDT

Via <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/28/wirq128.xml">The Telegraph</a>:

Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country’s prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush.

Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general’s moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa’eda.

One Iraqi source said Mr Maliki used a video conference with Mr Bush to call for the general’s signature strategy to be scrapped. “He told Bush that if Petraeus continues, he would arm Shia militias,” said the official. “Bush told Maliki to calm down.”

At another meeting with Gen Petraeus, Mr Maliki said: “I can’t deal with you any more. I will ask for someone else to replace you.” <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/28/wirq128.xml">Read more…</a>

<h3>Calm down? President Bush armed Maliki’s enemies in a bloody civil war and now he wants him to calm down.</h3> Nobody could have predicted this outcome. Howie has <a href="http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/07/mailki-and-petraeus-at-each-others.html">more on this</a>. Apparently, Saudi Arabia refuses to work with Maliki and accuse him of being an agent of Iran. The thlot pickens…

So the president blatantly misleads us, as to why he wants to further usurp our constitutional rights, in his saturday radio address, contradicting his own, 2001 statements, still visible on the white house web pages of Oct., 2001, and as a prelude, he has his intelligence Czar, in May, 2007, and his Attorney General, under oath, just a few days ago...make the same blatantly misleading statements to us about the 1978 era FISA laws failure to take today's technological advances into account. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO INSPIRE CONFIDENCE AND TRUST in his leadership?

aceventura3 · 07-30-2007, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

If you've wasted the last six years believing the official 9/11 attacks story, and if you've "bought" the "line" about the legitimacy of the "War on Terr-urr", hook, line, and sinker.....can you explain to me why the "decider" looks like an obvious liar about the key reasons for his breaking the FISA laws....and why he risks making the war on terror seem as big of a farce as his radio "address to the nation" was today?

I did not find how the "decider" looks like an obvious lier about the key reasons for his breaking the FISA laws.

What were his reasons and how are those reasons lies?

Who concluded that he actually broke the law?

Why was no action taken against him on his illegal directives?

host · 08-02-2007, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I did not find how the "decider" looks like an obvious lier about the key reasons for his breaking the FISA laws.

What were his reasons and how are those reasons lies?

Who concluded that he actually broke the law?

Why was no action taken against him on his illegal directives?

ace.... First Bush said, in October 2001,

Quote:

Originally Posted by The President

October 26, 2001

....Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists.
The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones.

As of today, we'll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology.....

...and, on July 28, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by The President

.......One of the most important ways we can gather that information is by monitoring terrorist communications. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act --
also known as FISA -- provides a critical legal foundation that allows our intelligence community to collect this information while protecting the civil liberties of Americans. But this important law was written in 1978, and it addressed the technologies of that era. This law is badly out of date -- and Congress must act to modernize it........

......Every day that Congress puts off these reforms increases the danger to our Nation.
Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country. Congress needs to act immediately to pass this bill......

...and now the president demands A-fucking-SAP.....that the oversight of FISA judges be put in the hands of his Attorney General <b>[1]</b>, a man who has spoken as incredibly and as contradictory, as the president himself has, in the examples above....

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Attorney General

December 19, 2005
.....Q General, can you tell us why you don't choose to go to the FISA court?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, we continue to go to the FISA court and obtain orders. It is a very important tool that we continue to utilize. Our position is that we are not legally required to do, in this particular case, because the law requires that we -- FISA requires that we get a court order, unless authorized by a statute, and we believe that authorization has occurred.

The operators out at NSA tell me that we don't have the speed and the agility that we need, in all circumstances, to deal with this new kind of enemy. You have to remember that FISA was passed by the Congress in 1978. There have been tremendous advances in technology -- .......<b>[2]</b>

.............Q If FISA didn't work, why didn't you seek a new statute that allowed something like this legally?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: That question was asked earlier. We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program........<b>[2]</b>

February 28, 2006
Senator Brownback asked for recommendations on improving the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA). TI. at 180-81. The Administration believes that
it is unnecessary to amend FISA to accommodate the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
The Administration will, of course, work with Congress and evaluate any proposals for
improving FISA.....<b>[3]</b>

March 8, 2006

Gonzales: NSA program doesn't need a law
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made clear Wednesday that the White House is not seeking congressional action to inscribe the National Security Agency's monitoring into U.S. law, even as members of Congress negotiate with the Bush administration about legislation.

Gonzales maintained the program is legal the way it is....<b>[4]</b>

ace....the president and his attorney general have turned your opinion that the "president means what he says, and says what he means..." into a cruel joke, on you.....and on the American people..... Read all of the Bush and Gonzales quotes displayed above, again....and then read the following.....

I wouldn't trust Bush or Gonzales to cart my trash out to the curb for pickup, let alone grant them extra-constitutional authority for warrantless monitoring of communications, or of anything else. What the fuck are Bush and Gonzales talking about....in 2001, 2005, 2006, and now.....can you translate their "double speak" for the rest of us? Why do you seem to put no value on your own bill of rights protections? You've said in the past, that you have done nothing wrong, so you have nothing to fear......what if they were to suddenly declare it illegal to be an apologist for their actions....what if you credited Bush for modernizing FISA in 2001, and it interfered with his demand that FISA be modernized immediately, now.....or if you complimented Gonzales's satisfaction, in 2006, with the way FISA had been modernized in 2001....

Don't you "get it", ace....at all? They aren't even trying to be consistent in their lies....they are planning to take the authority whenever they want to....and they don't care anymore...if what they've said, or are saying, makes any sense.....

<b>[1]</b>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...nav=rss_nation
Democrats Offer Compromise Plan On Surveillance
Proposal Would Involve FISA Court in Warrants

By Ellen Nakashima and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 2, 2007; Page A03

....In recent days, the administration has proposed giving the attorney general sole authority to authorize the surveillance, suggesting that if Democrats do not act quickly Americans would be at greater risk of attack.

Democrats said that giving sole authority to the attorney general would be unacceptable and insisted that the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have an oversight role.

Some civil liberties advocates were pleased.

"It is vastly better than the administration's bill and preserves the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies.

Others, including some Democrats, said that granting the government authority to intercept calls with broad warrants could allow a large number of phone calls and e-mails of U.S. individuals and companies to be intercepted, as well.....

Quote:

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...ment-pres.html
Government Presses to Turn Internet into Giant Spy Machine; AP Reports Citizen's Rights Being Protected
By Ryan Singel Email August 01, 2007 | 12:26:14 PM

The Associated Press's Laurie Kellman leads off her Tuesday <a href="http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/30/ap3968404.html">story</a> about the mid-summer <a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/democrats-halt-.html">"emergency" fight</a> over expanding the nation's surveillance laws with this paean to power: "Congress and President Bush's aides worked on Monday to expand the government's surveillance authority without jeopardizing citizens' rights, aides to lawmakers and the White House said."

Did Kellman read the proposed bill? The <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/21/fisa_changes/index.html">bill</a> (.pdf) that would change the nation's surveillance laws so that that the government would be free to spy on the contents of an Americans' phone or emails so long as the government "reasonably believes" the person is not in the country.

....The Administration now claims it needs a massive rewriting of the nation's spying laws because some foreigner to foreigner communications pass through switches in the United States.

Did they just discover this? No.

Has the Administration known about this hole in the numerous times it has pushed Congress to increase the government's spying powers in the last 6 years? Certainly.

Why is it an emergency now? Could it be because the Administration has never moved to have a rational debate about how to grab these communications without sweeping in the Constitiutionally-protected communications of Americans, BECAUSE the administration has been secretly sitting on those switches, monitoring Americans and foreigners alike?

Remember Gonzales admitted that the reason the Administration never asked Congress to authorize its spy program because it feared Congress would say no. And in Februrary 2006, Gonzales told (.pdf) the Senate Judiciary, in response to Senator Brownback's call for recommendations on how to improve the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that "The Administration believes that it is unnecessary to to amend FISA to accommodate the Terrorist Surveillance Program."

And if the Administration truly believes, as it continues to argue, that it has the right to spy all it likes on Americans and foreigners as part of its inherent authority, why does it need Congress to pass this law? Could it be that it wants the authority to force telcos and internet backbone providers to help it out, because those companies are now balking at allowing the NSA to CONTINUE to building outposts on their networks?

The Administration caused this crisis and now is pushing for way broader "fixes" than it needs for the supposed hole at hand.

Given this Administration's track record on truthfulness, secrecy and overseas bungling, why is Congress even contemplating giving them more authority to spy on American citizens without even the slightest supervision from the secret and submissive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court?

Why this country is even contemplating allowing the nation's intelligence services to <a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/what-was-the-or.html#more">transform the internet and the phone networks into the world's largest bugging device</a>, simply because this Administration's foreign policy has fed, rather than crushed, a pathetic, religious death cult?

Reporting like Kellman's certainly doesn't help answer that question.

