“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.

“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)

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.

So your howls of outrage ring a bit hollow. Might even say it’s a bad strategery.

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.

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.

Comment by Rush — December 23, 2005 @ 1:56 pm

Actually it’s not as hard as being ignorant and blind – like you.