The Echelon Myth
The Echelon Myth
Prominent right-wing bloggers – including Michelle Malkin, the Corner, Wizbang and Free Republic — are pushing the argument that President Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program isn’t news because the Clinton administration did the same thing.
The right-wing outlet NewsMax sums up the basic argument:
During the 1990’s under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon…all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.
That’s flatly false. The Clinton administration program, code-named Echelon, complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained. CIA director George Tenet testified to this before Congress on 4/12/00:
I’m here today to discuss specific issues about and allegations regarding Signals Intelligence activities and the so-called Echelon Program of the National Security Agency…
There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the FBI scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of U.S. persons are involved, whether directly or indirectly. We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department.
Meanwhile, the position of the Bush administration is that they can bypass the FISA court and every other court, even when they are monitoring the communications of U.S. persons. It is the difference between following the law and breaking it.
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I knew it. I heard these talking points yesterday on hate radio and figured the truth had to be something else.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:17 pmSo what part of TOTALITARIAN government doesn't bushco understand?
December 20th, 2005 at 12:21 pmThose right wing nitwits will say anything to shift blame away from themselves, avoid seriously discussing the issue at hand and save their asses. It doesn't change the fact that their sitting president took matters into his own hands and violated the law by not obtaining a FISA warrant before spying on Americans.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:22 pmThe SODDI (Some Other Dude Did It!) defense is usually a last resort and is heard after all other arguments have failed. It is usually followed by the ASIDWA (Aw hit It Didn't Work Again)wail. You can rest assured that if Clinton would have done everything the Repugs are now claiming the blue dress would never have been mentioned.
Let's all support Senator Boxer and others in their call for Impeachment.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:24 pmTheir favorite phrase is But Clinton... for people that hate Clinton so much they sure use his presidency to justify lots of things.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:24 pmWizbang, a "prominent" rightwing site.....LOL. They probably average about 9 comments per thread, not very impressive.
Once the winger lies are exposed, the hacks that drove the propaganda NEVER retract their stories. It's wingnut 101. Good job Judd, TPro.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:24 pmDoesn't this kinda debunk the talking point from the Rightwingers (from 2 that I know of: Bill Kristol, and Rep. Tim King (NY) on Sunday's Late Edition) that if Clinton had monitored electronic communication, 9/11 could have been prevented? It now seems that we did perform such monitoring.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:25 pmThank you for this. This particular talking point has major legs in winnuttia. It just didn't smell right.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:30 pmFolks, get a clue. Remember the FBI/CIA/NSA scrapped their plans to develop spying software (Carnivore)?
Why?
Because they found EXTANT COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS to do the spying for them,
What extant commercial applications?
1. MICROSOFT WINDOWS: A purposeful back door that provides easy access to your computer without your even being aware of it. Windows XP is a spy system that uploads the content of your internet cache to Microsoft every 15 days. It's in the registry. XP replaced Windows 95/98 which had been the subject of the antitrust inquiry. . . a prosecution suddenly dropped shortly before the Carnivore program was scrapped.
2. AOL: On the brink of economic collapse, AOL is mysteriously bailed out of bankruptcy at the last minute. GUESS WHY? AOL is also a back door!
Ask any software professional.
It's true.
Of course der Shrubenfuherer has been spying on you. Donjcha get it? That's why they did 9/11! So they could turn the U.S. into a police state.
They'll need a military crackdown after the economy collapses and 280 million Americans are forced out of their jobs, homes and lives.
They have 59 concentration camps all ready to house millions.
Google it.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:31 pmI've noticed a new talking point with a legal precendent going around as well. Must have been in today's blast fax.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:32 pm#7
The repugs will counter with "But Clinton didn't monitor the right calls." These are the same idiots that claim on Monday their team would have won Sunday's game if only....
The game is over and the score is at least ten to zero against Bushco. No amount of Monday Morning Quarterbacking is going to change the facts of the game. DUHbya can now send his soul home to the Intelligent Designer because his ass belongs to the Dems. Or in more subtle terms, his ass is grass and the Dems are riding their lawnmower.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:33 pmBush's latest talking point is that there is a difference between "detecting" and "monitoring". Not entirely sure where this is leading, but something to keep an eye on.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:41 pm#9,
That's why I use a Mac. I have always known about the Windows problems with security which easily can result in getting spyed on. It started with the Pentium III.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:42 pmIf Bush nuked Los Angeles tomarrow, these Right Wingnut pundits would find a way to justify it.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:46 pmConsistent with their misinformation campaigns the criminal Bushite junta spreads lies to its inbred faithful to rile them up, knowing their apologists and disciples won't bat an eyelash having long ago sold their miserable souls.
The Bushite junta realizes that their worshippers are like baby birds in the nest, necks outstretched, beaks open skyward for their masters to regurgitate in their hungry little beaks.
The inbreds are afraid that this one might be the GREAT UNDOING, and it's well past time. We progressives can only wait, and hope.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:47 pmSpying on Americans has been going on a long time. The mistake these guys have made is not being sophisticated and discreet about it. All the advances in technology also have outed much of the crap that has always gone on. This is nothing new.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if someday it is found out that 9/11 was an inside job to create a police state, take away civil liberties, etc.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:47 pmWhy do they need to bypass FISA altogether when FISA (a veritable rubber stamp for search warrants by their record) allows the administration to ask for a warrant retroactively?
By that logic Bush should be able to almost get away with a blowjob and the next Democratic president should be able to sell a WMD chemical kit to North Korea.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:49 pmthe Constitution will eventually become 'quaint' to them, just like the Geneva Conventions. and if they ever figure out how to get elected without exploiting fundamentalist christians, i'm sure they'll eventually find the Bible to be 'quaint' too.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:51 pmCan I try? They would say liberal Hollywood was actively undermining the war effort with propoganda such as "Brokeback Mountain". They would say "We will take the fight to Merka hating Hollywood and anywhere the War on Terra' is being undermined by libruls and commies (Oops, wrong century)."
Am I close? I should do a "Assrocket through history" site like that "Fox News through history" someone did recently.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:53 pmSo two sentences from George "Slam-Dunk" Tenet's testimony from 5 years ago is all you need to convince yourselves that everything the Clinton administration did was aboveboard and strictly legal?
Guess you didn't notice or just don't care about his very precise - Clintonian, you might say - wording...
We don't "collect" against "U.S. persons" UNLESS they are "agents of a foreign power..." So what does "U.S. persons mean? Citizens? Foreign nationals within the U.S.?
"We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States..."
Now, does this mean that their conversations that originate / terminate in the U.S. are NOT targeted? Seems like a reasonable reading of hit words would indicate that these conversations ARE targeted and collected....just not "...in the United States..."
December 20th, 2005 at 12:57 pmtornaig, you may want to take note, since January 20, 2001, Clinton has not been president.
Hope this helps.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:58 pmFor the sake of argument only:
Let's say all voice and email is currently listened to. But, it is not listened to by a human. If a dog, cat, or computer program listens to your phone call, do you care? Are are any rights are violated at this point?
Let's say a computer looks for key words and uses a neural net software to look for patterns that indicate something criminal. Now if something hits a certain point value the dog, cat, or computer, then barks, meows, or sends an email that tells someone there is a very strong indication that something criminal was said. This is akin to a dog barking at a drug filled suitcase at an airport.
Now they have a case for reasonable search. So someone requests from a judge that that recording should be listened to by a human.
That okay with everyone or is it a trick to get around the law?
December 20th, 2005 at 12:59 pmThe inbreds are afraid that this one might be the GREAT UNDOING, and it’s well past time. We progressives can only wait, and hope.
Comment by big papa
You can sit on it and spin for all we care. Why don't you just "protest" by burning down your neighborhood? That'll teach us.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:00 pmThank You! It's important to get this out there!
December 20th, 2005 at 1:01 pmMaking Up Excuses
Because the Bush Apologists are obsessed with Bill Clinton, they distort the truth to bolster their hero
December 20th, 2005 at 1:02 pmwhat's your address i-rightwingnutz-i?
December 20th, 2005 at 1:03 pmThank you for yet another racist comment, IRI.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:04 pmInformation needs to be made available as to how citizens can maximise their privacy on the net. A totalitarian coup would certainly need to keep close tabs on this last vestige of a free press. Any ideas anyone?
December 20th, 2005 at 1:04 pm#20
Gay cowboys? Hahahaha. That's gotta send Bill O over the top. I hear that Wyoming won't be showing the movie. That's where it is set. Actually, I know a gay cowboy but he still values his balls so his family and extended cowboy family don't know he's gay. The religious folks just don't understand that there are gay people in all walks of life.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:04 pmBRAIN IMPLANT WAITING FOR TALKING POINT DOWNLOAD.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:06 pmET- 1:15
Am I authorized to play pocketball while waiting?
Waiting for response.
#23
That okay with everyone or is it a trick to get around the law?
Comment by Allen — December 20, 2005 @ 12:59 pm
Well, if I said "I'm against blowing up buildings by terrorists." and the operative words heard are "blowing up" , then I get targetted even though I denounced the practice of terrorism. So, I vote for fancy trick...
December 20th, 2005 at 1:07 pm"Meanwhile, the position of the Bush administration is that they can bypass the FISA court and every other court, even when they are monitoring the communications of U.S. persons."
What about communications between U.S. citizens and foreign nationals suspected of having terrorist connections? What is the difference between international and domestic surveillance? Does the law allow for monitoring of incoming phone calls or e-mail from outside the U.S. without obtaining a warrant at a time of war when time is so critical?
Is anyone here an actual expert on the law?
December 20th, 2005 at 1:07 pmgay cowboy is redudant. big floppy hats. high heels. giant shiney belt buckles. very tight genes. bedazzled shirts. that all sounds gay to me... i'm just saying..
December 20th, 2005 at 1:08 pm#2 - So what part of TOTALITARIAN government doesn’t bushco understand?
I'd put it this way:
What part of TOTALITARIAN government don't US citizens understand?
Afterall, We The People have a responsibility (or used to have the responsibility) to stand up and drive from office those fools who deliberately break the law and to put them in jail. The 4th amendment has clearly been breeched.
Bush just torpedo'd his political ship. He belongs in jail. His henchmen belong in jail. We need a true leader. Someone who will do the right things of, by, and for the people of the US.
Nothing ever changes for the powerful elite until the masses rise up.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:09 pm#24
You can sit on it and spin for all we care. Why don’t you just “protest†by burning down your neighborhood? That’ll teach us.
Comment by I-RIGHT-I — December 20, 2005 @ 1:00 pm
Well, IRI, your argument is so well documented, supported by facts and just so incredibly eloquent that okay, okay, I give in...
Really, is this how you expect to convert the heathens? Sarcasm and insults? Why don't you try torture too, because it's as equally effective...
December 20th, 2005 at 1:09 pmReality - YOU might want to take note - the entire point of this post was "Clinton's Echelon surveillance was legal!" - see the last sentence where - with the firm words of George tenet to provide bedrock support - Judd posits the difference between Clinton and GWB - "It is the difference between following the law and breaking it. "
Hope this helps!
December 20th, 2005 at 1:09 pmWhy are right wingers so committed to lying? And why do they hate America?
December 20th, 2005 at 1:18 pmNow all we need is wwingnut telling us that the destruction of the 4th Amendment is nowhere near as bad as President Clinton getting a blowjob.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:20 pmIt's always back to Clinton for those @#$%ing right-wing losers. "Well, Bill Clinton did it." That's the "party of accountability" for you. Like a bunch of little kids blaming others for breaking the vase in the living room.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:24 pmThe reason they are hemming and hawing like this is becasue they know they are busted.
This is almost identical to why Richard Nixon said bye bye, and they know it.
If the DEMS have some backbone now, they will begin Impeachment hearings. This is an impeachable offense if there ever was one.
Let's hope the DEMS show a little more backbone then they normally do, and hold his feet to the fire for this one.