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0051219-1.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 19, 2005

Press Briefing by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and General Michael Hayden, Principal Deputy Director for National Intelligence

.....Q General, can you tell us why you don't choose to go to the FISA court?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, we continue to go to the FISA court and obtain orders. It is a very important tool that we continue to utilize. Our position is that we are not legally required to do, in this particular case, because the law requires that we -- FISA requires that we get a court order, unless authorized by a statute, and we believe that authorization has occurred.

The operators out at NSA tell me that we don't have the speed and the agility that we need, in all circumstances, to deal with this new kind of enemy. You have to remember that FISA was passed by the Congress in 1978. There have been tremendous advances in technology -- .......

.....Q If FISA didn't work, why didn't you seek a new statute that allowed something like this legally?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: That question was asked earlier. We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program.

Q And who determined that these targets were al Qaeda? Did you wiretap them?

GENERAL HAYDEN: The judgment is made by the operational work force at the National Security Agency using the information available to them at the time, and the standard that they apply -- and it's a two-person standard that must be signed off by a shift supervisor, and carefully recorded as to what created the operational imperative to cover any target, but particularly with regard to those inside the United States.

Q So a shift supervisor is now making decisions that a FISA judge would normally make? I just want to make sure I understand. Is that what you're saying?

GENERAL HAYDEN: What we're trying to do is to use the approach we have used globally against al Qaeda, the operational necessity to cover targets. And the reason I emphasize that this is done at the operational level is to remove any question in your mind that this is in any way politically influenced. This is done to chase those who would do harm to the United States.

Q Building on that, during --

Q Thank you, General. Roughly when did those conversations occur with members of Congress?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: I'm not going to get into the specifics of when those conversations occurred, but they have occurred.

Q May I just ask you if they were recently or if they were when you began making these exceptions?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: They weren't recently.

MR. McCLELLAN: The President indicated that those -- the weeks after September 11th.

Q What was the date, though, of the first executive order? Can you give us that?

GENERAL HAYDEN: If I could just, before you ask that question, just add -- these actions that I described taking place at the operational level -- and I believe that a very important point to be made -- have intense oversight by the NSA Inspector General, by the NSA General Counsel, and by officials of the Justice Department who routinely look into this process and verify that the standards set out by the President are being followed.

Q Can you absolutely assure us that all of the communications intercepted --

Q Have you said that you -- (inaudible) -- anything about this program with your international partners -- with the partners probably in the territories of which you intercept those communications?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: I'm not aware of discussions with other countries, but that doesn't mean that they haven't occurred. I simply have no personal knowledge of that.

Q Also, is it only al Qaeda, or maybe some other terrorist groups?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: Again, with respect to what the President discussed on Saturday, this program -- it is tied to communications where we believe one of the parties is affiliated with al Qaeda or part of an organization or group that is supportive of al Qaeda.

Q Sir, during his confirmation hearings, it came out that now-Ambassador Bolton had sought and obtained NSA intercepts of conversations between American citizens and others. Who gets the information from this program; how do you guarantee that it doesn't get too widely spread inside the government, and used for other purposes?

Q And is it destroyed afterwards?

GENERAL HAYDEN: We report this information the way we report any other information collected by the National Security Agency. And the phrase you're talking about is called minimization of U.S. identities. The same minimalizationist standards apply across the board, including for this program. To make this very clear -- U.S. identities are minimized in all of NSA's activities, unless, of course, the U.S. identity is essential to understand the inherent intelligence value of the intelligence report. And that's the standard that's used.

Q General, when you discussed the emergency powers, you said, agility is critical here. And in the case of the emergency powers, as I understand it, you can go in, do whatever you need to do, and within 72 hours just report it after the fact. And as you say, these may not even last very long at all. What would be the difficulty in setting up a paperwork system in which the logs that you say you have the shift supervisors record are simply sent to a judge after the fact? If the judge says that this is not legitimate, by that time probably your intercept is over, wouldn't that be correct?

GENERAL HAYDEN: What you're talking about now are efficiencies. What you're asking me is, can we do this program as efficiently using the one avenue provided to us by the FISA Act, as opposed to the avenue provided to us by subsequent legislation and the President's authorization.

Our operational judgment, given the threat to the nation that the difference in the operational efficiencies between those two sets of authorities are such that we can provide greater protection for the nation operating under this authorization.

Q But while you're getting an additional efficiency, you're also operating outside of an existing law. If the law would allow you to stay within the law and be slightly less efficient, would that be --

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: I guess I disagree with that characterization. I think that this electronic surveillance is within the law, has been authorized. I mean, that is our position. We're only required to achieve a court order through FISA if we don't have authorization otherwise by the Congress, and we think that that has occurred in this particular case.

Q Can you just give us one assurance before you go, General?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: It depends on what it is. (Laughter.)

Q Can you assure us that all of these intercepts had an international component and that at no time were any of the intercepts purely domestic?

GENERAL HAYDEN: The authorization given to NSA by the President requires that one end of these communications has to be outside the United States. I can assure you, by the physics of the intercept, by how we actually conduct our activities, that one end of these communications are always outside the United States of America.

Letter from Gonzales to Senate Judiciary Committee supports above article and contradicts Bush's assertions of July 28, 2007:

<b>[3]</b>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...les.letter.pdf
<center>The Attorney General
Washington, D.C.</center>

February 28, 2006

The Honorable Arlen Specter
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Specter:

I write to provide responses to several questions posed to me at the hearing on
"Wartime Executive Power and the National Security Agency's Surveillance Authority,"
held Monday, February 6,2006, before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. I also
write to clarify certain of my responses at the February 6th hearing.....

......Additional Information Requested by Senators at February 6th Hearing
Senator Leahy asked whether the President first authorized the Terrorist
Surveillance Proyam after he signed the Authorization for Use of Military Force of
September 18,2001 ("Force Resolution") and before he signed the USA PATRIOT Act.
2/6/06 Unofficial Nearing Transcript ("TI.") at 50. The President first authorized the
Program in October 2001, before he signed the USA PATRIOT Act.

Senator Brownback asked for recommendations on improving the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA). TI. at 180-81. The Administration believes that
it is unnecessary to amend FISA to accommodate the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
The Administration will, of course, work with Congress and evaluate any proposals for
improving FISA.....

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022801587.html
Gonzales Seeks to Clarify Testimony on Spying
Extent of Eavesdropping May Go Beyond NSA Work

By Charles Babington and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 1, 2006; Page A08

....."It seems to me he is conceding that there are other NSA surveillance programs ongoing that the president hasn't told anyone about," said Bruce Fein, a government lawyer in the Nixon, Carter and Reagan administrations.

A Justice Department official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the program, said, however, that Gonzales's letter "should not be taken or construed to be talking about anything other than" the NSA program "as described by the president."

In his letter, Gonzales revisited earlier testimony, during which he said the administration immediately viewed a congressional vote in September 2001 to authorize the use of military force against al-Qaeda as justification for the NSA surveillance program. Bush secretly began the program in October 2001, Gonzales's letter said........

Quote:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...dropping_x.htm
Posted 3/8/2006 9:55 PM Updated 3/9/2006

Gonzales: NSA program doesn't need a law
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made clear Wednesday that the White House is not seeking congressional action to inscribe the National Security Agency's monitoring into U.S. law, even as members of Congress negotiate with the Bush administration about legislation.

Gonzales maintained the program is legal the way it is.

"There's a general consensus — quite frankly — that this is a needed program" designed to listen to al-Qaeda's communications, Gonzales told the National Association of Attorneys General Wednesday. "The concern I think that people have, which is a natural concern, is that, is this a limited program?"

Gonzales said administration officials have gone a long way in reassuring lawmakers about the NSA's operations. Over four years, he said, the administration has met "with select congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle about the scope of this program — everything that we're doing related to this program."

California Rep. Jane Harman, the House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, said Gonzales has personally given her similar assurances. But generally she has "become increasingly skeptical over time about a lot of things I have been hearing." Harman declined to elaborate.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, the former top Democrat on the intelligence panel, has publicly questioned what the congressional leaders don't know. Her spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, said Republicans have been unwilling to perform oversight of the administration.

"Since the members were not all briefed at the same time or place, it's not possible to know whether the same information was given to each," Crider said.

Aides to West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, noted that he visited the NSA all day Friday — with 450 questions he wanted answered. He's complained about the briefings he received before that session, saying they consisted of intelligence officials rushing through flip-charts.....

Quote:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/...rds/index.html
Bush says U.S. not 'trolling through personal lives'
USA Today reports NSA building massive phone records database

Friday, May 12, 2006; Posted: 2:38 p.m. EDT (18:38 GMT)

....Leahy: 'Shame on us'

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, blasted his colleagues for failing to demand answers from the administration.

"Shame on us for being so willing to rubber-stamp anything this administration does," he said. "The Republican-controlled Congress refuses to ask questions, so we have to pick up the paper to find out what is going on." (Watch Leahy express anger -- 3:56)

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the government was not eavesdropping on the calls, and he said a subcommittee of seven senators had been briefed on the program.

"People should not be alarmed or surprised that intelligence analysts and law enforcement people use the business records or the telephone records of people -- not the content -- in regards to all sorts of things, whether you are a drug dealer, a child pornographer or a terrorist," Roberts said.

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona said the debate is "nuts."

"We are in a war, and we've got to collect intelligence on the enemy, and you can't tell the enemy in advance how you are going to do it," Kyl said. "Discussing all of this in public leads to that."

But House Majority Leader John Boehner, a Ohio Republican, said he is "concerned" by the latest disclosure.

"I don't know enough about the details, except that I'm going to find out, because I am not sure why it would be necessary for us to keep and have that kind of information," he said. Hayden will "have a lot more explaining to do," he said.
The law covering surveillance

In a lawsuit privacy advocates brought last year against AT&T, a retired technician reported the company allowed the NSA to conduct what his lawyer called "vacuum cleaner surveillance" of e-mail messages and Internet traffic.

In court papers, Mark Klein said the spy agency was allowed to "split" fiber-optic cables, creating an exact copy of the data carried over those lines.

Critics have accused Bush of violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with the program that intercepted calls between a person inside the United States and someone outside.

That 1978 law requires officials seeking to tap phone lines or collect phone records to get the approval of a special court set up to oversee intelligence issues.

The president has argued the congressional resolution that authorized military action after the 9/11 attacks, along with his authority as commander-in-chief of the military, gave him the power to initiate wiretaps without a court order.

The nine Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee issued a statement saying the program reported Thursday also appears to violate the 1978 law and shows that the Bush administration "cannot be trusted to police itself."
Investigation dropped

Four Democratic House members said Thursday they want more details from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility about the NSA's denial of security clearances to investigate the role of department attorneys in authorizing the agency's domestic surveillance program.

The Justice Department said Wednesday it had been denied security clearances and had dropped its investigation. (Full story)

Reps. Maurice Hinchey of New York, Henry Waxman of California, John Lewis of Georgia and Lynn Woolsey of California asked a Justice Department official to tell them what "agencies or persons did your office seek out for clearance" and "who made the decision not to give you clearance."

The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, called the development "evidence of a cover-up."

"The fact ... that the Department of Justice has abandoned their own investigation of this administration's wrongdoing because there's been a refusal to give investigators security clearances is clear evidence of a cover-up within the administration."

Quote:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ews/klein.html
<i>Klein worked for more than 20 years as a technician at AT&T. Here he tells the story of how he inadvertently discovered that the whole flow of Internet traffic in several AT&T operations centers was being regularly diverted to the National Security Agency (NSA). Klein is a witness in a lawsuit filed against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which alleges AT&T illegally gave the NSA access to its networks. This is the edited transcript of an interview conducted on Jan. 9, 2007.</i>

......So this data flow meant that they were getting not only AT&T customers' data flow; they were getting everybody else's data flow, whoever else might happen to be communicating into the AT&T network from other networks. So it was turning out to be like a large chunk of the network, of the Internet.

Did you see that in the documents? Did the documents show that in the designs?

You can see that in the document. ... It names the circuit IDs; it names the companies they belong to; and it shows the cut date. And they were all in February, when they were cut into the splitter.

February 2003?

February 2003. Then I was looking at the equipment list. All these three documents were obviously all part of the same project, which involved cutting this splitter cabinet in. I looked at the main one, which is called Study Group 3, San Francisco, kind of an innocent-sounding name. What are they studying?

On the equipment list were standard things ... like Juniper routers and Sun servers, which are very common, high-quality equipment, and Sun storage equipment to store data. And there was a whole list there.

But then there was one thing that was odd, because I didn't recognize it. It was not part of normal, day-to-day telecommunications equipment that I was familiar with in years of my work, and that was a Narus STA 6400. STA stands for Semantic Traffic Analyzer. I'd never heard of this, so I started doing a little Google research to find out what this is about; what's a Semantic Traffic Analyzer? And so I find, after doing some Googling, that it's not only designed for high-speed sifting through high-speed volumes of data, looking for something according to various program algorithms, something you'd think would be perfect for a spy agency.

Turns out it was perfect for a spy agency, and they were already using it and boasting about it. I found, for instance, there was a conference in 2003 in McLean, Va., whose agenda was posted on the Internet. I'm sure you know McLean, Va., is the hometown of the CIA. ... The sponsor of the show was Narus, and they posted the agenda for this computer show, which was semi-public, and everybody was there, from the phone companies like AT&T and Verizon to the intelligence agencies like the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] and the FBI and local police agencies and the FCC [Federal Communications Commission]. I have to assume the NSA was there, although they didn't list themselves. But one of the guys on the agenda was William Crowell. William Crowell was the former deputy director of the NSA. He was on one of the forum lists as a speaker, along with the founder of Narus and a whole bunch of them.

So when I saw all that, it all clicked together to me: "Oh, that's what they're doing. This is a spy apparatus. I'm not just imagining things." ...

When you spotted this, you'd been in the room; you've seen the splitter; you've now got the documents; you've seen the Narus; you've gone to the Internet; you've seen what this technology show is about. What is it you think is going on here? What's your reaction?

My reaction -- that's why I practically fell out of my chair -- was that from all the connections I saw, they were basically sweeping up, vacuum-cleaning the Internet through all the data, sweeping it all into this secret room. ... It's the sort of thing that very intrusive, repressive governments would do, finding out about everybody's personal data without a warrant. I knew right away that this was illegal and unconstitutional, and yet they were doing it.

So I was not only angry about it; I was also scared, because I knew this authorization came from very high up -- not only high up in AT&T, but high up in the government. So I was in a bit of a quandary as to what to do about it, but I thought this should be halted.........

host · 12-18-2007, 01:41 AM

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and a 2008 candidate for president, stood up for our constitutional rights and forced turncoats Reid and Rockefeller to back down, at least for now. This is a description of a patriot senator representing the interests of the people:

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ostid-updateI5

UPDATE V: Under the circumstances, this is a significant victory. As a result of Dodd's maneuvering today (with vital assists from Feingold and others), and as a result of his obvious commitment to stay for as long as he needed to in order to engage in a real filibuster, lasting as long as he could possibly endure it physically, Harry Reid just announced that he was pulling the bill from the floor and it will not be considered until the Senate returns next year.

Obviously, that outcome is not as good as dooming the bill permanently. The administration and their Jay-Rockefeller-like allies will use the time to plot how to overcome these obstacles. But opponents of telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping expansions can use that time also. All things considered, it is a genuine, unexpected victory to force this bill to be significantly delayed even though it had the backing of the trans-partisan Beltway political and media establishment and where, thanks to Harry Reid, quick and seamless passage appeared to be certain.

Jane Hamsher says:

Chris Dodd showed tremendous leadership. He stood by his principles and wouldn't back down, even in the face of opposition from members of his own party who were in the tank for the telecos and the Bush Administration.

Well played, Senator Dodd.

And Dodd's superb campaign blogger, Matt Browner-Hamlin, writes:

Without Senator Dodd's leadership today, it is safe to assume that retroactive immunity would have passed. . . .

For now, the FISA debate is over. It will come up again down the road, but for now everyone who supported Senator Dodd's leadership against retroactive immunity and supported his promise to filibuster should be proud of their work to defend the Constitution and the rule of law.

The Huffington Post has further details, including this:

A smile on his reddened face, Dodd was at once gracious and joyful by the turn of events. He had been arguing his case for approximately eight hours. . . .

"Everyone who spoke on the floor said they were grateful for Dodd taking a stand," said a staffer to the Senator who asked not to be named. "They said if it weren't for him they wouldn't be having this much-needed debate."

Dodd was the one Senator currently running for the White House who left the campaign trail to debate the Protect America Act, an absence he hinted at while on the Senate floor. . . .

Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joseph Biden did offer their rhetorical support for the filibuster. Dodd, according to aides, will rejoin the three on the campaign trail tomorrow.

Whatever else is true, Chris Dodd took a principled stand today, sacrificing his presidential campaign and alienating his long-time colleagues to do so, and he won. He demonstrated what "leadership" is in action, rather than "rhetoric." Acts of that kind on our national political stage are rare indeed.

Background:

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ter/index.html
....Dodd's staff has indicated that during his filibuster, the Senator will read from numerous comments submitted by blog readers in support of his highly impressive stance. <h3>Here is one such letter submitted by a reader here, who indicates that she is 23 years old, a new voter, and that the posting of her letter is her first blog comment ever:</h3>

I thank Senator Dodd for the opportunity to participate in this debate. For the Senate's edification: I'm twenty-three years old and a new voter who isn't going away any time soon.