Sick Pat Leahey on em.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:24 pmOh and if they want to mention Bill Clinton, then we might point out the Bill Clinton was impeached
December 20th, 2005 at 1:25 pmFor having a really good day :D
December 20th, 2005 at 1:26 pmrepublicans like 'tomaig' are a combination of psychotic, and semi-literate. not only do they clearly not possess any reading comprehension, but anything they read that doesn't fit or disproves their 'psychotic' frame of reference they discard. it's part of their pathology, and why they're such lunatics...
then you get the 'serial killer' and 'stalker' types who killed small animals as a child, and grow up to be dangerous psychopaths. those are whackos like IRI, MightyTranny and wwallace. they're unsafe to themselves, their families and the greater world. they see violence as 'good' because of their psychosis. they are unfortunately running the whitehouse and the pentagon as well - and hence the love of 'torture' and other psychosexual acts that are abnormal.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:28 pm"They hate our freedoms", nowwww I understand who the "they" refers to ...........BUSHCO.....and they hate the American people's freedoms, specifically the U.S.Constitution.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:30 pmI think the interesting revelations are yet to come on this one though.
As we start finding out just who, and how many people were being spied on.
And God help him if it turns out that there is a large percentage of Democrats on that secret but soon to be revealed list of names.
Cause then it will be all over.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:33 pmwith the firm words of George tenet to provide bedrock support - Judd posits the difference between Clinton and GWB - "It is the difference between following the law and breaking it. "
Comment by tomaig — December 20, 2005 @ 1:09 pm
The words of George Tenet provide more support than you give them credit for. After all, he said them during a congressional testimony -under oath. Unless, of source, you are suggesting he commited perjury.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:35 pmThis is almost identical to why Richard Nixon said bye bye, and they know it.
I appreciate the prefix of the word "almost" to your statement (thus leaving room for it to be "not even remotely"), but, word wrangling aside, this isn't even similar, let alone "almost identical".
Nixon - members of his reelection committee were caught breaking in at the offices of the democratic party in the Watergate building. In short, a "political" decision perpetrated for personal gain.
Bush - allows the NSA (not his own personal lackeys, but another government agency) to listen in on suspected terrorists (likely not Bush "supporters", but certainly not opponents of the political type) after 9/11. In short, a "national defense" decision perpetrated for citizen wellfare (no one, at least no one on the national scene, has purported that the NSA was listening to anyone but suspected terrorists (although people here have)).
December 20th, 2005 at 1:36 pmAnd God help him if it turns out that there is a large percentage of Democrats on that secret but soon to be revealed list of names.
If it turns out that the NSA was used to listen in on political opponents of Bush so he could use that for political gain, I'll rent a van, pick up Worfeus, Ryan Neat, and unbelievable, and we can ALL go demand Congress impeach him ... just so you know where I stand. I do have my limits (although I don't think 1) we'll see that "list" and 2) that the NSA spied on Democrats for the political gain of Bush).
December 20th, 2005 at 1:42 pmBush - allows the NSA (not his own personal lackeys, but another government agency) to listen in on suspected terrorists (likely not Bush “supportersâ€, but certainly not opponents of the political type) after 9/11.
Comment by Giacomo
Jaggoffmore #48
"...but certainly not opponents of the political type..."
How do you know? Are you employed by NSA? Were you there at the LPs (listening posts), for each and every instance of es (electronic surveillance)?
Pray tell o in the loop one!
December 20th, 2005 at 1:44 pmPoor Ryan - projecting all your maladaptations onto those who you don't know.
You're quite the pop psychologist, aren't you?
For a self-described pacifist, you sure seem angry all the time...name calling, insults, insta-nalysis that describes others as less-than human or as suffering from a psychological disorder.
Perhaps some nice soothing chanting is in order?
December 20th, 2005 at 1:46 pm"In short, a “national defense†decision perpetrated for citizen wellfare (no one, at least no one on the national scene, has purported that the NSA was listening to anyone but suspected terrorists (although people here have))."
Comment by Giacomo — December 20, 2005 @
And the spying on anti-war groups? This is all of a piece.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:48 pmJustify it anyway you want, but this administration is out of control. When Bush was first selected, the first thing I said was "I just hope he doesn't drive the country into the ditch". Little did I know, THAT WAS THE PLAN ALL ALONG!
Bush apologists' defense: "Clinton did it too"
Today on several blogs and message boards, I've read many Bush apologists try to mitigate the unlawful actions of the president by resurrecting an all too common refrain — "Clinton did it too." Think Progress reports on it and then debunks it:
December 20th, 2005 at 1:49 pmYou can sit on it and spin for all we care. Why don’t you just “protest†by burning down your neighborhood? That’ll teach us.
Comment by I-RIGHT-I
I-Trite-I #24,
Because I'd garner infinitely more satisfaction from burning down yours, and I'd personally place your head on a spike (what a lovely thought); besides, you never use it!
December 20th, 2005 at 1:50 pm"Perhaps some nice soothing chanting is in order?"
Comment by tomaig — December 20, 2005 @ 1:46 pm
I would suggest the mantra "T-oma-aig-isa-dork" It always works for me.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:51 pm"For a self-described pacifist, you sure seem angry all the time…" GeoMetro
That's your projection, but not surprised you'd see the world in an 'angry' light, it fits your passive aggressive profile.
"name calling, insults, insta-nalysis that describes others as less-than human or as suffering from a psychological disorder."
And yet, you believe in supporting those that implement degrading acts such as strip searching a child, torture and violations of civil liberties, all the while hurling your own insults (like this silly little rant of yours), all the while proving republicans are the kings and queens of projections and psychosis. Your responses prove my point - thanks!
December 20th, 2005 at 1:52 pmWell see Giacomo, we won't have to speculate much longer.
Were starting to tear away at the layers of the dirty little deeds done in secret by Bush and friends. And each layer is like another chapter from Mein Kampf.
I wonder if Mr. Bush can say the word "impeachment" three times fast.
If he does, it would probably come out more like, impeachme, impeachme, impeachme. :P
December 20th, 2005 at 1:53 pm"Perhaps some nice soothing chanting is in order?
Comment by tomaig "
Thanks for the tip, but I prefer meditation. It keeps me calm while I confront those less fortunate (you).
December 20th, 2005 at 1:54 pmThose peace activists and Quakers are dangerous. Gotta keep an eye on them Amish too, with their Dutch/German secret code language and all that letter writing.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:56 pmBush on dictatorship now:
Bush on dictatorship then:
December 20th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
I have done my very best in all the days since to be true to that pledge. As a result of these efforts, I am confident that the world is a safer place today, not only for the people of America but for the people of all nations, and that all of our children have a better chance than before of living in peace rather than dying in war.
This, more than anything, is what I hoped to achieve when I sought the Presidency. This, more than anything, is what I hope will be my legacy to you, to our country, as I leave the Presidency.
To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:59 pmOh BTW Mr. Bush, feel free to use this, but I would paraphrase. See, I borrowed it from one of your predecessors.
Richard Nixon August 8, 1974 9:01 PM
December 20th, 2005 at 2:02 pmA Lie? Big deal? Who hasn't told a fib every now and then?
Sheesh. Lighten up, will ya?
-
December 20th, 2005 at 2:04 pm(no one, at least no one on the national scene, has purported that the NSA was listening to anyone but suspected terrorists (although people here have)).
Comment by Giacomo — December 20, 2005 @ 1:36 pm
There is your problem again, Giacomo. You think bad things only happen to them bad guys.
Truth is, left unchecked, it can happen anyone. You included.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:07 pmGuess you didn’t notice or just don’t care about his very precise - Clintonian, you might say - wording…
Tomaig, you moron, the wording Tenet was using is the wording of the statute.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:08 pmNow now, Ahmad, don't whine, we have to get started.
RESOLVED, That George "Dubya" Bush, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanours, and that the following articles of impeachment to be exhibited to the Senate:
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT EXHIBITED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE NAME OF ITSELF AND OF ALL OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AGAINST GEORGE "DUBYA" BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF ITS IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HIM FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:08 pmDecember 20th, 2005 at 2:10 pm
1. making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
December 20th, 2005 at 2:13 pm2. withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
December 20th, 2005 at 2:13 pm3. approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counselling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;
December 20th, 2005 at 2:13 pm4. interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the NSA, the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of 911 Special Review Board, and Congressional Committees;
December 20th, 2005 at 2:14 pm5. approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities
December 20th, 2005 at 2:15 pm6. endeavouring to misuse the National Security Agency, an agency of the United States;
December 20th, 2005 at 2:15 pm7. disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability from the office of special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald;
December 20th, 2005 at 2:16 pm8. making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President including the involvement with the contracted firm,DIEBOLD INC, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct: or
December 20th, 2005 at 2:18 pmBush’s latest talking point is that there is a difference between “detecting†and “monitoringâ€. Not entirely sure where this is leading, but something to keep an eye on.
Comment by Bob — December 20, 2005 @ 12:41 pm
I read somewhere that "monitoring" refers to watching people who have already been identified as terrorists or in league with terrorists, but "detecting" involves tapping lots of people and listening in all the time to see who is a terrorist and who isn't.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:18 pm9. endeavouring to cause prospective defendants (aka Scooter Libby), and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:19 pmIn all of this, George "Dubya" Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore George "Dubya" Bush, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:20 pmDecember 20th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Let's see...
NIXON - Complicit in the crime of burglary to steal files that would give him an edge to win the Presidency!
Continued a war in VIETNAM and thousands of soldiers dead and wounded! Continually reiterated he was a WAR-TIME President!
VERDICT: Investigated, tried, CONVICTED, impeached and removed from office!
CLINTON - Complicit in getting a BJ from a fat chick in the White House and making a bad land deal in Arkansas.
VERDICT: He cheated on his wife and committed a MORAL sin. Investigated, tried, NO CRIMES committed, IMPEACHED (for improper acts), served out his term!
Credibility damaged, but NO WAR or loss of life! ECONOMY booming, poverty (lowest levels in history), attacks against U.S. (over 8 year period)...ZERO!
Still receives blame for everything even though he's been out of office for SIX years and (oh BTW) finds time to help out the current imbicile in office!
BUSH JR. - Crimes within his administration:
VALERIE PLAME (outed by Libby & Rove)
Falsifying documents to justify WAR in IRAQ
JACK ABRAMOFF SCANDAL
TOM DELAY INDICTMENT
POVERTY LEVELS at ALL TIME HIGHS
INCOMPETANCE (See Katrina and Rita)
SECRET JAILS (See Romania)
Suspected Torture (Multiple Instances)
Illegal Abduction of Foreign Citizens
32,000+ Murders of Soldiers and Citizens of Iraq
DUKE CUNNIGHAM BRIBERY
HALIBURTON ACCOUNTING SCANDAL
BILL FRIST STOCK SCANDAL
FEMA FIASCO (See Katrina and Rita)
Secret Spying of U.S. Citizens
VERDICT: Claims he was given permission or does not need the authority under the provisions of government that previous Presidents (including his father) adhered to?
Now, "if" this President is accepting responsibility, then how can he state that he did not know ANYTHING, when his clear message to the people is that HE is in charge?
If NIXON is removed from simple burglary, then he should be removed for crimes against the Constitution as well as humanity!
December 20th, 2005 at 2:22 pmIraqVet, watch out, because Nixon actually resigned to avoid impeachment hearings, if memory serves.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:26 pmEchelon, Carnivore, COINTELPRO, the list runs forever. What people are missing here is that since the end of WWII, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, et al all have powerful spy and surveillance weapons at their disposal, placed there by either Acts of Congress, or Presidential Executive Order, with only the merest hint of so-called "oversight".
December 20th, 2005 at 2:28 pmTechnology, domestic and international politics, and the creation of an enormous national security Leviathan state have all contributed to the conditions we face today: a runaway Executive, free of traditional "checks and balances", deferred to by compliant federal courts, who can freely operate in a totalitarian manner while all the time proclaiming to "protect Americans' freedom and liberty" by ignoring the Bill of Rights, if not most of the Constitution, when it so pleases it. The interesting twist here - of course - is that with the Bush evocation of the inane "war on terror", the totalitarian apparatus of the State has been wrapped round "War Powers" and "commander-in-chief" provisions of the Constitution, wherein a permanent condition of war shall permit all matter of Constitutional abuse and infringement of civil rights. Read the writings of John Yoo, the chief enabler of this pernicious doctrine, to get a sense of how far from constitutional law this country has come. Ever since the rebarbative Nixon was run out of Washington, there has been a concerted effort by the Republican Party to restore the imperial Presidency, and with the ascension of the Cheney regime, they have found the perfect tool in Bush as a vehicle for promoting unfettered Executive power. Orwell would have been proud.
Actually WITCH, IRAQVET is correct.
There were impeachment hearings for NIXON, and they were led by Congressman Peter W. Rodino Jr, a Democrat.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:31 pmI am a Bush Apologist
December 20th, 2005 at 2:34 pmI really should see a psychologist
My heads so far up my butt
I really should see a urologist
Maybe not exactly Watergate. Looks a little more like Iran-Contra to me. The President breaks the law to follow his own agenda, pitting the executive branch against the legislative, purportedly to make the country safer. However, I think there are some clear differences that make this worse than Iran-Contra.
1) The Boland amendment was passed by Congress to stop the President from funding the Contras. FISA has been standing law for more than 20 years. This is important because you could say that the Boland amendment was meddling in foreign policy on the part of Congress, while FISA clearly is not.
2) Bush is not claiming ignorance in this matter, which was Reagan's primary defence. Remember that North and Poindexter were convicted of felonies.
3) Bush's actions directly affect the civil liberties of Americans and violate American fourth amendment protections. Reagan's (or Poindexter et al, if you prefer) actions harmed Nicaraguans and were arguably bad for the country, but did not involve breaking laws that protect the civil rights of U.S. citizens.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:34 pmPretty funny Robert, but shouldn't that last line read,
I should see a proctologist? LOL
December 20th, 2005 at 2:35 pmJudd, while I agree with you that what the Clinton Admin. did was legal, what it-- and every other post-USSID 18 Administration-- has done has opened the door to these abuses.
Yes, they are forbidden from "targeting." But as James Bamford says (see my blog for source), they grab all electronic communications they can and search them by keyword to find the ones they are targeting. The potential for abuse is enormous.
Second, the FISA court is a rubberstamp, with no effective oversight. That adds to the potential for abuse.
Finally, the ELINT grab is shared with allies. So, if the US president wants to monitor someone illegally, he can have Britain do it. Technically legal, but wildly illegal.
Parse words like "collect" and "target" carefully, and you'll find they don't mean what the dictionary says they mean.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:39 pmIf this was even true, which it is not, I think my mom had just the answer for this one, "If Billy jumped off a bridge would you do it too?" Pathetic lying losers. Welcome to Rome, here's your chains.....
December 20th, 2005 at 2:40 pmActually WITCH, IRAQVET is correct.
There were impeachment hearings for NIXON, and they were led by Congressman Peter W. Rodino Jr, a Democrat.
Ah, color me corrected.
Color me only 27 too and not even close to being around at that point. ;-)
December 20th, 2005 at 2:40 pmYea WITCH, kinda dates me don't it?
I was about 15 when the trials were going on.
I watched him leave and all, but to tbe honest I was more interested back then in gettin laid :P
December 20th, 2005 at 2:44 pmApril 20, 2004
President Bush: Information Sharing, Patriot Act Vital to Homeland Security
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. 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. 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.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r...20040420- 2.html
December 20th, 2005 at 2:51 pmNixon was never impeached.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:57 pmCould you fellas square this one up for me?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1543688/posts
Esepcially the part: "[T]he Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order, but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section."
Much obliged
December 20th, 2005 at 3:02 pm" attacks against U.S. (over 8 year period)…ZERO!"
Actually, There was terrorist bombing of WTC in 1993 and suspects were rounded up and tried in trail and so on... so I would say ONE terrorist attack and ONE domestic terrorist attack (remember Okla?)
right?
December 20th, 2005 at 3:02 pmLet me see if I get this straight. Taking the wingnut argument at face value (ie, assume for the time being that they are not lying as usual), the argument seems to be, if our bete noir Clinton the Antichrist massively violated the rights of American citizens, then that makes it OK for our side to do the same thing, and to argue otherwise is partisan opportunism. From this one must infer that the wingnuts approved of Clinton's claimed warrantless wiretapping, otherwise they are hoist on their own petard now. This in turn makes them objectively pro-Clinton apologists. Who knew?
December 20th, 2005 at 3:06 pmNot only attacks against the US mainland in 1993 on the WTC, but on US embassies (which is US sovereign soil) around the world during the Clinton adminstration. I don't blame Clinton, I just find this hypocrisy right now crazy from the left.
We have some crazy jihadists out there wanting to take down western civilization and many on the left sure would like to make it easier for them.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:06 pmHmmmm, Gorelick's comments rather interesting don't you think.
"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, "and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General."
"It is important to understand," Gorelick continued, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512200946.asp
December 20th, 2005 at 3:07 pmInteresting that Cheney is arguing today that if we had this valuable wiretapping tool we may have prevented 911.
But if Clinton used it why wasn't it at their disposal ?
Karl must be pre-occupied these days.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:10 pmBush is just being a dick. He can wiretap until his heart is content, and can do it quickly without a court order in the first 72 hours. He's just being a dick.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:15 pmGod forbid Bush might have to go to a judge after an emergency wiretap. It means he may have to do some job related work or something, and can't just blow stuff off.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:17 pmNixon was never impeached.
Comment by Jim — December 20, 2005 @ 2:57 pm
Jim, that's a Red Herring.
Impeachment hearings confirmed his culpability, and there was no doubt that impeachment was unavoidable.
I remember, I was there.
But unfortunately, on August 8, 1974, at 9:01 PM, Tricky Dick, resigned before me and the rest of the country, amd before he could be impeached.
But the House's Articles of Impeachment had already been accepted by the House Judiciary Committee except for articles 4 and 5.
So to say he was not impeached is like saying that a person who quits a job right before he was about to be fired, was not fired.
Sure, if you're trying to sound smart, then ok, he was'nt fired. But that's just blather that distorts reality and muddies the facts.
That's why that question, "have you ever resigned from a postion because you knew you were about to be fired" is on almost every application for employment in the country.
Saying he was not impeached, while technically correct, is nothing more than a Red Herring.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:19 pmEverything is Clinton's fault. Even Bush's incompetence is Clinton's fault. Even this years hurricanes are Clinton's fault. 9/11 is Clinton's fault. Clinton could have stopped all this but he didn't. Seeing as how Clinton has so much power over everything.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:20 pmThey hate Clinton because the guy could pull chicks ( yeah O.K. Lewinsky wasn't much to crow about), plain and simple. These Republican needledicks couldn't get pussy if they tried. Anyhow, Repent ye Republican scumbags that use the lord to justify Satan's work. Your special room in hell is waiting.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:24 pm"Sir, have you ever tried cocaine?"
"Uh, yes, only once, but I didn't inhale"
December 20th, 2005 at 3:24 pmHmmmm, Gorelick’s comments rather interesting don’t you think.
"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994 (...)
Comment by Jim — December 20, 2005 @ 3:07 pm
You may want to check this new thread right here at Think Progress:
The Gorelick Myth
Not to mention that your post is rather weak -"Clinton did it, and so I can too" is not exactly a strong position, now is it?
December 20th, 2005 at 3:26 pmClinton totally bagged the chicks. Fat chicks are greatful, and will do it. He had some hot chicks too. I see that Repubs could resent that, secretly wondering how it was with Jennifer Flowers.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:27 pmJesus, what short memories liberals have. Clinton was certainly no friend to civil liberties and engaged in much of the same shit though not the same amount that Bush has done.
Btw, you're quoting Tenet? Bwhahahahahahah!
December 20th, 2005 at 3:29 pmWhether impeachment was unavoidable or not, he was never impeached.
As it relates to the the Gorelick Myth, I'm supposed to take ThinkProgress' views on this as Gospel? Am I allowed to say Gospel in this forum? As you are "debunking" this, conservative website are debunking the debunking and on and on.
At the end of the day, this is nothing but nonsense from the left. Do you want to win this war or not?
December 20th, 2005 at 3:30 pm107,
It's about how much BushCo has been pushing the limits. Not what exactly is being done. Bush is pushing the limits beyond anyone before him. He's taking it a bit too far, just like DeLay, and many others.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:32 pmJesus, what short memories liberals have. Clinton was certainly no friend to civil liberties and engaged in much of the same shit though not the same amount that Bush has done.
Btw, you’re quoting Tenet? Bwhahahahahahah!
Comment by puhleez — December 20, 2005 @ 3:29 pm
Your Red Herring is crap. The list on Dubya is endless, not to mention 300 BILLION with a BIG B dollars for a war against a country that could not hit the broad side of a barn with a SCUD to a country less than 200 Miles away.
Clinton is not President genius, Dubya is, well at least he is for the moment.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:37 pmJim,
You sound like people arguing over the 'definition of sex'. Nixon was a criminal, he was forced to leave office to avoid being removed by the senate. The only 'nonsense' comes from republicans who continually break the law and violate the constitution. You guys are the very definition of 'nonsense'.
As for 'war', that's what you have between 'nations'. We are not at war with any other nations, and you can't have a war against a 'tactic', which is what terrorism is. And if you actually believe that trading america's civil liberties to defeat an 'ism' is 'victory', then you like the other nazis don't understand what you're fighting for, or what america is.
You really need to get a dictionary, your lack of understanding of basic english has clearly turned you into a defeatist moron.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:37 pmI’m supposed to take ThinkProgress’ views on this as Gospel?
Comment by Jim — December 20, 2005 @ 3:30 pm
No, Think Progress' thread provides links so yuo can verify the sources on your own.
Am I allowed to say Gospel in this forum?
You just did.
As you are "debunking" this, conservative website are debunking the debunking and on and on.
As I said, you can follow the links and read the sources on your own.
At the end of the day, this is nothing but nonsense from the left.
Then, why are you here?
Do you want to win this war or not?
Which one, the "war on terror", the "war on Christmas", the invasion of Iraq?
Furthermore, why is breaking the law essential to winning a war?
December 20th, 2005 at 3:38 pmYes we do need to win this war. Because all other forms of credibility are gone. We are already so divided, it is easier for someone to conquer us, (like Bush, and Neocons). We also need credibility in the eyes of the world, so winning would be a huge plus. Of course I would like us to win the war. There are some of us that don't see the connection between letting Bush do whatever he wants to, and winning the war in Iraq. We don't see the connection in warrantless wiretaps and winning the war in Iraq. Wiretapping is about a different war on terror. I don't think a terrorist is going to come over to the US, make international phone calls to hurt our men in Iraq. I don't see the connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Winning the war does not need to include half the crap this administration is trying to justify.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:41 pmJesus, what short memories liberals have. Clinton was certainly no friend to civil liberties and engaged in much of the same shit though not the same amount that Bush has done.
Comment by puhleez — December 20, 2005 @ 3:29 pm
You just aknowledged the Bush administration has wantonly circumvented the law. Plus, this administration -or any other for that matter- should respect the law regardless of what previous ones have done. I am sure you can understand that concept.
Btw, you’re quoting Tenet? Bwhahahahahahah!
Again, Tenet's statement was taken out of his testimony to Congress. He was under oath to tell the truth. Unless, of source, you are suggesting he commited perjury.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:42 pmHow about every international phone call is tracked and digitally recorded. Bank transactions of over 10,000 dollars are already logged, flagged, and could be tracked easily. So lets put it to rest, just automatically log, record, every international phone call. Shit, Google now saves every web query in a database. I never thought I had any true privacy with any form of electronics anyway. Our privacy was lost a long time ago, this stuff is just getting out now. These guys are just too comfortable with how its been, and forgot it was not considered normal by people who didn't know better.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:51 pmYou're kidding right...on pushing the limits? You mean like when Daddy Kennedy had dead people voting in Chicago and Texas to win the 1960 election?
You mean like in the 1940's when we put Japanese in internment camps under FDR?
Please people, get a grip with reality.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:53 pmHell, I think the local PD was tapping my phone, but if there is no way to prove it, it never happened. It's funny that people think we have all these rights to privacy. Your private life can be looked in on anytime, and you can't prove it. I would bet our activity here on this page is not as private as we think it is.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:55 pmJim,
Since you're the newest troll, understand that the war that
this country is truly in is the war for this country's soul. And in a way, we're just starting to fight back.