The United States of America is founded upon the rule of law. Senators and representatives swear to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." According to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution -- a document for which centuries' of blood and tears have been shed -- "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Yet here the Senate stands, poised to grant immunity to telecommunications companies for profiting from the warrantless and lawless spying perpetrated upon the law-abiding citizenry; here the Senate stands, poised to usurp the judiciary, the branch of government responsible for determining whether the laws of the land have been broken and meting out punishment where appropriate; and here the Senate stands, poised to usher in its own irrevelancy -- and, worst of all, in exchange for nothing: no promises that this flagrant lawbreaking will cease, no testimony to be offered in the course of real and rigorous investigation.

"Give me liberty or give me death," said Patrick Henry. "Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither," said Benjamin Franklin. Now the telecommunications companies lobby the lot of you, saying, "Give us immunity, or we'll suffer the consequences of our lawbreaking." Now the President comes before you, saying, "Give my partners in crime immunity, or there'll be investigations and findings that taint my legacy."

Never mind the judiciary. Never mind that it's the job of the courts to ascertain whether any laws have been broken. So Congress rushes in to save the day! Immunity for profit-driven corporations, amnesty for lawbreakers!

I submit to this body that the Founders are rolling in their graves.

Voters could be forgiven for not realizing the Democratic Party won control of both houses of Congress in the 2006 mid-term elections, for there's so little evidence of any checks being brought against President Bush, whose polling to date is both abysmal and deserved. Yet now Democrats brandish the majority and usher in much of the same: more war, more lives lost, more of our tax dollars pouring into places I've never even heard of, and here we've got next to nothing to show for it. I hear citizens of other countries get something for paying their taxes; I can't even imagine what that's like.

And what are Americans to think, except that they've been betrayed by both parties? I congratulate Democrats and Republicans for their breathtaking cynicism, for how well they've worked together to engender so much apathy among voters that millions of Americans stay home on election day. What choices we have!

The legislature abdicates oversight, puts blind faith in the executive, and extends immunity to lawbreaking telecommunications companies. Are those companies to be pitied for going along with the President's plan in direct contravention of the law and raking in cash? Are they, along with the President, to be congratulated for their foresight, considering that this warrantless spying upon Americans is reported to have gone on well before 9/11? (And mind you how well all of that illegal surveillance served to protect us on that awful day.) Are these companies to be respected more than voters? Are they to be granted immunity for lawbreaking, in return for nothing? Congress doesn't even appear to be interested in leveraging immunity in return for testimony.

What will I tell my children? It's fine to break the law if the president says so? It's fine to break the law if you can lobby Congress to grant you immunity? It's fine to break the law if you can stuff cash into the coffers of senators and representatives? What country is this? I say again: the Founders are rolling in their graves. For the past fifteen years, I've watched the news and felt disgust for the whole sorry lot of you.

You who purport to lead, yet cower like beaten dogs before the President, as if he were king. You who vote upon legislation you likely don't even read. You who coif your hair into absurd, unmoving helmets and whiten your teeth and don designers suits and appear on TV, daring to tell me you represent my interests. You who pass pointless, meaningless resolutions condemning commercials and congratulating professional sports teams for winning while Americans go hungry, while Americans go without healthcare, while Americans work two jobs to make ends meet, while Americans die in Iraq and Afghanistan. You who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution and flatter yourselves by conflating your re-election with the interests of your country and constituency. You who fret about keeping your powder dry until the are barracks overrun.

You who tell me to live in a constant state of fear, but to keep on shopping; do keep shopping. How proud my children should be to be born American! They'll shop in the face of constant fear with fists full of credit cards. And I'll say to them, "What shall we buy tomorrow, children?" But, of course, I have my own ideas: our very own Senator, our very own Representative, our very own President. I should buy the whole sorry lot of you to be heeded at all.

And so here is the Senate in all its majesty. Where are the Patrick Henrys, the Benjamin Franklins? God save America from her greatest enemy: a pack of pathetic, self-serving cowards.

holly-go-lightly

More background:

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3622108.shtml
Reid Sets Stage For Telecom Immunity Fight
Competing Wiretap Bills Coming To A Vote; Dem. Leader Says It'd Be Wrong For Him To Choose Between Them

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2007

....Without quite admitting the program's existence, Mr. Bush said that the bill must "grant liability protection to companies who are facing multi-billion-dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks."

In other words, AT&T, Verizon and other companies which allowed the government to listen in on phone calls knowing there were no warrants, could not be brought to court and potentially pay damages for violating customers' privacy.

Since the Bush administration's program of eavesdropping and data mining of information from Americans without obtaining warrants (as is required under the Constitution) came to light, and lawsuits have moved forward in courts, more and more details have come out about the program's extent and the telecoms' involvement.

Still, much information remains classified, and some say the only way by which a full accounting for the program may come is when documents and testimony are brought before the court - a prospect the White House has been fighting since the program become known.

Now the issue of telecom immunity to rising to a boil, as the Senate prepares to vote (possibly on Monday) on the FISA bill.

The Senate actually has two versions: one which includes an immunity provision (as written by the Senate Intelligence Committee), and a second without it. It is these two competing drafts which have landed on the desk of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

On Friday, Reid announced in the Senate that he would be moving the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC) version of the bill to the floor.

What followed was a firestorm by Democrats and consumer activists who feared that the immunity provision would succeed in a vote, despite threats of a filibuster by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

“Providing retroactive immunity to companies that may have violated the law will set a dangerous precedent,” said Dodd. “Companies who violated the trust of thousands of their customers will be immune to prosecution and the details of their actions will stay hidden.

"The President, and his Administration, has consistently used scare tactics in an attempt to force Congress to pass FISA legislation that provides retroactive immunity," Dodd said.

<h3>Dodd had placed a "hold" on the legislation, which ordinarily blocks a bill from coming to vote, but Reid is apparently ignoring the hold.</h3>

Other Democrats (including those Senators running for President) have said they will support Dodd's filibuster.

And earlier this week, 14 Democrats sent a letter to Reid asking that he move the Judiciary Committee's version (without immunity) forward, because its provision had been debated in open sessions.

Reid's office was reportedly inundated with phone calls and messages from citizens who did not want Congress to allow immunity to telecoms, before their actions have even been detailed in a court of law.

The heat seemed to have stirred Reid, who later in the day indicated that he would actually bring both versions of the FISA bill up for a vote.

Reid said that he personally opposed the concept of retroactive immunity in the Intelligence Committee bill, and favored many additional protections that were included in the Judiciary Committee's bill.

Nonetheless, Reid said that because there was overwhelming support on the Intelligence Committee for its approach, and after discussion with Committee chairmen Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., he decided that he would move forward with both bills.

“I have determined that in this situation, it would be wrong of me to simply choose one committee’s bill over the other," Reid said in a statement.

Since the Intelligence Committee's bill was voted out first, that will be the base text; the Judiciary Committee's bill would be pending as a substitute amendment.

Reid appeared to address the concerns of critics of immunity by stating his own opposition to blocking court cases in warrantless wiretaps, saying, "In one way or another, we must ensure that President Bush is held accountable for his actions."

But both bills coming up appears to presage a showdown: a promised Democratic filibuster to keep the telcom immunity provision out, versus an apparent Republican filibuster to keep it in.

Would a sixty-vote Senate be able to pass either bill?

On Friday, Reid did make one statement that seemed prescient: "I'll guarantee you right now, one thing that's going to occur: not everyone will be happy."

Perhaps no one will be.

<h3>dc_dux, is this diary a correct description of Reid's administration of seantor's "holds"on bills?</h3>:

Quote:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1.../82/858/422224

.....The Senate sponsor of the "Emmett Till Act" is Chris Dodd. Unlike Sen. Coburn, he has placed holds only in those instances where he has considered it absolutely necessary. And unlike Sen. Coburn, his holds are ignored by the Democratic leadership.

Here's Harry Reid's spokesman crying crocodile tears about the Coburn hold:

<i>"It's absolutely outrageous that one senator and one senator only appears to be blocking us from passing this piece of legislation," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.</i>

Yes, but there's nothing you can do about it, right? I mean, if one Senator wants to block consideration of a bill, I guess he can just do it...

Unless that bill <a href="http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200712141041DOWJONESDJONLINE000798_FORTUNE5.htm">gives amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms.</a>

Harry Reid has no problem respecting the one hundred holds from Tom Coburn on all sorts of legislation, but will ignore Chris Dodd's. That's the bottom line, and given that, you have to conclude that <a href="http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_12_09_archive.html#1495550941345402675">Harry Reid is the one doing the holding.</a>

Chris Dodd is heroically calling for a filibuster, but the real issue here is the issue of ignoring the rules of the Senate. Harry Reid is picking and choosing which Senators he will listen to. The fact that Chris Dodd came within one vote of defeating him for Minority Leader back in 2004 wouldn't have anything to do with this, would it?

Harry Reid has set up two rules for the United States Senate; one under the normal standards of conduct that have held for 200-plus years, and one for bills that he really really has to pass or the President will get mad at him. Earlier this year, Reid <a href="http://www.blueoregon.com/2007/10/harry-reid-igno.html">ignored a hold</a> placed by Sen. Ron Wyden and confirmed an assistant Secretary of the Interior that Wyden had issues with. Sen. Wyden <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/09/AR2007120900913.html">dropped an important amendment</a> into the flawed Intelligence Committee bill on FISA that the President opposes, which would force the government to get a warrant to spy on Americans overseas. I guess we'll see if Reid strips that amendment out of the bill, and if he holds the same respect for amendments that he does for holds.

The point is that Harry Reid has made Tom Coburn the most important member of the United States Senate. He's made Chris Dodd, a member of his own party, irrelevant. And he's made himself into a joke. We cannot go into 2008 with this laughingstock of a leader in the Senate.

Sticky · 12-18-2007, 07:34 AM

Ottopilot, I enjoyed that last one.
Thanks

ubertuber · 12-18-2007, 09:53 AM

FYI: I deleted the post with the videos.

Let's try to keep this somewhat on track.

ottopilot · 12-18-2007, 11:43 AM

The_Jazz · 12-18-2007, 12:07 PM

Before this little flame war spills over on to any more threads, let's put a stop to it, m'kay? There is no tolerance for personal attacks in Politics. If you read the TFP Politcs Rules Sticky at the top of the forum, you'll see that temp bans are the next step.

If anyone wants a 3 day vacation, just let us know. We're always happy to oblige.

host · 12-18-2007, 12:16 PM

From my last post:

Quote:

..dc_dux, is this diary a correct description of Reid's administration of seantor's "holds"on bills?...

I would still enjoy reading dc_dux's "on the scene", informed opinion about HArry Reid's "holds" on senate bills.

dc_dux · 12-18-2007, 12:28 PM

Host...I dont have an answer for you.

The "secret hold" is one of those arcane Senate parliamentary procedures where a Senator can block a bill from coming out of Committee and going to the floor for a vote by "secretly" informing the Chair of the Committee in writing that he/she is "holding" the bill. In spite of the fact that most Senators say its a terrible procedure, they wont vote to change the standing rules of the Senate to abolish it.

The commonly accepted practice has been to limit "holds" to member of the Committee where the bill originated. Dodd is not on either the Intel Committee or the Judiciary Committee.

(Although this year, there were more Republican holds from non-Committee members than I can ever recall before. I think there is still a Republican hold on the Freedom of Information Act reform bill that the Dems passed in Committee in Feb)

Since Dodd put both a "hold" on one the two competing bills and also promised a fillibuster, he obviously knew that one of the bills would reach the floor.

In any case, Reid is a poor excuse for a majority leader and this is just the latest example. There are lots of Democratic member concerns with these "Protect America" bills that go beyond the telcomm immunity and Dodd, Feingold and others are prepared to fight Reid on this one......stay tuned next year, I guess.

dksuddeth · 12-18-2007, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

If anyone wants a 3 day vacation, just let us know. We're always happy to oblige.

Can I take mine in Tahiti?

The_Jazz · 12-18-2007, 01:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

Can I take mine in Tahiti?

No, you will got to Duluth. Or Minot, ND. Your choice.

djtestudo · 12-18-2007, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

No, you will got to Duluth. Or Minot, ND. Your choice.

Dude, at least have the courtesy to spurge for International Falls

Ustwo · 12-18-2007, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djtestudo

Dude, at least have the courtesy to spurge for International Falls

Well Duluth is perhaps the coldest, wettest city in the US, International Falls has a paper mill.

In case you were wondering paper mills really smell badly when they operate.

I do love Irfalls though, as it means I'm only a few hours from fishing.

ottopilot · 12-18-2007, 07:53 PM

host · 02-17-2008, 01:23 AM

When he stood atop the rubble that was the WTC, a few days after 9/11, we thought he would lead us forward, united. He squandered our trust in a pathetic power grabbing, fear mongering flame out, complete with a contrived, illegal war of aggression.

Today, he has reduced himself into the pathetic joke, described below, but tragically, the joke is on us:

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa..._us/print.html

The Leader isn't protecting us and keeping us safe.

<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
<b>George Bush warns of the grave dangers from allowing the Protect America Act to expire, even though he is the one who single-handedly ensured its expiration.</b>
</font>

<p><b>Glenn Greenwald</b></p>

<font face="times new roman, times, serif" size="3"><p>Feb. 16, 2008 | <B>(updated below - Update II)</b> </p>

<p>According to the President and his followers, we will be -- as of the stroke of midnight tonight -- no longer safe, no longer protected, no longer snug and secure in the strong and loving arms of our Federal Government. That's because the Protect America Act -- a law which has only existed for six months yet is now indispensable to America's ability to survive and avoid being slaughtered by the Terrorists -- expires tonight. </p>

<p>The President himself <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzVmOGQxOTcyYjk3NDNlODQ0MDJmODY2Yjc4ZjkwY2Q=">this morning dramatically intoned</a>: "At the stroke of midnight tonight, a vital intelligence law that is helping protect our nation will expire." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzUwNjQ5MTZlNGVhNWYzNDI3YTc5OGJlMzA4ODliNGE=">gravely pointed out</a>: "What will happen at midnight tonight is much more significant than stump speeches, steroids or superdelegates. On Sunday, the terrorist tracking program . . . no longer will be fully operational." <i>National Review</i> warrior and all-around tough guy Andy McCarthy <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWU3NmEwNzhmYjVkZDdlNzVmZDhhODVmMmViZTRlODM=">fretted</a>: "When the Clock Strikes Midnight, We Will Be Significantly Less Safe." </p>

<p> This is one of the most bizarre propaganda dramas ever, even when weighed against other Bush Terrorism propaganda dramas of the past. There is one reason, and one reason only, that the Protect America Act expired. Its name is "George W. Bush." That is who refused to agree to the Democrats' offer to extend the law by 21 days (or longer), then <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/26/bush-threatens-veto-of-30-day-fisa-extension/">repeatedly</a> <a href="http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=109131">threatened to veto any such extension</a> ("US President George W. Bush on Wednesday vowed to veto another temporary extension of a domestic spying law"), then directed the always-obedient House Republicans to vote unanimously against the extension, <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0208/House_Defeats_FISA_Extension.html">which they (needless to say) did</a>. This vital-to-our-safety piece of legislation expired only because George W. Bush repeatedly blocked its extension. It's just that simple. </p>

<p>All of the right-wing war cheerleaders who will be rendered sleepless as of midnight tonight, petrified that the Muslims who normally lurk menacingly on their corners will now be free to spring attacks since we now live under FISA (1978-8/2007) rather than the PAA (8/2007-2/2008), have only the Warrior-Protector Commander-in-Chief to blame for making us all so very "unprotected and unsafe." And George W. Bush's (absurd) claim this morning that, as of midnight tonight, "it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attacks" amounts to a confession that he has deliberately chosen to make us all Unsafe because <b>he</b> is the one who single-handedly ensured the death of this Vital Intelligence Tool. This is an extremely straightforward, clear and indisputable fact which even our national press corps ought to have no trouble conveying.<BR><BR><B><U>UPDATE</b></u>: The deeply serious Heritage Foundation -- and this is real -- has a countdown clock on <a href="http://www.heritage.org/">its frontpage</a>, showing to the <strike>second</strike> milisecond the time that we all have left before we become -- all together now -- unsafe and unprotected (h/t <a href="http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/16/protecting_us/permalink/548c094eb51d992f371d69824535262b.html">sysprog</a>):<BR><BR><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/R7cr2JhQF-I/AAAAAAAAAgk/6SbClkBlX6w/s1600-h/heritage.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/R7cr2JhQF-I/AAAAAAAAAgk/6SbClkBlX6w/s400/heritage.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167647306699249634" border="0" /></a>It is true, of course, that many right-wing polemicists use fearmongering techniques like this manipulatively, to exploit the Terrorist threat for more unchecked government power and to advance their political agenda. </p>

<p>But many of them actually believe this, and there are undoubtedly all sorts of individuals in the U.S. today nervously looking at their clocks, with accelerating heartbeat and a deepening sense of foreboding, knowing that the Hour of Danger is nigh upon us. This pitiful, fear-drenched absurdity is the face of the Bush Movement, the symbol of the post-9/11 Bush Era in the United States.<BR><BR><B><U>UPDATE II</b></u>: Several commenters underscore the seriousness with which this impending midnight deadline deserves to be taken. About the Heritage countdown clock, Sailmaker <a href="http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/16/protecting_us/permalink/6d767d3f8dbd358a6cb1f609f7770216.html">asks</a>: "does the clock go negative so that we can see how long we have been dead?" FMD, quite reasonably, <a href="http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/16/protecting_us/permalink/16ccb73a0076e8b82bd7d300125e05a5.html">inquires</a>: "If the nation is really going to be more vulnerable as the result of the expiration of the PAA (Protect AT&T Act), why hasn't Homeland Security's color coded threat level been raised to Magenta or Puce or some such thing?" </p>

<p>Most impressively, <a href="http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/16/protecting_us/permalink/aeab3aabd1129194d38bbdb4d492e97b.html">rupert_c shows</a> that, even with this looming and scary crisis fast approaching, he is able to stay focused on what matters most -- a calm, constructive search for a solution:<blockquote>Are you all insane? </p>

<p> They have already flown passenger jets into American buildings before and they can do it again!!! </p>

<p><h3> Better give him what he wants.