Bush's approval ratings are more negative than positive,
the displaced people from the Gulf Coast want his and Brownie's head in a platter, and even the military are talking about pulling out of Iraq.
Isn't the rights of patriots more important than the
December 20th, 2005 at 3:57 pmright of an asshole who overrides Congress and spits on the Constitution? Think about it.
OK,
Pushing the limits in such an emboldened, outward, non-discreet fashion.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:58 pm"Im.. impeachuh... im--impeachular."
There I said it. Mommy, can I have a cookie?
December 20th, 2005 at 4:02 pmNot only attacks against the US mainland in 1993 on the WTC, but on US embassies (which is US sovereign soil) around the world during the Clinton adminstration. I don’t blame Clinton, I just find this hypocrisy right now crazy from the left.
Actually, if you're counting attacks on foreign embassies, Clinton did better than most recent Presidents. And if you even think about mention the USS Cole, then you're counting attacks on our troops, of which Dubya holds the record.
Just remember, Clinton's policy of actively pursuing bin Laden was "under review" on 9/11, just like all Clinton's policies, but "reviewing" his terrorism policy had to take a back seat to undoing his environmental policies.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:02 pm#24 You are just stupid.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:05 pmEchelon was not a Clinton program, for christ sakes. It was set up after WWII. It does target domestic communication but it does so indiscriminately and the intelligence runs through Britain.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:21 pmsee here for more about Echelon:
December 20th, 2005 at 4:24 pmhttp://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html
The post at the top of this page is rather naive about the true nature of the project now called "Echelon." The actual program was a joint venture between at least two nations, Britain and the United States.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:30 pmWhile it is becoming common knowledge that the U.S. used Echelon surveillance legally against certain citizens, and while it is likely that Britain did the same concerning its own citizens, the truth is a bit worse. In actuality, Britain used Echelon facilities and personnel to spy on U.S. citizens AT THE BEHEST OF THE U.S. In return, the U.S. used Echelon facilities and personnel to spy on U.K. citizens, at the behest of the U.K.
The logic was that while it is illegal to spy on your own citizens without a warrant, a third party can spy for you...
You just aknowledged the Bush administration has wantonly circumvented the law. Plus, this administration -or any other for that matter- should respect the law regardless of what previous ones have done. I am sure you can understand that concept.
You mistake my post as a defense of Bush. It isn't. He ought to go to jail. What pisses me off is this sort of knee-jerk revisionist reaction to try and minimize the sort of shit that the Clinton administration did. I'll repeat: Clinton was not a friend to civil liberties. Instead of defending him, lefties should be decrying what a farce of justice and threat to the 4th amendment the FISA court represents.
Again, Tenet’s statement was taken out of his testimony to Congress. He was under oath to tell the truth. Unless, of source, you are suggesting he commited perjury.
Why not? Clinton lied under oath in a deposition. Is it so hard to believe that other government officials have not done the same when it suited their purpose? Just google for the current NSA Director's testimony to the House Intelligence Subcommittee in 2000 where he explicitly said that news reports which claimed that the NSA spys on Americans were "false and misleading" It was during the same hearing as the one Tenet testified in.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:35 pmLiberals are biased.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:42 pmWhat pisses me off is this sort of knee-jerk revisionist reaction to try and minimize the sort of shit that the Clinton administration did.
Comment by puhleez — December 20, 2005 @ 4:35 pm
I am not defending Clinton. Unfortunately, he is not the one in charge right now. So, when neocon apologists say "Clinton did it too", well, 1) in many instances it is not true and 2) what Clinton did or didn't is really irrelevant right now.
I’ll repeat: Clinton was not a friend to civil liberties. Instead of defending him, lefties should be decrying what a farce of justice and threat to the 4th amendment the FISA court represents.
My two cents: You should have stated your position clearly from the very beginning, instead of opening with "liberals blah, blah" if you wanted a serious debate. I refrain from name-calling (my choice) but most are not so forgiving.
Clinton lied under oath in a deposition. Is it so hard to believe that other government officials have not done the same when it suited their purpose?
There you go again, bring up Clinton. His lying can give me no insight on whether or not Tenet lied. I know people lie under oath, but -unless proven otherwise- I have to believe Tenet was truthful.
If you have evidence Tenet lied during his testimony to Congress in 2000, I would appreciate it if you could share it.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:51 pmYeah, I just heard this wingnut lie being spouted on Ed Schultz. I knew it had to come from some "reliable" source. In this case, Newsmax.
December 20th, 2005 at 5:00 pmLook Echelon is like a police road block: its random and no warrant is required to stop and search a vehicle. Once the search becomes particularized to an individual or specific entity a warrant is generally required absent a recognized legal exception to the Fourth and Fourteeth Amendments.
For any wingnut to argue otherwise is just ignorant, but then they don't really care about civil rights. They just want to be "safe"! It appears that Herr Busch approved the tapping of specific individual phone lines without a warrant. This is, as I and John Dean have said, an impeachable offense. I don't really care what Bill Clinton did or did not do. I don't care he got a blowjob either. He didn't start an illegal war in which tens of thousands of people have died. At least LBJ had the grace to quit.
December 20th, 2005 at 5:16 pm"Liberals are biased.
Comment by Fred Eper"
That's true, we're biased to believe in america and democracy, instead of biased in a desire to destroy it as conservatives are.
December 20th, 2005 at 5:33 pmClinton was only in office 37 days when the first world trade center bombing took place. Then Waco followed a month or two later. I don't recall him ever blaming GHW Bush for that attack as these Bush people blame Clinton for everything.
December 20th, 2005 at 6:14 pmMadelyn
How do you know if anyone in the Bush/Cheney administration is lying?
Check to see if their mouths are moving.
December 20th, 2005 at 6:23 pmesta muy beuno
compadre judd
una dias
December 20th, 2005 at 7:00 pmsu y mi
cervezas
esta
vida
perro
luna
Time for a little epistemology, folks: what's all this nonsense about "winning the war", anyway? Who's the war against, and what are its reasons? And what would "winning it" consist of? To hear Bush & co. talk, the war is already won, after all, wasn't the reason (misguided though it may have been) we held the war to get rid of Saddam? (Can you spell "regime change"?) So ok, that's done. WE WON! Let's git da hell out and let them damn Iraqis clean up their own mess they created by allowing such a Bad Guy get into power in the first place and provoking us to attack them!
Oh, yeah, and another reason we held the war was, to fight ISLAMIC-FUNDAMENTALIST TERRORISM. Those Islamic fundies are like REALLY BAD GUYS. Like, Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz AND THE PRESS (not necessarily in that order, of course!) all wanted us to believe that these nasty guys blew up the WTC by running planes into them, and that was REALLY REPREHENSIBLE, we had to DO something about that.
Now wait a minute: Saddam HATED Islamic fundamentalists, didn't he? Almost as much as Dubya says he does. So now we depose a guy in Iraq (who once was our ally, right?) so that his arch-enemies, the Islamists, can TAKE OVER! And that is exactly what happened THIS WEEK: the vast majority of the seats in the new "democratic" parliament in Iraq have been won by...GUESS WHO?
And yet another reason was that our friend Saddam was playing around with WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION! But since we invaded the country so brilliantly, he had no choice but to get rid of them all when he saw us coming! And that was exactly our objective!!!
So yay! We WON THE DAMN WAR! WE INSTALLED DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ! WE GOT RID OF THE REGIME! WE GOT RID OF THE WMD (though some argue they were never there in the first place, but that's hairsplitting)! AND IT IS NOW ON ITS WAY TO BECOMING A *LEGITIMATE* POWER BASE FOR THE SAME PEOPLE WHO ALLEGEDLY BLEW UP THE WTC USING RAZOR BLADES! Now that we have scored such a RESOUNDING VICTORY, can we please get our guys and girls back out of there so they don't have to keep DYING FOR THEIR COUNTRY? I mean, that REALLY SUCKS.
December 20th, 2005 at 7:38 pmPresident Clinton it appears ordered the same thing.
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-12949.htm
December 20th, 2005 at 7:59 pmEXECUTIVE ORDER 12949
- - - - - - -
FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PHYSICAL SEARCHES
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution
and the laws of the United States, including sections 302 and 303 of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("Act") (50 U.S.C. 1801,
et seq.), as amended by Public Law 103- 359, and in order to provide for
the authorization of physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes
as set forth in the Act, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act, the
Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a
court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of
up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications
required by that section.
Sec. 2. Pursuant to section 302(b) of the Act, the Attorney
December 20th, 2005 at 8:01 pmGeneral is authorized to approve applications to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court under section 303 of the Act to obtain
orders for physical searches for the purpose of collecting foreign
intelligence information.
#136
President Clinton it appears ordered the same thing.
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-12949.htm
Comment by Steve — December 20, 2005 @ 7:59 pm
Who cares? Commit a murder and them claim "Charles Manson did it, so I'm exempt!" and see if it changes anything (it won't genius). Clinton is NOT a factor in this. Get over it. It's stale and boring by now.
December 20th, 2005 at 8:09 pmActually no, that's not the argument.
All Presidents do things that some may question in terms of treading on civil rights, Bush is no different than Clinton, Bush Sr. or Carter or others in this regard.
Also a side question that I have in this discussion is where or rather how do rights get balanced?
The 4th insures unreasonable search and seizures. Are random bag searches in the NY city transit system "unreasonable"? Where is the balance of protection of the ultimate liberty, "Life", balanced off against other protections like those of the 4th amendment?
I don't know by the way and it's a damn hard thing to get that balance right, between Fascism and Anarchy that is. Please tell me where the balance point is.
December 20th, 2005 at 8:19 pmhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1544332/posts
December 20th, 2005 at 8:24 pmNo, that's not the case at all of Clinton did it therefore Bush can. It has to do with Clinton LEGALLY did it and Bush LEGALLY did it too.
In your massive hatred over this guy you seem to have forgotten this little tidbit.
December 20th, 2005 at 8:25 pmUhhhh...I don't get it. How do we figure "Clinton did the same thing?" A "physical search" is NOT the same thing as electronic eavesdropping! Also, the Attorney General, under the Clinton order, had to CERTIFY probable cause. What Bush did was to completely ERASE any notion of probable cause, and claim the unilateral, autonomous, independent, and unassailable right to eavesdrop (tap phones and intercept email) INDISCRIMINATELY.
Do you REALLY THINK that in any criminal action (like, um, impeachment) against Bush, his lawyers and/or apologists would cite the Clinton precedent in his legal defense? They'd be LAUGHED OUT OF THE COURTROOM (or the Senate chamber)!
December 20th, 2005 at 8:34 pmI knew somehow this had to be Clinton's fault.
December 20th, 2005 at 8:38 pmSo if the media doesn't fall for this and report it - then the mind controlled right will feel more persecuted and go deeper into their cult delusions.
The death spiral continues.
December 20th, 2005 at 8:53 pmI think post 139 understands. When something is done by people in power before and it is accepted, it sets precedence. When future leaders see a need to take actions that may be on the fuzzy edge, their advisors (and legal authorities) look at precedence. Therefore, he is not saying that if Clinton violated the law, it is ok for Bush to violate the law. He is saying (and I believe legal scholars will end up agreeing) that this is a grey area within the law that has been utilized in the past (by more than just Clinton), and no charges have been filed. Therefore, he has precedence to back his decision. If we, the people, decide this is too much of a jeopardy to our rights, this law will get changed /solidified. Therefore, all the current whining doesn’t mean shit. So, it is time to Move On to the next reason you can find to impeach Bush.
December 20th, 2005 at 8:54 pmThe REAL news story here should be what they are telling their cult, how they are controlling their followers. How they are turning millions of minds into mush.
It's actually a much bigger story than the spying itself. It has much larger national security implications.
The MAJOR story should be how the right is constantly LYING to and training their cult. This is moonie type stuff - lies of this magnitude to intentionally deceive, control.
Seriously, what they are doing is a huge national security issue. When 20 million people can be told to eat a dog turd and on Q they follow Spot around with a knife and fork, we have bigger problems than some domestic illegal spying. Much bigger. They have created a world of lies and deceit for their followers. It really shoud be a main topic for discussion but it won't be.