Anyone have a crown we can offer him?</h3></blockquote>Finally, DCLaw1 dramatizes the grim countdown our Nation faces (as well as the riveting Berkeley Treason scandal described in the <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/16/berkeley/index.html">prior post</a>) in serial form (<a href="http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/16/protecting_us/permalink/16e0cb0758cbea11e471735215387787.html">here</a>, <a href="http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/16/protecting_us/permalink/b4d98a9cdd749e0acdc6d68d5d686308.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/16/protecting_us/permalink/f3bf8d254872c7e3d4a4c56824526d67.html">here</a>), although much of this has been <a href="http://subs.unacs.bg/imdb.php?mid=0285331">done before</a>:<blockquote>Season Two: It's been more than a year after Jack Bauer experienced the longest and most painful day of his life. But things are about to get much worse. A nuclear bomb has been planted in Los Angeles. President David Palmer has no choice but to call Jack back to CTU for another day of hardships. . . . And Jack must face the toughest challenge of his life. . . finding the bomb with aid from the woman who killed his wife, Nina Myers. The clock is ticking. . .</blockquote>I wonder if they used the Heritage clock -- which, just by the way, now warns that time is short:<BR><BR><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/R7dBfphQF_I/AAAAAAAAAgs/fXQvd6ZBbDo/s1600-h/heritage2.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/R7dBfphQF_I/AAAAAAAAAgs/fXQvd6ZBbDo/s400/heritage2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167671109408004082" border="0" /></a>I'd love to know how many <i>National Review</i> readers and Rush Limbaugh listeners spent today going to the store to stock up on window shutters, duct tape and canned goods. </p>

</font></p>

<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="000000">
<p align="right">
<b> -- Glenn Greenwald</b>
</p>

Seaver · 02-17-2008, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Please understand that....beneath my calm exterior

Calm exterior? You called the President a MF in your title.

dksuddeth · 02-17-2008, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Calm exterior? You called the President a MF in your title.

but he does have a point.

Ustwo · 02-17-2008, 07:53 PM

Oddly I don't think we will see a multi page quoted rant about Bush's recent reception in Africa.

dc_dux · 02-17-2008, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Calm exterior? You called the President a MF in your title.

Seaver......how would you describe a president who purposefully msleads the public by attempting to instill fear that the expiration of the PAA would pose a grave threat to national security?

Reported in the Bush-friendly, conservative Washington Times:

Quote:

Many intelligence scholars and analysts outside the government say that today's expiration of certain temporary domestic wiretapping laws will have little effect on national security, despite warnings to the contrary by the White House and Capitol Hill Republican leaders.

With the Protect America Act expiring this weekend, domestic wiretapping rules will revert to the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires the government to obtain a warrant from a special court to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance in the United States.

The original FISA law, these experts say, provides the necessary tools for the intelligence community to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists.

Timothy Lee, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, said the last time Congress overhauled FISA — after the September 11 terrorist attacks — President Bush praised the action, saying the new law "recognizes the realities and dangers posed by the modern terrorist." (my editorial comment: at the same time as he was authorizing warrantless wiretaps outside of FISA)

"Those are the rules we'll be living under after the Protect America Act expires this weekend," Mr. Lee added. "There's no reason to think our nation will be in any more danger in 2008 than it was in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, or 2006."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/artic...847451166/1002

added:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Oddly I don't think we will see a multi page quoted rant about Bush's recent reception in Africa.

Maybe he went for a geography lession.

How about these quotes:

Bush in 2001:"We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease."

Then later: "Africa is definitely not a nation," "It's at least five nations. And Liberia, too."

host · 06-11-2008, 12:09 AM

Barak Obama could stop this "fear Psy-Op" in a heartbeat.....it will be a true test of the direction in which, if elected, he will lead us. He claims to have been employed as a university level lecturer on Constitutional law.

All Obama has to announce is, that his opponent, John McCain, supports the administrations demand for authority to eavesdrop of the telecommunications of Americans in the US, and read their email and text messages, all without warrants approved by a judge. If it were not so, the administration would not be demanding an "all or nothing", blanket communications surveillance authority.

All that would be needed to take the "fear" out of this "Psy-Op", would be a revision to FISA that permits warrantless surveillance of telecommunication originating and ending outside the US, that is routed through an internal US telecomm switch. The administration absolutely refuses to settle for this revision, because, via the use of the compliant neo-fascist corporate owned media, and a "DINO" democratic house and senate leadership, they believe that they still have the influence to trash the Constitution, compleletly, when it comes to passing into law, authority for unaccountable, secret domestic, warrantless, telecomm surveillance:

The White House passed this piece of distorted, falsehoods filled, blatant fear mongering propaganda, to a NY TImes stenographer yesterday:

Quote:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/06/w...not-about.html
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

What the FISA Debate is Not About

Marty Lederman

...The Attorney General is quoted as saying that a return to the FISA legal regime would be "unthinkable." But why? It is very difficult to figure out, either from the Times story or from other public sources, just what the big deal would be. Here's what the Times has to say about the possible "degradation" of intelligence capabilities:

Quote:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

Impasse on Spying Could Lead to Tighter Rules - NYTimes.com
A senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration was concerned that reverting to the older standards and ...

....Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has described the idea of reverting to the older standards of foreign surveillance as “unthinkable,” adding, “I still hope and actually think that it won’t happen.”....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/wa...gewanted=print -

....It is exceedingly difficult to make any sense of this debate without access to nonpublic information, but I think it is possible to clarify several things, which cumulatively render the "crisis" considerably less acute than Administration officials would have us believe.....

Quote:

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/...008-06-10.html
Lawmakers see progress on FISA talks
By Manu Raju

Posted: 06/10/08 02:12 PM [ET]

Congressional Republicans are reviewing a Democratic proposal to break the logjam on electronic-surveillance legislation by allowing federal district courts to determine whether telephone companies seeking legal immunity received orders from the Bush administration to wiretap people’s phones.

That differs from a plan that Republicans, with support from the White House, floated right before Memorial Day that would give that authority to the secret court that operates under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In both cases, the courts would not decide whether those orders constitute a violation of the law, according to people familiar with the language. The plan was floated by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and has the support of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

GOP aides said that Republicans would likely suggest more revisions, but saw the proposal as a step in the right direction.

“While several issues still remain, Sen. Bond believes he and Hoyer are making progress on crafting an ultimate compromise and remains hopeful that a bill to keep American families safe can be signed into law before the August expiration moves the intelligence community back to 1978,” said Shana Marchio, communications director for Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.).

Rockefeller said he is “mildly optimistic” that the plan could yield agreement, and added that the status of negotiations is “getting pretty darn good.” ....

...The new plan appears unlikely to win over civil libertarian groups. They sent a letter to Capitol Hill Monday calling on Congress to reject the Republican proposal and saying it would allow the FISA court to “rubber stamp” a grant of immunity for surveillance operations.

Their allies on Capitol Hill also might be skeptical of the latest Democratic plan. Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) sent a letter to congressional leaders asking them to reject immunity for the telephone companies.

“As we have explained repeatedly in the past, existing law already immunizes telephone companies that respond in good faith to a government request, as long as that request meets certain clearly spelled-out statutory requirements,” Dodd and Feingold wrote Tuesday......

Senator Russ Feingold, the only senator who voted against Patriot Act I, and who sponsored a senate resolution to censure president Bush in 2006, and Senator Chris Dodd sent the following letter to the ridiculously compromised and manipulated democratic house and senate leaders, yesterday, it reads:

Quote:

http://static1.firedoglake.com/28/fi...6-10-08ltr.pdf
June 10, 2008
The Honorable Harry Reid The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Majority Leader Speaker of the House of Representatives
S-211, U.S. Capitol H-232, U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Steny Hoyer
Majority Leader
H-107, U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy The Honorable John Conyers
Chairman Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary Committee on the Judiciary
224 Dirksen Senate Office Building 2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV The Honorable Sylvester Reyes
Chairman Chairman
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence House Permanent Select Committee on
211 Hart Senate Office Building Intelligence
Washington, DC 20510 H-405, U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC
20515

Dear Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Chairman Leahy,
Chairman Conyers, Chairman Rockefeller and Chairman Reyes,

As you work to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the FISA
Amendments Act of 2008, we urge you to include key protections to safeguard the privacy of
law-abiding Americans, and not to include provisions that would grant retroactive immunity to
companies that allegedly cooperated in the President's illegal warrantless wiretapping program.
With respect to immunity, we are particularly concerned about a proposal recently made by
Senator Bond, and want to make clear that his proposal is just as unacceptable as the immunity
provision in the Senate bill, which we vigorously opposed. As we understand it, the proposal
would authorize secret proceedings in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to evaluate
the companies' immunity claims, but the court's role would be limited to evaluating precisely the
same question laid out in the Senate bill: whether a company received "a written request or
directive from the Attorney General or the head of an element of the intelligence community …
indicating that the activity was authorized by the President and determined to be lawful."
Information declassified in the committee report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
on the FISA Amendments Act, S. 2248, confirms that the companies received exactly these
materials:

The Committee can say, however, that beginning soon after September 11, 2001, the
Executive branch provided written requests or directives to U.S. electronic
communication service providers to obtain their assistance with communications
intelligence activities that had been authorized by the President.
… The letters were provided to electronic communication service providers at regular
intervals. All of the letters stated that the activities had been authorized by the
President. All of the letters also stated that the activities had been determined to be
lawful by the Attorney General, except for one letter that covered a period of less
than sixty days. That letter, which like all the others stated that the activities had been
authorized by the President, stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful
by the Counsel to the President.