Huge national security issue.
The death spiral continues.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:12 pmSince when is something that actually happened a "myth"?
Clinton did it.
It is nothing "new", as the MSM is trying to hype to sell anti-Bush books.
Carter signed the XO authorizing AGs to conduct such spying.
The difference between Clinton's spying and Bush's? Clinton was spying on Americans, Bush is spying on terrorists.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:14 pmDavid (145): The ENTIRE LAW *IS* a "grey area". He who has the money, clout, etc., to hire the best lawyers, wins. "There is no justice." But impeachment is as much as POLITICAL process as a LEGAL one. And if Bush & Co. piss off enough people, even their own ex-friends and allies, their ass is grass. That's what happened to Nixon, and Johnson before him. Of course they were not impeached, though Nixon came close. But they pissed off enough people, and enough of the WRONG people, so as to effectively end their political careers. Bush, as you may have noticed, has pissed off an awful lot of people...may he continue to, so we can be rid of him. But I worry that getting rid of Bush is NOT ENOUGH. He's just a dummy, almost a dupe, a simpleton combination rich spoiled preppy kid and Texas oilman, by accidents of birth. The REAL powermongers of the extreme right may slither thru this. And, especially, the RELIGIOUS right, which is a power-base all unto its own.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:15 pmBy the way, where is your comment about Clinton's warrantless search in the Aldrich Ames case?
That's right: no warrants, and an American citizen.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:16 pmRH (147), you've got that wrong. Bush is spying on ANYBODY AND EVERYBODY, to SEE WHO *MIGHT* BE A "TERRORIST". It's called, "a fishing expedition". That's precisely a lot of what all the flap is about! But the whole U.S. political scene right now is AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL NIGHTMARE. A "war on terrorism" has been declared and NO ONE EVEN KNOWS WHO THE ENEMY IS. It is simplemindedness (or downright MINDLESSNESS) at it's best -- or worst.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:20 pmCults? Followers?
Oh boy. Look, I used to be a Democrat. I'm a registered independent now. 9/11 changed a ton for me and for many people in this country. I'm willing to give the POTUS more than a little leeway in protecting the citizenry.
I'm sorry, but eavesdropping on Abdul Abdullal Abdullah (fill in any other name) who is making calls to Saudi Arabia about the dimenions of the Sears Tower (fill in other blanks) strikes me as not the worst thing in the world.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:21 pmRobS
In simple terms, things have changed and if we do not adapt then we are in trouble as a country. I find it odd that so many are screaming about this now. Sometimes with the way some groups act of late, another horrific event might be the only thing that knocks sense back into folks. That is tragic to say, but people sure have short memories.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:26 pmEXECUTIVE ORDER 12949 is actually the executive order that allows various appointed officials;(e.g. Attorny General, Secretary of state,etc.)to apply to the FISA court without the Presidents having to authorize it. They still have to go to the FISA Court for a search warrant.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:27 pm
Actually Rstnfld, they do NOT have to go to the FISA court for a search warrant. That is INCORRECT.
Today's Wall Street Journal:
" The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis], held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." And further that "we take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."
December 20th, 2005 at 9:31 pmFrom Executive Order 12139 by Jimmy Carter
[T]he Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order, but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo12139.htm
December 20th, 2005 at 9:36 pmPresident Clinton took the oath of office January 20, 1993. February, 26 - barely a month later - terrorists detonated more than 1,000 pounds of explosives under the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring about a thousand people. Bill Clinton and the Democrats never dreamed of trying to blame the outgoing George Herbert Walker Bush Administration. They just began working to keep us safe from terrorism.
As reported by the "debunking" website, http://www.snopes2.com/ Within a year, law enforcement officials hunted down four of the "blind cleric" Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman's disciples, then prosecuted and convicted them for the bombing and sentenced them to 240 years in prison in March 1994. Officials captured the prime suspect Ramzi Ahmed Yousef in 1995. A court convicted him in November 1997 and sentenced him to 240 years in prison as well. An additional suspect fled.
"In August 1998, President Clinton ordered missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan in an effort to hit Osama bin Laden, who had been linked to the embassy bombings in Africa (and was later connected to the attack on the USS Cole). The missiles reportedly missed bin Laden by a few hours, and Clinton was widely criticized by many who claimed he had ordered the strikes primarily to draw attention away from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
As John F. Harris wrote in The Washington Post:
In August 1998, when [Clinton] ordered missile strikes in an effort to kill Osama bin Laden, there was widespread speculation - from such people as Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) - that he was acting precipitously to draw attention away from the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, then at full boil. Some said he was mistaken for personalizing the terrorism struggle so much around bin Laden. And when he ordered the closing of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House after domestic terrorism in Oklahoma City, some Republicans accused him of hysteria.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:37 pm
http://www.mikehersh.com/Republicans_sabotaged_Clintons_Anti-Terror_Efforts.shtml
December 20th, 2005 at 9:38 pm"Bush is a Facist"
Yes, that will help frame the debate in the country. What's wrong, the Hitler comparison was too strong? / sarcasm off
December 20th, 2005 at 9:42 pmI think someone needs to forward this to the jerkoffs at RedState.org, Free Republic, Wizbang and the mother of all hacks, Michelle Malkin.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:46 pmHow does one go about impeaching an entire administration? But this is what must be done lest we end up with President Cheney or Rice or Rumsfeld or...(shudder)
December 20th, 2005 at 9:48 pm#141
No, that’s not the case at all of Clinton did it therefore Bush can. It has to do with Clinton LEGALLY did it and Bush LEGALLY did it too.
In your massive hatred over this guy you seem to have forgotten this little tidbit.
Comment by Jim — December 20, 2005 @ 8:25 pm
Actually, I don't hate Bush, I just think he's incompetent and dangerous. Clinton worked it FISA, making his actions legal. Chimp did not work with FISA, therefore breaking the law, making his actions illegal. Know it's tough to follow, but I'm sure some media robot will dumb it down for all of you after he's removed form office for criminal acts in violation with the constitution.
December 20th, 2005 at 10:17 pmUnbelievable. You sure seem to be jumping to some strong conclusions without even knowing all of the details yet.
Not very "liberal" of you, but that is fairly typical of the hypocritical left.
December 20th, 2005 at 10:21 pmTrolls, go read the full thread... There are brilliant legal minds in here who have already posted the actual laws in multiplicity. You know he's guilty which is why you are in here defending him and we are not in your forums... Go try to convert some starving people to vote for you in exchange for food. It works for the Evangelicals in third world countries, I'm sure it will work for the Neocons... You're wasting your breath in here. Go sell crazy somewhere else.
December 20th, 2005 at 10:24 pmI'm still waiting for someone to tell me where the balance is between say the 4th amendment, unreasonable search and seizures, compared to warrantless searches, or warrantless bugging when compared to stopping terrorism.
I'm very much in favor of Civil rights, but the prospect of being dead due to a terrorism act seems to call the absolute protection of Civil rights into question. But damn, it's a slippery slope this places us on.
An example that balance, swung in the direction of reduction of Civil Rights, is the current bag search program on NY public transport. These inspections are clearly "searches", but are they reasonable, under what standard is this decided, is this program Constitutional when adjudicated, and until then is it allowed to go on?
I for one don't have the answer, and this is not a Left/Right sort of issue, but it's real and this country is confronting these sorts of issues post 9/11, post Madrid, post London. It will still be an issue in the future, even if all US forces everywhere were returned to the US tomorrow.
December 20th, 2005 at 10:29 pmSteve,
more people die from fatness and smoking every year than 9/11 - wake up and put things in perspective dude!
December 20th, 2005 at 10:40 pmRepublicans always uphold Bill Clinton as the moral standard.
December 20th, 2005 at 10:40 pmAs a fat smoker, I resemble your remark.
December 20th, 2005 at 10:43 pm#146 is 100% correct.
Here's a short real player video which SHOULD show anyone not in the cult what Bush and Co. are all about. It SHOULD show what levels of dishonesty, of deception they will stoop to so they can maintain control of their cult following.
Only the controlled can't see it. Just like Moon followers, always the cult comes first. Defend the cult at all costs.
This really sick, really sick.
http://tinyurl.com/cfmft
from canofun
http://www.canofun.com/blog/default.asp
if the vid link doesn't work, go here:
http://www.local6.com/news/2968435/detail.html#
December 20th, 2005 at 10:52 pmHey Jim from POST 93
this one's for you.
What Bush did was bypass current statues that had not encumbered him in ANY way before he broke those laws allegedly to defend and protect this nation. None of his administration’s thousand-fold FISA requests was finally rejected before he set about to undermine the Constitution by bypassing the FISA court.
The FISA statutes are so flexible and deferential to the Executive Branch’s duties that they even allow such wiretapping to occur BEFORE going to the FISA court, if such action is reviewed within 72 hours after the wiretapping. So, there was no need to claim an emergency, because they could wiretap without prior court approval if it was crucial to national defense.
Bush just decided not even to allow court review of the wiretaps after they occurred.
That completely undermines the very essence of the Constitution’s architecture of checks and balances.
And for the life of me, I cannot understand why that is not a problem for you.
The law he broke is linked.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50/usc_sec_50_00001801----000-.html
TITLE 50 , CHAPTER 36 , SUBCHAPTER I
1801.(Definitions)
As used in this subchapter:
(a) “Foreign power†means—
(1) a foreign government or any component thereof, whether or not recognized by the United States;
(2) a faction of a foreign nation or nations, not substantially composed of United States persons;
(3) an entity that is openly acknowledged by a foreign government or governments to be directed and controlled by such foreign government or governments;
(4) a group engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor;
(5) a foreign-based political organization, not substantially composed of United States persons; or
(6) an entity that is directed and controlled by a foreign government or governments.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50/usc_sec_50_00001802----000-.html
1802.Electronic surveillance authorization without court order[/u]; certification by Attorney General; reports to Congressional committees; transmittal under seal; duties and compensation of communication common carrier; applications; jurisdiction of court
(a)
(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that—
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at—
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 a (1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 a (1), (2), or (3) of this title
The statute specifically does not include “a group engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation thereforeâ€
December 20th, 2005 at 11:07 pmthere has been a lot of right wing foofoo dust on this one and the mouthbreathers leave out what is defined in "section 1801 a (1), (2), or (3) of this title."
Our Dear Leader assures us that he is on a mission from God, and can therefore bypass the Constitution. Jesus Christ is Dear Leader's special favorite philosopher whose teachings he always consulted before denying clemency appeals from death row in Texas. The man's credibility is beyond reproach. Dear Leader needs our trust, love and understanding when he is being vilified by Satanist dissenters. God has told him it's OK to spy without a warrant on law abiding American citizens. And all people can do is criticise our Dear Leader, in the most Unamerican way imaginable, on the eve of the birthday of the Prince Of Peace. Some folks just have no shame.
December 20th, 2005 at 11:08 pmFuzzFlash Why is being a bigot OK?
If you made comments like you have made about Bush's faith about any other group; gays, the disabled, people of color or any other group you would be denounced as a bigot by most progressives. Yet it seems OK to make bigoted comments about Bush's faith.
I'm not big on the hard core bible belt folks, as I grew up in the deep South with bigoted White Baptists, but I still can't figure out why it's ok now for a progressive to be bigoted towards people of faith.
Is this what passes for progressive humor?
Are you afraid they are right about the whole faith thing ?
December 20th, 2005 at 11:32 pmThe right-wing are nothing but old-school nazis---what do you expect? Look at the history of the Bush family. BIG BOTHER stating with Hitler!!
December 21st, 2005 at 1:25 amQuote: "That’s flatly false. The Clinton administration program, code-named Echelon, complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained."
Yeah much in the same way that only prisoners in Federal pens organising crime via mail are "targeted" by prison authorities.
They are able to be "targetted" in this way by reading everyone's mail and just picking out the ones that talk about crime.
This is exactly the same way echelon works. So everyones phone, email and faxes have always been subject to NSA surveilence. The difference with Bush is that instead of starting with everyone he started with those calling phone numbers linked to al Qaeda.
So this isn't flatly false. And quite frankly if you are silly enough to take a spooks word over a politician's rather than treating them both as untrustworth you are an idiot.
You are a bigger idiot for not researching the matter yourself rather than simply looking for the first quote which contradicted some wingnut like they were worth referring to in the first place.
Gullibility and fear got you into this mess. Don't opt for more just because it makes you feel better.
December 21st, 2005 at 6:20 amBTW the part in bold quoted there as supposedly showing the previous administration differed from this one...
"We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law."
...is actually going to be what the Bush administration will be quoting as why it's just as innocent as Clinton's was.
December 21st, 2005 at 6:27 amThe operative part being the definition it refers to. You might want to look that up.
Steve (164): Perhaps if you formulated your question in an intelligible manner, someone would respond to you. As best I can make it out, you want to know whether it's justified (and/or wise) to threaten the individual liberties of hundreds of millions of innocents just to catch a few "bad apples"...even assuming the threatening and harassing and disturbing of the hundreds of millions MIGHT not even help anyone catch the bad apples. Is that a reasonable formulation of the question?
Have you flown anywhere lately, Steve? If so, then you have found out that you are automatically suspect just by virtue of the fact of entering an airport, thanks to the Thousands Standing Around (a/k/a Transportation Security Agency), which is there to hassle every single passenger in the vain hope of catching the one-out-of-a-million potential hijacker who has not bothered to pay off someone in the aviation hierarchy to help him hijack an airplane by sneaking him thru on the sly. (Of course they WON'T catch anyone really determined, in a clearly highly-organized effort like the one which produced the events of 9/11, to wreak havoc -- just inconvenience and hassle MILLIONS of innocent travelers.)
And guess what: whoever made the decision to ram commercial jetliners into the WTC in full view of TV cameras KNEW that that's what it would take to make it even POSSIBLE to CONCEIVE of setting up the Stalinist-like apparatus that now appears in airports to hassle millions of travelers who have NO INTENTION of hijacking anything. (Something you may not have thought about, since you may not know any foreign tourists or travelers coming to visit the U.S. -- I do because I am in that sector -- but they are now all treated as criminals. They are fingerprinted and iris-scanned and given an id-card to carry when they enter the country. I have many friends of foreign nationality who say they will never come to the U.S. again because of this. It is the equivalent of the old Soviet Inturist, a secret-police security organization that, masquerading as "tour-guides", used to greet all foreign visitors to the USSR as they flew in and keep tabs on them.
Due to the power of technology and the spectacular damage that can be caused by its abuse, and also due to the fact that the mass media make their living in part by capitalizing on the morbid fascination with which the public greets the spectacular, graphic presentation of abuse of technology, society and the world are at the point where the average person seems to think that giving up his/her individual liberties is necessary in order to preserve "security". This is of course nonsense, and what Orwell foresaw -- for albeit a few decades too early. That's my answer to your question. We are heading inexorably towards an undeniably Orwellian world, IF we don't luck out and somehow come up with political leaders who both (a) have the brains to understand that this is where we're headed, and (b) actually WANT to prevent it instead of just profiting, themselves, from the tendency. I fervently hope that we do luck out, but my sense of the realities of human behavior make me very pessimistic, indeed -- unless an awful lot of folks WAKE UP pretty fast.
Like you, Steve, for example...can we somehow wake you up?
December 21st, 2005 at 7:18 am#164
I’m still waiting for someone to tell me where the balance is between say the 4th amendment, unreasonable search and seizures, compared to warrantless searches, or warrantless bugging when compared to stopping terrorism.
Steve, this is your problem. You think someone should bring you the smoking gun on a silver platter like the Queen of England, and then thank you for it. Don't be so egocentric and lazy. I already told you, it's in here multiple times. Get off your fat, lazy ass and so read. It doesn't require you to put doenthat box of doughnuts...
December 21st, 2005 at 8:43 am#173 Tank read your own post as if someone had written it to you.
December 21st, 2005 at 8:45 amPost 172 in nominated for the dumbest post listed to date. Congratulations!
December 21st, 2005 at 9:17 amDiscuss among yourselves...
December 21st, 2005 at 9:20 amhttp://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm
ClintonDidIt : The Echelon Myth
Those of us from Arkansas always knew Clinton was indeed a Wild Willey but not a stupid man. Bush on the other hand as was pointed out somewhere yesterday is not spupid either, just ignorant, meaning he knows very well what his obligations under the l...
December 21st, 2005 at 10:45 ambush said
December 21st, 2005 at 10:58 ambring it on
perhaps
he meant
pass it off.
Remember kids, people are dying in Iraq to protect your freedom... and the Administation is destroying your freedom in order to keep people from dying.
If you can wrap your head around that you can justify anything.
December 21st, 2005 at 12:22 pmSome Right-Wing sites are claiming that Carter and Clinton issued Executive Orders calling for warrantless spying. They quote the EO's, but conveniently omit the last phrase of each order (i.e., the caveat that certifications be obtained). Liars.
Carter EO 12139: Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order, but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.
Clinton EO 12949: Section 1. Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act, the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section.
December 21st, 2005 at 12:24 pmooooooops, I just realized that TP has posted the same as my 183 in another thread. Sorry about that.
December 21st, 2005 at 12:27 pm#182
Remember kids, people are dying in Iraq to protect your freedom
I get your post, but there are those who believe this. So I wanna make note that - No one is dying in Iraq to protect our freedoms. Iraq was not a threat to our freedoms. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. They are over there dying for OIL>
December 21st, 2005 at 1:34 pmThey are over there dying so american can have a foothold in the middle east
December 21st, 2005 at 1:46 pmamerica*
December 21st, 2005 at 1:47 pmUnbelievable (163): You said, "Go try to convert some starving people to vote for you in exchange for food. It works for the Evangelicals in third world countries, I’m sure it will work for the Neocons…" Or, about recruiting some starving people to run drugs or bust up elections or just generally be part of private armies in third-world countries?
December 21st, 2005 at 2:05 pmOops, that was "Or, HOW about..."? Haven't figured out how to edit typos in my posts, here, yet... :(
December 21st, 2005 at 2:08 pm#188
Yeah, that too... The megalomanicas aren't particularly choosy about which homocidal errands they'll send people on in exchange for food. Just like their benevolent Jesus said... :)
You can scroll up to edit your posts in the dialog box before you hit the black Post button. Afterwards, you're stuck with your typos for perpetuity as far as I can tell...
December 21st, 2005 at 2:19 pm#183 Alberto Gonzales has already said he approved what Bush did. How is that any different from the Carter and Clinton EOs?
December 21st, 2005 at 4:58 pm#191 It does not say the attorney general has to say it is ok, it says "if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section." If you would simply look at the certifications required in that section you would notice it states that it is not to be used on U.S. persons. Hmm, I guess THAT is why it is different. They did not target Americans.
December 21st, 2005 at 9:40 pm192; Are you saying Bush has targeted U.S. Citizens domestic calls and/or email to other U.S. Citizens that have no known ties to terrorist organizations? If yes, please elaborate with any verifiable evidence, i.e. not just a linking to some other left wing blog. Many would be very interested in seeing that, including CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox...
December 21st, 2005 at 9:57 pmDoes anyone really believe BushCo will lay down for an impeachment? You know, just sort of nod and go away -- not a chance.
My guesstament? Martial Law, Christians with guns, bloodshed in the South, rogue soldiers on both sides, political assinations (sp), open executive arrogance per removal -- Holy shit, what a mess it's gonna be.
Fun, too.
December 22nd, 2005 at 9:45 amYou all are consistantly paranoid, insulting, mean, and pathetic little people.
It's just sad.
The amount of frothing-at-the-mouth hatred you all generate could probably take care of the energy needs of the entire nation for at least a year.
You're so obsessed with hating Bush for activities that are common among ALL politicians that it's just laughable. You puff yourselves up with this ignorant, uneducated outrage because you are manipulated by the media and you believe what you are told to believe.
Go ahead, call me names, probably something along the lines of your other juvenile monikers you have for those in office (are you in elementary school or something?)--assume I'm some "right wing whacko" and continue to limit yourself.
There is more to politics than a two party system and what the media tells you to believe.
You want to believe you're not anything like those that agree with Bush--unfortunately you are EXACTLY like them. You aren't saying anything original, and what you do say isn't supported by facts at all. It's pure emotionalist opinion. What's funnier, is you even quote each other and perpetuate the BS because you so badly want to believe what you're parroting is actually factual. Not a single one of you stops to actually research everything you're swallowing without blinking an eye.
So stop with your superiority complexes. You are nothing different than anyone else.
December 22nd, 2005 at 11:25 am#192.
Read it again and think like a lawyer.
Or, read it for the first time since I doubt you actually ever did.
December 22nd, 2005 at 11:29 amThe right wing nut tactics are so droll and predictable. They obviously do not have a legal argument so they dust off President Clinton for the thousand's time. It would be just plain silly and laughable if so many people weren't gullible and started thinking for themselves and checking out facts!!
December 22nd, 2005 at 2:15 pmI am sick and tired of hearing these whiny neo-con hacks blame Clinton for everything that has gone wrong with this country since the "Supreme" court coup d'etat in 2000! Anyone who's read Richard Clarke's book (Against All Enemies)knows that the Clinton administration did more to combat terrorism in it's last couple of years than than the Bush junta has done in five! It requires an amazing suspension of disbelief to think that 9/11 was the result of a lack of attention by a Democratic president when a Republican president continually ignored dire and persistant warnings from not only people within the American intelligence community but the intelligence agencies of our allies! I believe this was done to set the stage for the PNAC blueprint for foreign policy. It is also equally maddening to think that after all the lies, corruption, death and destruction wrought by these self-appointed world emperors that in order to say the word "impeachment" without being labeled a leftist radical who hated America and being accused of giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy (what the hell does that mean, anyway? Were people who opposed this illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq inviting Al Qaeda operatives into their homes? Providing a base of operations for suicide bombers and other insurgents? Giving them home cooked meals before they went out and blew themselves and others to pieces?)I still can't wrap my head around the notion that lying about a blow job rises to the level of impeachable "high crimes and misdemeanors", and yet lying about WMD's, links to 9/11 and Al Qaeda and the whole "smoking gun/mushroom cloud" doomsday fabrication isn't a capital offense! Let's check the scoreboard, shall we? Lying about an intern on her knees and a stain on a blue dress. Number of American and foreign civilian deaths as a result: zero. Lies about stockpiles of chemical/biological and nuclear weapons, spectres of mushroom clouds, lies about links to terrorists responsible for the murder of 3000 innocent Americans. Lies about the use of torture and secret "black site" prisons and rendition of suspects to countries that openly used torture in interrogations. Lies about every aspect of the "Leave No Millionaire Behind" tax cuts and their entire domestic agenda. Blatant corruption of what seems to be most of the "pillars" of the Republican party, results: over 2100 dead American soldiers and countless Iraqi civilians. Hundreds of billions of dollars spent fighting a war that was one of choice and not necessity. Trillions of dollars of debt to our country that will have to be paid back by future generations of Americans. And now we have a president that openly admits that he authorized the illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens phones, allowed hacking of personal computers to snoop into other peoples e-mail, used the F.B.I. to track and harass anti-war protestors and to keep files on "political" enemies who weren't goose-stepping to the neo-con war drums (watch out you Quakers!!)Secretly and illegally obtained credit records and library records of citizens of this country (just ask the poor college student who requested a copy of Chairman Mao's "Little Red Book" and got a surprise visit from your friendly neighborhood G-Men to grill him on why he would want to read such subversive literature). What's next, public book burnings of published works the GOP finds offensive? In 1994 at the start of this so-called "Republican Revolution" and the "Contract With America",(Newt Gingrich's one and, fortunately for us, only attempt at stand-up comedy) they promised to restore honesty and integrity to Federal government. They promised smaller less intrusive and more fiscally responsible government. I would say that the American people now have a good case for breach of contract, wouldn't you? If Bush, Cheney, Frist, DeLay, Cunningham and a whole host of other leading lights of "compassionate conservatism" (Abramoff, Norquist, Safavian)are the examples honesty and integrity in the GOP, then crime really does pay. At the end of the day after all the lies this administration has foisted on the American people and all the corruption, graft, greed and incompetance that has come to light recently, if all we can hang our hopes on to finally get these pompous, arrogant criminals out of our government is illegal wiretapping, I, for one, will take it. After years of violence and bloodshed in Chicago under Al "Scarface" Capone the Feds finally brought him down over tax evasion of all things. Could there be symmetry and balance in an impeachment for failure to get a court order for a president, who like Capone, feels he's above the law?