In other words, under the Bond proposal, the result of the FISA Court's evaluation would be
predetermined. Regardless of how much information it is permitted to review, what standard
of review is employed, how open the proceedings are, and what role the plaintiffs' lawyers are
permitted to play, the FISA Court would be required to grant immunity. To agree to such a
proposal would not represent a reasonable compromise.

As we have explained repeatedly in the past, existing law already immunizes telephone
companies that respond in good faith to a government request, as long as that request meets
certain clearly spelled-out statutory requirements. This carefully designed provision protects
both the companies and the privacy of innocent Americans. It gives clear guidance to
companies on what government requests it should comply with and what requests it should
reject because the requirements of the law are not met. The courts should be permitted to apply
this longstanding provision in the pending cases to determine whether the companies that
allegedly participated in the program should be granted immunity.

We also urge you to correct the significant flaws in the FISA provisions of the Senate bill,
some of which were addressed in the House version. The Senate bill authorizes widespread
surveillance involving innocent Americans and does not provide adequate checks and balances
to protect their rights. First, it permits the government to come up with its own procedures for
deciding who is a target of surveillance, and provides no meaningful consequences if the FISA
Court later determines the government's procedures are not even reasonably designed to
wiretap foreigners. Second, even if the government is wiretapping foreigners outside the U.S.,
those foreigners need not be terrorists, suspected of any wrongdoing, or even be of any
specific intelligence interest. That means the government could legally collect all
communications between Americans here at home and the rest of the world. Third, the Senate
version version of the bill failed to prohibit the practice of reverse targeting – namely, wiretapping a person overseas when what the government is really interested in is an American here at home
with whom the foreigner is communicating. Fourth, the Senate version of the bill failed to
include meaningful privacy protections for the Americans whose communications will be
collected in vast new quantities. We strongly believe that these problems should be corrected
as the legislation moves forward.

Thank you for your consideration of these concerns. As this legislation moves forward, please
know that we will strongly oppose any legislation that includes a grant of unjustified retroactive
immunity and that does not adequately protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans.

Sincerely,
Senator Russell D. Feingold
Christopher J. Dodd

If Obama does not prominently support the honest and direct position of fellow senators Feingold and Dodd on the issue of FISA "reform" we will have a clear confirmation that defense of our constitutional protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, vs. the president and his political party's effort to use fear mongering to diminish our constitutional protections from government intrusion into our lives, we will know it, soon enough.

If there really was any basis for concerns expressed over on the "Ex-White House Press Secretary" thread, that democrats in congress might over zealously target the president for investigation of his deliberate misleading of the American people for the purpose of taking authority they would only grant to him out of fear for their security, all one need do is read this thread's OP and this post, to understand that such concerns are the least of what we face. The president is still trying to control us with "false fear" assertions, even after all the damage it has done to our country and our collective approval of his job performance and his integrity.

We can see from "THE HILL" article excerpt earlier in this post, that the president is still attempting to use his "fear card" so effectively that he has turned the democratic leadership that voters enabled in November, 2006, from reforms and checks and balances, vs. the executive branch, into a useful tool to further the president's "power grab".....

Background: One of the large telecomm companies refused the "letters" from the president, his counsel, and or the attorney general, because they were not warrants signed by a judge, authorizing cooperation with the government in it's attempts at surveillance of communications, as required by law:

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/wa...cnd-phone.html
May 12, 2006
Qwest's Refusal of N.S.A. Query Is Explained
By JOHN O'NEIL and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, May 12 — The telecommunications company Qwest turned down requests by the National Security Agency for private telephone records because it concluded that doing so would violate federal privacy laws, a lawyer for the telephone company's former chief executive said today.

In a statement released this morning, the lawyer said that the former chief executive, Joseph N. Nacchio, made the decision after asking whether "a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request."

Mr. Nacchio learned that no warrant had been granted and that there was a "disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process," said the lawyer, Herbert J. Stern. As a result, the statement said, Mr. Nacchio concluded that "the requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act."

A Qwest spokesman, Robert Toevs, declined to discuss anything to do with security issues or the statement by Mr. Nacchio's lawyer.

Qwest was the only phone company to turn down requests from the security agency for phone records as part of a program to compile a vast database of numbers and other information on virtually all domestic calls. The program's scope was first described in an article published on Thursday by USA Today that led to an outpouring of demands for information from Congressional Republicans and Democrats. The article said that AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon had agreed to provide the information to the security agency.

On Thursday, those companies said they were following the law in protecting customers' privacy but would not discuss details of the report. Separately today Verizon issued a statement saying that it provided customer information to a government agency "only where authorized by law for appropriately-defined and focused purposes."_ The company cited unspecified "factual errors in press coverage,"_ about the way it the company handles customer information in general....

Quote:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05...spying-program
May 7th, 2008
A New Look at the Hub of AT&T's Spying Program
Posted by Rebecca Jeschke

Our class action lawsuit against AT&T for collaborating with the National Security Agency in the massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications includes powerful evidence of a secret room
in San Francisco.

But the hub of the spying program may be just outside of St. Louis, in a Missouri town called Bridgeton. A special report from local station KMOV puts the pieces together in a comprehensive and disturbing story about this dragnet surveillance, with the help of AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein. Watch the video
on the KMOV site for a fresh look at a key piece of this spying puzzle.

Isn't it rather obvious that, if one political party has the advantage of keeping it's own communications secure, but has the option of monitoring all of the internet and telecomm communications of the opposing political party, it will enjoy an extremely lopsided advantage in trying to win elections?

Cynthetiq · 06-11-2008, 03:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Isn't it rather obvious that, if one political party has the advantage of keeping it's own communications secure, but has the option of monitoring all of the internet and telecomm communications of the opposing political party, it will enjoy an extremely lopsided advantage in trying to win elections?

in a short answer. no, it isn't obvious. what is obvious is that gasoline is $4.39 in my neighborhood and over $4.00 in everyone else's.

roachboy · 06-11-2008, 04:02 AM

i am unclear on what the argument is that links these last two posts--except as a curious sequence of riffs on the word "obvious." it seems to me that this is an example of incommensurate language games. the question then becomes what, if any, point there is in continuing along these lines.

let's take this seriously for a second: what emerges between these last two posts is a fundamental disagreement about the scope of the political. cyn's position appears to be aimed at reducing its purview to the immediate. host's is geared around a type of account of the context within which the immediate unfolds. there is no reason in principle why these cannot be placed into contact one with the other--but that does not seem to be the point.

another way: there is no opposition between the circuit of everyday life and the broader informational and institutional contexts that shape it. when you retreat into the immediate, you perform the effects of context. when you seal yourself up in the immediate, you do nothing but perform context. there is no way out: you cannot opt out, you cannot pretend that the larger environments have no effect when the decision to avoid these larger environments is symptomatic of the ideological field in general, when the move is itself a repetition.

what is going on?

Cynthetiq · 06-11-2008, 04:09 AM

actually nothing of the sort, if you've gotten that from the

the short answer is I read the post, the question posed. it's not obvious.

if I reduce my post to the original it read:

Quote:

in a short answer. no, it isn't obvious.

I read hosts last contribution to this thread and the last question posted:

Quote:

Isn't it rather obvious that, if one political party has the advantage of keeping it's own communications secure, but has the option of monitoring all of the internet and telecomm communications of the opposing political party, it will enjoy an extremely lopsided advantage in trying to win elections?

and it is again not obvious.

roachboy · 06-11-2008, 04:25 AM

so it is about the word "obvious"?

ok then, let's play this game.
what criteria are you bringing to bear on the term "obvious"?
what counts and what doesn't?
if that's all this is about, then lay out the rules.

Cynthetiq · 06-11-2008, 05:03 AM

I don't know what the rules are rb.

The request I assume is to read the host post and come to the same conclusion as he does because it's obvious.

I read the article and I don't see the obvious.

To me it means I'm: stupid, ignorant, cannot read, have no reading comprehension, and a litany of other adjectives since, it is "obvious." I read, re-read, stack, re-stack. Still not obvious.