December 22nd, 2005 at 3:00 pmThis week, a number of experts, including former Clinton Associate Attorney General John Schmidt (among others) have wieghed in to confirm that the Bush administration has not violated any law(s).
See http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0512210142dec21,1,2745637,print.story
But beyond that is the statement (above) that quoting former CIA Director George Tenet, made during Congressional testimony on April 12, 2000, which reads:
"We do not collect (signals intelligence) against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department."
Let's examine this quote in two parts. First, "We do not collect (signals intelligence) against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law."
Neither does the Bush administration. In fact, under Bush, U.S. surveillance can only be done if at least one of the parties involved in the communication is located outside the United States.
Second, and this is where I get to spank Bill like a bad little girl, Tenet says, "We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department."
It appears that during his congressional testimony Mr. Tenet had amnesia (not uncommon for members of the Clinton administration in such situations).
In 1993, before Tenet had moved to the CIA, and while still a member of the NSA, the United States came to suspect Aldrich Ames and his wife Maria of spying for the Soviet Union. Aldrich Ames was employed by the CIA. What happened next would curl the hair on the back of Bill Dennis's neck.
U.S. agents tapped the phone and computer lines coming out of the Ames' house. They installed hidden video cameras around every entrance and collected all the trash the Ameses threw away. Other agents trailed every move the couple made around Washington.
And they did all of this without a warrant.
Ames and his wife were arrested and charged with treason on February 22, 1994. U.S. surveillance and wiretapping began approximately a year earlier, in 1993.
Bill Clinton was president.
One full year of surveillance. Plenty of time to request and receive a warrant. No request made. No warrant(s) issued.
And so, for the second time in less than a week, Bill Dennis has egregiously misrepresented the facts with another headline (and post).
Look, it's your blog and you can write whatever you want to write here. But remember, people read your blog. So the integrity of what you write would be well served if you got it right.
December 22nd, 2005 at 5:42 pmWhy Ron Brown feared the NSA
December 22, 2005
By Jack Cashill
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
The late Ron Brown was not particularly paranoid. In fact, for most of his career, he conducted his business dealings cavalierly, smug in the knowledge that as a splendidly well-connected, all but immune to criticism from either the media or the law.
That began to change when he assumed his job as Bill Clinton's secretary of commerce in early 1993, and it changed absolutely when he ran afoul of the Clintons nearly three years later.
As Brown learned upon taking office, the Department of Commerce was home to the Office of Intelligence Liaison. This sub-department received intelligence reports from various agencies about pending international deals. It then discreetly forwarded this information to companies that might benefit. Among the best sources of intelligence was a global spy system, codename ECHELON, which was created by the National Security Agency, or NSA. This is the agency, of course, that congressional Democrats have scolded the Bush administration for employing to monitor potential terrorist communications.
ECHELON was capable of scrutinizing just about every fax, e-mail, phone call and telex message in the world. And like every other system during the Clinton years, especially the two desperate years preceding the election of 1996, it was fully capable of being abused.
As the Washington Times' Insight Magazine reported in a series of articles, the Clinton administration wasted no time in securing trade information from foreign rivals and then bartering that info back to high-level Democratic Party contributors competing for contracts. This activity reached a crescendo at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Seattle in 1993. There, according to classified records reviewed by Insight, American agents collected raw economic data on Asian businesses through a variety of sources: the FBI, the Customs Service, Naval Intelligence, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the NSC and especially the NSA.
The FBI was reported to have bugged more than 300 locations at the APEC summit. As many as 15,000 conversations were then bounced from satellites to the NSA in real time. At the time, no one was more aware of the NSA's capabilities than Ron Brown, who was the administration's point man for Asia and later, under duress, its "bag man." It is not at all impossible that the information gleaned at the summit warned him off a bribe he had been privately negotiating with the Communist government of Vietnam.
In May 1995, Janet Reno called for an independent counsel on another issue, namely to assess whether Brown had "accepted things of value" in exchange for his influence from his confidante and business partner, Nolanda Hill. In November of that same year, Janet Reno sent the request to court for the independent counsel to add Ron's beloved son, Michael Brown, to the case.
In late December 1995, after Michael had been officially but quietly targeted, Ron Brown turned serious. He was the one person in America capable of bringing down the Clinton administration, and the Clintons knew it. His knowledge of their Asian dealings, which had not yet erupted into scandal, was the only real leverage he had in pressuring them to subvert the independent counsel.
"I know the Clinton administration's NSA was eavesdropping and recording millions and millions of electronic communications on Americans," Hill tells me. "Ron wouldn't talk on any phone about really sensitive things with a bearing on the independent counsel investigation because he knew his calls and mine were monitored. Data transmission such as credit card transactions were also monitored and the information passed on to FBI."
In April 1996, Ron Brown solved his problems and the Clintons' by dying in a plane crash that the Air Force still writes off as "inexplicable." Before he died, he shared all his legal complications with Hill as a condition of her not seeking a separate deal with the independent counsel. The Clintons knew this. Although they let Michael Brown off with a slap on the wrist – he is running for mayor of Washington, D.C., as I write – they persecuted Hill for years to keep her quiet.
"I never talked to my lawyers on the phone," says Hill of this troubled period. "Always in person. I put a lot of miles on my autos going to Kentucky and Washington. And of course, I didn't use a cell phone for three years."
Although the story is too complicated to summarize here, congressional leaders who are concerned with the misuse of the NSA should begin their inquiry with Ron Brown's Commerce Department and follow the trail to Ron Brown's death.
"This 'eavesdropping' isn't a Bush administration phenomenon," says Hill, a lifelong Democrat. No, she and Brown knew much better than that.
December 22nd, 2005 at 6:10 pmVlinton Administration
Warrantless Searches of Public Housing
In the spring of 1994 the Chicago Public Housing Authority responded to gang violence by conducting warrantless "sweeps" of entire apartment buildings. Closets, desks, dressers, kitchen cabinets, and personal effects were examined regardless of whether the police had probable cause to suspect particular residents of any wrongdoing. Some apartments were searched when the residents were not home. Although such searches were supported by the Clinton administration, Federal District Judge Wayne Anderson declared the Chicago sweeps unconstitutional. [55] Judge Anderson found the government's claim of "exigent circumstances" to be exaggerated since all of the sweeps occurred days after the gang-related shootings. He also noted that even in emergency situations, housing officials needed probable cause in order to search specific apartments. Unlike many governmental officials who fear demagogic criticism for being "soft on crime," Judge Anderson stood up for the Fourth Amendment rights of the tenants, noting that he had "sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution" and that he would not "use the power of [his] office to override it, amend it or subvert it." [56]
The White House response was swift. President Clinton publicly ordered Attorney General Reno and HUD secretary Henry Cisneros to find a way to circumvent Judge Anderson's ruling. One month later the president announced a "constitutionally effective way" of searching public housing units. The Clinton administration would now ask tenants to sign lease provisions that would give government agents the power to search their homes without warrants. [57]
The Clinton plan was roundly criticized by lawyers and columnists for giving short shrift to the constitutional rights of the tenants. [58] A New York Times editorial observed that the president had "missed the point" of Judge Anderson's ruling. [59] Harvard law professors Charles Ogletree and Abbe Smith rightly condemned the Clinton proposal as an open invitation to the police to "tear up" the homes of poor people. [60]
Warrantless Drug Testing in Public Schools
The Clinton administration has defended warrantless drug testing programs in the public schools. In March 1995 the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether public school officials could drug test student athletes without a warrant or any articulable suspicion of illegal drug use. The Department of Justice sided with the school authorities, arguing that the privacy rights of individual students were outweighed by the interest of the school in deterring drug use by the student body generally. [61]
Solicitor General Days, arguing for the government, claimed that the school district "could not effectively educate its students unless it undertook suspicionless drug testing as part of a broader drug-prevention program." [62] Days maintained that the Fourth Amendment's requirement of individualized suspicion would "jeopardize" the school's drug program. Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter expressed skepticism about that claim and pointed out that if the Supreme Court followed the Justice Department's reasoning, America's public school students might well end up receiving less constitutional protection under the Fourth Amendment than do convicted criminals under correctional supervision. [63]
The Clinton administration supports warrantless drug tests in other contexts as well. Thus, when Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole said, during the 1996 campaign, that he would subject welfare recipients to warrantless, suspicionless drug tests, President Clinton quickly followed suit with his own approval of such an initiative. [64]
Warrantless Wiretapping
The Supreme Court has recognized that electronic surveillance, such as wiretapping and eavesdropping, impinges on the privacy rights of individuals and organizations and is therefore subject to the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause. [65] President Clinton, however, has asked Congress to pass legislation that would give the Federal Bureau of Investigation the power to use "roving wiretaps" without a court order. [66] The president also fought for sweeping legislation that is forcing the telephone industry to make its network more easily accessible to law enforcement wiretaps. Those initiatives have led ACLU officials to describe the Clinton White House as "the most wiretap-friendly administration in history." [67]
It is unclear why the president made warrantless roving wiretaps a priority matter since judges routinely approve wiretap applications by federal prosecutors. According to a 1995 report by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, it had been years since a federal district court turned down a prosecutor's request for a wiretap order. [68] President Clinton is apparently seeking to free his administration from any potential judicial interference with its wiretapping plans. There is a problem, of course, with the power that the president desires: it is precisely the sort of unchecked power that the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause was designed to curb. As the Supreme Court noted in Katz v. United States (1967), the judicial procedure of antecedent justification before a neutral magistrate is a "constitutional precondition," not only to the search of a home, but also to eavesdropping on private conversations within the home.
President Clinton also lobbied for and signed the Orwellian Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which is forcing every telephone company in America to retrofit its phone lines and networks so that they will be more accessible to police wiretaps. [70] The cost of that makeover is expected to be several billion dollars. Any communications carrier that fails to meet the technology standards of the attorney general can be fined up to $10,000 per day. The passage of that law prompted Attorney General Reno to marvel at her newly acquired power: "I don't think J. Edgar Hoover would contemplate what we can do today." [71] That is unfortunately true. In the past, law enforcement had to rely on the goodwill and voluntary cooperation of the American people for investigative assistance. That tradition is giving way to a regime of coercive mandates.
December 22nd, 2005 at 6:50 pmOops again -- this forum software is really lame, since (apparently) once you post something you can't edit it anymore. Can nothing be done???
In #205, in order to get accurately what I meant, you need to substitute "The reason for Clinton's and Bush's actions..." for "The reason for Bush's actions...", as I screwed up (Freudian typoslip?) in typing it.
December 23rd, 2005 at 8:35 amNice quote from Sen. Chuck Hagel (R, NE) who is positioning himself to become the leader of that part of the Repub. party that can't stand the trajectory the country has been on after five years of Bush and the neocons, with an eye to running for Prez in '08: "I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president". This on the heels of his equally stunning quote in Nov., "To question your government is not unpatriotic -- to not question your government is unpatriotic."
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:42 amI'm, er, lost...it appears at least one of my posts has disappeared and the remaining posts have been renumbered as if it never existed. What now appears to be post #202 WAS, ORIGINALLY, #206! (Note that in #202 I refer to #205, now how could that be? It's a mathematical impossibility!)
That post was an attempt to answer an implied question in MWS's now-#201: why presidents (Clinton & Bush) have recently tried to get around the courts for wiretaps when the courts routinely approve them. I offered a hypothesis in response to that question likening the attempt to weaken the Constitution by the neocon/evangelist bloc to the destruction of the Constitution in 1933 Weimar Republic Germany by the National Socialists (Nazis). But that entire post now seems to have DISAPPEARED!!! Wotzup with THAT?
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:24 pmYEEKS! Bizarre!!! Now when I just posted my previous post to this one, all the numbers reverted!!! I don't get it. :( But OH WELL, things seem to be back to "normal" -- for how long, who knows???