So my simplest answer, is "no, it isn't obvious." Asking additional questions will get me no more understanding than many more quotations and citations of which I still will not read or understand "Isn't it rather obvious that, if one political party has the advantage of keeping it's own communications secure, but has the option of monitoring all of the internet and telecomm communications of the opposing political party, it will enjoy an extremely lopsided advantage in trying to win elections?"

Maybe if it was explained in more simpler terms it would become "obvious."

But as the question is posed, within the framework of all the quotations and citations, to this reader behind this keyboard, it isn't "obvious". In fact, it's almost like No Soap Radio

roachboy · 06-11-2008, 05:18 AM

the statement to which the term was attached is a second-order claim based on premises which are pretty clearly worked out in the course of these quotes--which concern, in the main, the ongoing efforts on the part of the bush administration to protect the telephone companies which co-operated with the warantless wiretapping from prosecution for having done so. the arguments that the administration has advanced in defense of its position rely fundamentally on the notion of some "crisis"

the linkages move from this particular sequence of arguments to a more general point concerning information control on the part of the administration in de facto collusion with the "free press".

one of the main characteristics of modern authoritarian regimes is control of information. you generate consent by shaping the frames of "legitimate" interpretation and contents to which these frames are applied. that this administration has been able to do this since 9/12/2001 is self-evident. that it's expansive claims concerning executive privilege have been of a piece with this seems to me also pretty clear---if there is a logical problem, it is that these are *parallel* situations rather than identical situations.

but that doesn't seem to me the point here.
it seems to me that you are basically making a claim about rhetoric and not logic.

Cynthetiq · 06-11-2008, 05:19 AM

no rb, it's simply logic. I don't read it and come to the same conclusion. obvious or not.

In fact, the idea that it has an advantage over elections seems more ludicrous and fear mongering than anything else the longer I think about it. Maybe my logic is flawed.

It implies that the voter is not able to vote and make changes via elections.

It is absurd, as if it true then the Repbulicans would have never lost the House advantage.

IMO this is setting up the idea that one can point fingers to another phantom or scary monter to say "See, I proved my point!" in my mind the logic is not any different than the logic applied to "Why won't God heal amputees?"

07-28-2007, 10:20 AM	#2 (permalink)
dksuddeth Junkie Location: bedford, tx	Host, as fervently as you believe the material in your post...I have to tell you that it doesn't matter. None of it matters. You know this deep inside. The USSC is beholden to maintaining a social engineering precedent so that none of this matters. There are people on this board who will neve care that what you have to say is truth, just that it's subject is damaging to their cause. __________________ "no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

12-18-2007, 09:53 AM	#11 (permalink)
ubertuber spudly Location: Ellay	FYI: I deleted the post with the videos. Let's try to keep this somewhat on track. __________________ Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

12-18-2007, 11:43 AM	#12 (permalink)
ottopilot let me be clear Location: Waddy Peytona	edit __________________ "It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo Last edited by ottopilot; 12-26-2007 at 11:47 AM..

12-18-2007, 12:07 PM	#13 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	Before this little flame war spills over on to any more threads, let's put a stop to it, m'kay? There is no tolerance for personal attacks in Politics. If you read the TFP Politcs Rules Sticky at the top of the forum, you'll see that temp bans are the next step. If anyone wants a 3 day vacation, just let us know. We're always happy to oblige. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

12-18-2007, 12:28 PM	#15 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	Host...I dont have an answer for you. The "secret hold" is one of those arcane Senate parliamentary procedures where a Senator can block a bill from coming out of Committee and going to the floor for a vote by "secretly" informing the Chair of the Committee in writing that he/she is "holding" the bill. In spite of the fact that most Senators say its a terrible procedure, they wont vote to change the standing rules of the Senate to abolish it. The commonly accepted practice has been to limit "holds" to member of the Committee where the bill originated. Dodd is not on either the Intel Committee or the Judiciary Committee. (Although this year, there were more Republican holds from non-Committee members than I can ever recall before. I think there is still a Republican hold on the Freedom of Information Act reform bill that the Dems passed in Committee in Feb) Since Dodd put both a "hold" on one the two competing bills and also promised a fillibuster, he obviously knew that one of the bills would reach the floor. In any case, Reid is a poor excuse for a majority leader and this is just the latest example. There are lots of Democratic member concerns with these "Protect America" bills that go beyond the telcomm immunity and Dodd, Feingold and others are prepared to fight Reid on this one......stay tuned next year, I guess. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 12-18-2007 at 12:48 PM..

07-28-2007, 10:32 AM	#3 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	None of it may matter to you, dk, but that hardly means it doesn't matter to everyone. As we're headed into a showdown between Congress and the POTUS, how can you suggest that no one cares?

12-18-2007, 07:34 AM	#10 (permalink)
Sticky	Ottopilot, I enjoyed that last one. Thanks __________________ Sticky The Stickman

12-18-2007, 07:53 PM	#20 (permalink)
ottopilot let me be clear Location: Waddy Peytona	edit __________________ "It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo Last edited by ottopilot; 12-26-2007 at 11:46 AM..

02-17-2008, 07:53 PM	#24 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	Oddly I don't think we will see a multi page quoted rant about Bush's recent reception in Africa. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

06-11-2008, 04:02 AM	#28 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i am unclear on what the argument is that links these last two posts--except as a curious sequence of riffs on the word "obvious." it seems to me that this is an example of incommensurate language games. the question then becomes what, if any, point there is in continuing along these lines. let's take this seriously for a second: what emerges between these last two posts is a fundamental disagreement about the scope of the political. cyn's position appears to be aimed at reducing its purview to the immediate. host's is geared around a type of account of the context within which the immediate unfolds. there is no reason in principle why these cannot be placed into contact one with the other--but that does not seem to be the point. another way: there is no opposition between the circuit of everyday life and the broader informational and institutional contexts that shape it. when you retreat into the immediate, you perform the effects of context. when you seal yourself up in the immediate, you do nothing but perform context. there is no way out: you cannot opt out, you cannot pretend that the larger environments have no effect when the decision to avoid these larger environments is symptomatic of the ideological field in general, when the move is itself a repetition. what is going on? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-11-2008, 04:25 AM	#30 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	so it is about the word "obvious"? ok then, let's play this game. what criteria are you bringing to bear on the term "obvious"? what counts and what doesn't? if that's all this is about, then lay out the rules. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-11-2008, 05:03 AM	#31 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	I don't know what the rules are rb. The request I assume is to read the host post and come to the same conclusion as he does because it's obvious. I read the article and I don't see the obvious. To me it means I'm: stupid, ignorant, cannot read, have no reading comprehension, and a litany of other adjectives since, it is "obvious." I read, re-read, stack, re-stack. Still not obvious. So my simplest answer, is "no, it isn't obvious." Asking additional questions will get me no more understanding than many more quotations and citations of which I still will not read or understand "Isn't it rather obvious that, if one political party has the advantage of keeping it's own communications secure, but has the option of monitoring all of the internet and telecomm communications of the opposing political party, it will enjoy an extremely lopsided advantage in trying to win elections?" Maybe if it was explained in more simpler terms it would become "obvious." But as the question is posed, within the framework of all the quotations and citations, to this reader behind this keyboard, it isn't "obvious". In fact, it's almost like No Soap Radio __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

06-11-2008, 05:18 AM	#32 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the statement to which the term was attached is a second-order claim based on premises which are pretty clearly worked out in the course of these quotes--which concern, in the main, the ongoing efforts on the part of the bush administration to protect the telephone companies which co-operated with the warantless wiretapping from prosecution for having done so. the arguments that the administration has advanced in defense of its position rely fundamentally on the notion of some "crisis" the linkages move from this particular sequence of arguments to a more general point concerning information control on the part of the administration in de facto collusion with the "free press". one of the main characteristics of modern authoritarian regimes is control of information. you generate consent by shaping the frames of "legitimate" interpretation and contents to which these frames are applied. that this administration has been able to do this since 9/12/2001 is self-evident. that it's expansive claims concerning executive privilege have been of a piece with this seems to me also pretty clear---if there is a logical problem, it is that these are parallel situations rather than identical situations. but that doesn't seem to me the point here. it seems to me that you are basically making a claim about rhetoric and not logic. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

06-11-2008, 05:19 AM	#33 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	no rb, it's simply logic. I don't read it and come to the same conclusion. obvious or not. In fact, the idea that it has an advantage over elections seems more ludicrous and fear mongering than anything else the longer I think about it. Maybe my logic is flawed. It implies that the voter is not able to vote and make changes via elections. It is absurd, as if it true then the Repbulicans would have never lost the House advantage. IMO this is setting up the idea that one can point fingers to another phantom or scary monter to say "See, I proved my point!" in my mind the logic is not any different than the logic applied to "Why won't God heal amputees?" __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION! Last edited by Cynthetiq; 06-11-2008 at 05:25 AM..