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:27 pmYou paranoid leftists resort to name-calling and insults once again. I don't know how I found this useless website, but what a sad message it sends. It must really be hard to live in a country whose President you hate so much.
December 23rd, 2005 at 1:56 pmYou paranoid leftists resort to name-calling and insults once again. I don’t know how I found this useless website, but what a sad message it sends. It must really be hard to live in a country whose President you hate so much.
Comment by Rush — December 23, 2005 @ 1:56 pm
Actually it's not as hard as being ignorant and blind - like you.
December 23rd, 2005 at 6:32 pmYour sight is still misleading in regard to FISA, although informative. Try adding this information to your sight concerning FISA and it's Clinton application. http://mediafilter.org/caq/Caq53.court.html
December 25th, 2005 at 7:49 amunbelievable: "It must really be hard to live in a country whose President you hate so much."
That's amusing coming from people who are still racking their brains, trying to think up ways to blame Clinton for everything going wrong on Bush's watch. And it's not so much that we hate the president, as we hate the dictator he's trying to be. It's not so much that we hate Bush as we revere the Constitution he's pissing on. If you were an American, so would you.
December 28th, 2005 at 1:41 amI notice that when defending demcrats there are specific facts but when accusing republicans this site turns to general accusations. Does that really make for constructive debate?
January 6th, 2006 at 2:42 pmDoes anyone have a link to the AP story about Tenet's testimony, or a link to a congressional archive containing the testimony?
January 12th, 2006 at 4:13 pmNeed some wood?
Small problem with your argument: ECHELON wasn’t a “targeted†system. It was a “filtering†system. So the denial they “targeted†people is meaningless; it only means they obtained a warrant before using standard wiretaps after receiving the initial information about those parties from the ECHELON filtering system, which was itself a warrantless search. And ECHELON wasn’t directed at Al Qaeda suspects; it spied on everyone, including every American alive, without a warrant.
Also, when the Clinton admin faced an actual threat, they felt free to ignore the 4th Amendment. The search of Aldrich Ames’ residence was carried out without a warrant.
January 17th, 2006 at 10:02 amMeanwhile, big Dem donors were being sold the ECHELON information, a blatantly illegal partisan abuse of the system. Nothing like that has even been alleged re Bush.
So your howls of outrage ring a bit hollow. Might even say it's a bad strategery.
January 17th, 2006 at 10:04 am'shooter'cheney will win the wars for our tax dollars so pay up y'all. side of barn for dinner anyone?cheney wil provide..
February 14th, 2006 at 7:24 pmWow. You people are amazing. Think you could take off your "I HATE BUSH" glasses for just a second? This is NOT the full story. FISA is NOT the only factor in the legality of this issue.
So Echelon wiretapping has always obtained a warrant. Outstanding. So we have clarified only wiretapping without a warrant is in question here, right? Good. Now we can shift the discussion from the actual wiretapping to the warrant issue.
Like it or not, President Bush made these wiretaps without warrants possible with an executive order. Now is THAT legal? I'll get to that, but first... HONEST questioning (not seeing much of that here) would lead you look into Executive Orders. What are they? What is the historic president of Executive Orders? Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order. Eisenhower's desegregation of public schools was one too. So was Clinton's Kosovo War. Many good things have come from executive orders.
Can executive orders be abused? Absolutely. And if an executive order IS abused, congress can change it. The Supreme Court can rule it unconstitutional. The next president can change it or get rid of it entirely. But none of these things are happening right now. Why? Because this wiretapping of terrorists is NOT the issue liberals are attempting to make it!!!
You can debate wiretaps, their illegality, their unconstitutionality, executive orders, and the War Powers Resolution all you want, but Bush is NOT doing anything illegal... at all. He is trying to protect our nation, not spy on political opponents like presidents past. I wish you people could be a bit more intellectually honest about this issue... and all others.
February 15th, 2006 at 12:52 pmjust the facts:
In 1994, President Clinton Expanded The Use Of Warrantless Searches To Entirely Domestic Situations With No Foreign Intelligence Value Whatsoever. In A Radio Address Promoting A Crime- Fighting Bill, Mr. Clinton Discussed A New Policy To Conduct Warrantless Searches In Highly Violent Public Housing Projects." (Charles Hurt, "'Warrantless' Searches Not Unprecedented," The Washington Times, 12/22/05)
"One Of The Most Famous Examples Of Warrantless Searches In Recent Years Was The Investigation Of CIA Official Aldrich H. Ames, Who Ultimately Pleaded Guilty To Spying For The Former Soviet Union. That Case Was Largely Built Upon Secret Searches Of Ames' Home And Office In 1993, Conducted Without Federal Warrants." (Charles Hurt, "'Warrantless' Searches Not Unprecedented," The Washington Times, 12/22/05)
President Bill Clinton: "(T)he Attorney General Is Authorized To Approve Physical Searches, Without A Court Order, To Acquire Foreign Intelligence Information For Periods Of Up To One Year ..." (President Bill Clinton, Executive Order 12949, "Foreign Intelligence Physical Searches," 2/9/95)
February 19th, 2006 at 4:00 pm[...] this nation for political gain. This guy is just unbelievable. (hat tip to SusanG of DailyKos) Permalink| [...]
March 3rd, 2006 at 1:44 amI have to get opinions from both sides of the argument for a paper tomorrow [8th grade Amr. Gov.] and I cannot find anything 'deeper' than bumper sticker slogans and my familiar middle school mindsets.
April 4th, 2006 at 11:02 pmoof.
For all those Left-wingers out there that think that President Bush is spying on you,
May 9th, 2006 at 1:58 pmDo you really think that your lives are that interesting that the President of the United States would put a wiretap on your pathetic butts. You need to stop smoking the weed and move on to another conspiracy; "black ops helocopters, Crop circles, etc..." The President has Terrorists to catch, not dope heads!
I am amazed at the depth of the left's paranoia! So, we're never supposed to bring up the past when it comes to pointing out something that Golden Boy Clinton did but, the left can bring up Ronald Reagan when it suits them or Richard Nixon or any number of past Republicans. In addition, the name-calling and "clever" euphemisms the left comes up with in an attempt to minimize the arguments of anyone whose ideas differ from their own are quite sophomoric and juvenile. Come on! I've come to the conclusion that a large percentage of the left are frustrated children who have but a minimal understanding of how the world actually works. Go back to your Cheech & Chong albums kids! Load up the bong and chill out!
May 12th, 2006 at 1:24 pmFor those buying into Tenet's double-speak, allow me to point out a couple things. Here's the gist of Tenet's self-serving swill:
"We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department."
First, Clinton employed the intel services of OTHER signatories (Great Britain, Australia, etc.) to actually perform the signals intercepts on U.S. persons. Tenet is tap-dancing, as usual. NSA had no need to "target their conversations for collection in the United States" because intel services of other nations performed the ongoing eavesdropping. Tenet's parsing obscures the fact that ECHELON performed the initial data filtering, including the content of conversations, and identified the target to the intel services of other nations. In this way Clinton was able to avoid FISA except in those limited cases where he needed to cover his ass. This "end run" around FISA was precisely the reason ECHELON was leaked by Australian and New Zealand intel, and was precisely the reason ECHELON was so slimy.
Second, Europeans were understandably pissed that NSA was used for economic espionage, providing American corps with details on economic strategy, bidding tactics and proprietary information without which they could not have successfully competed against their European counterparts.
Third, it was revealed that ECHELON's economic espionage was, to a significant degree, shared primarily with corporate donors to Clinton and/or the DNC. Even a cursory examination of the testimony reveals the entities and individuals benefitting most from ECHELON were, for the most part, Clinton cronies.
So........if you guys can quote Tenet (TENET, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE !!) then I can provide Clinton CIA director Woolsey as a counterpoint:
---------------------------- START ------------------------------------------------------
In 2000, former Clinton CIA director James Woolsey set off a firestorm of protest in Europe when he told the French newspaper Le Figaro that he was ordered by Clinton in 1993 to transform Echelon into a tool for gathering economic intelligence.
"We have a triple and limited objective," the former intelligence chief told the French paper. "To look out for companies which are breaking US or UN sanctions; to trace 'dual' technologies, i.e., for civil and military use, and to track corruption in international business...
...In his comments to Le Figaro, Woolsey defended the program, declaring flatly: "Spying on Europe is justified."
"I can tell you that five years ago, several European countries were giving substantial bribes to export business more easily. I hope that's no longer the case."
During hearings in 2000 on the surveillance flap, Woolsey told Congress that in 1993 alone, U.S. firms obtained contracts worth $6.5 billion with the help of timely intelligence information...."
-------------------------------- END -----------------------------------------------------
As described, Bush's NSA data mining process does not intercept ANYTHING. It does not wiretap ANYTHING. The content of communications ARE NOT CAPTURED, RECORDED, or (insert whatever word you wish). The identity and address of caller/callee ARE UNKNOWN.
NSA's current data mining program is to ECHELON what a virgin is to a pro. Stop embracing your Inner Loon and put the Bush Derangement Syndrome on hold for a sec. Puh-leeze.
May 14th, 2006 at 3:59 pmA clouds eye view.
July 7th, 2006 at 2:51 pmThere is more than one war going on.
The military battles that fester from time to time are but manifistations of the overall battle.
The masses against the individual.
There has not been a leader in Washington, or anywhere else in the modern era, that truely believed in the individuals right to exist for their own greater good. We are all born with the ability and responsibility to think for ourselves, to create concepts and designs from our own energy levels and personal motivations.
Tragically, the very compassion mechanism of the self has been poluted with the false concept of guilt and has had a brake applied in order to slow the realization of dramatic individual capabilites and developments. (sorry, run on sentence)
We are made to feel guilty for realizing our true talented abilities. When others choose to go hungry. This is of course the basic lie of Marxism.
Whether it is socialists (leftest Democrats) or power hungry elitists (all governing parties) the ability to harness the production for power is the antithesis of the individual.
Whether you belief in a "higher being" or in evolutionary Darwinism, human beings are species that create thought alone. We choose to work in communities if the need arises, but we create basic thought alone. We deal with our maker as individuals.
Why is all this opinion revelant to the thread, because man made guilt is the catalyst to the deluded befief that the group is more important than the individual. Social marxism is a cancer to the concept of the individual, the individuals creativity and thus to the true human spirit. Government's (the People) limitations of individual existence "for the betterment of the group" is wrong when practiced by what ever group.
The Democratic Party is the group currently bearing the banner of "equality" and socialism.
I do not live for you people. Granted, W. has expanded the People, but he did not create the concept. It was fortifified by every Democrat (and some of Republican) regime since 1913.
[...] However, when the spy network ECHELON (which fell under the FISA restrictions, unlike the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance programs) was divulged in 1999, right-wingers were outraged — but not at the journalists — rather, at President Clinton (and those damn Clintonoids/Clintonites/Clintonistas/Clintoncommunazifascists that lurk in the shadows) instead. [...]
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:40 amExcuse me, but all you dumb liberals do realize that "Echelon Myth" is not "flately fasle". Clintons Echelon did tap calls without a warent. You libs that say stuff like the one who posted the first comment, "I knew it. I heard these talking points yesterday on hate radio and figured the truth had to be something else," should just be thankful you have liberals like this "Judd" who wrote this who can so openly lie without feeling any guilt from doing so, so pathetic libs like yourself wont have to face the truth. You see, the diference between president Clintons and President Bush's NSA program is that Bush's program only taps calls to and from known terrorists, not US citizens like under Clintons. It is really quite sad and pathetc to see you libs think that if you just keep chanting "Bush is spying on us", "We are not safer!" "This is Bushs war, There is no threat!" over your media loudspeaker you think it will just magically come true. But truthfully, i hope you keep doing just that, because it'll keep us "repugs" winning elections because the American public isn't that stupid. So keep on moping about how "The eLecTion WaS StOlEn fRom US!", because your going to loose in 08 too, so dont get your hopes up...
August 18th, 2006 at 11:37 pmThe comment posted by Matt Johnson reflects Repugs do. Listen to Rush Limbaugh all day and say that ALL Democrats are liars. Of course, there are NO republican liars! Right?
October 11th, 2006 at 3:16 am