“On the night of November 6, 1963, 17-year-old Laura Welch (Bush) ran a stop
sign in the family Chevy at the intersection of State Highway 349 and Farm
Road 868 near Midland, Texas. She plowed into a Corvair sedan, killing its
driver — classmate (and purported boyfriend) Michael Dutton Douglas.”

Judd

For goodness sakes Judd, you’ve stooped to quoting Arlen Specter. “Meaningful congressional oversight”? I guess that means the congressional oversight that IS happening is “meaningless”, right? Why should that bother you any more than the other meaningless things they do? Hummm?

They called directly to their leader in Saudi Arabia. That is an International call and could be wiretapped legally. You are a moron.

Comment by Spudge_Boy

Mighty Hypocrite,
It has already been noted here before that a call from one of the hijackers mentioning the “day of glory tomorrow” or something along those lines was intercepted on Sept. 10, but not translated into English until after 9/11. Of course, the Bush administration has learned nothing from this experience (or simply doesn’t care), and the various US intelligence agencies are still woefully lacking in competent translators/interpreters of Arabic and other languages spoken in Muslim countries 4 1/2 years after 9/11. In other words, the same thing could very well happen again. So much for the Busheviks protecting the USA!

I love this site, but I disagree with this statement. I do object to “doing whatever it takes to defeat” The Base. We don’t have to break laws, and we don’t have to kill people.

“States are not moral agents.” – Chomsky

Butcher? Whachu talkin’ bout Willis?
Go yank someone else’s chain,barfly.
…
”Biscayne Bay
Where the Cuban gentlemen sleep all day.”
…

Uhmmm, when you work for a “secret spy agency” and they suspect that you’re leaking classified information to the press … you do so at your own peril. But … if you want to be more concerned about her phone privacy, be my guest. There must be a balance between level of security and appropriate disclosure of illegalities … there are proper channels … she ignored them. The whole idea that “my opinion” is the proper level of substantiation for bringing an agency secret to the outside world is beyond ridiculous …

And this whole business of comparing Bush to Hitler or calling our government a regime … grow up, people. It is beyond belittling to make such comparisons, for people are still alive who actually suffered/suffer under a dictatorial regime … I understand that people like to belong to a group, but let’s try and make such a group grounded in reality … Yes, you don’t like Bush or what he stands for. No, he’s not Hitler (or even remotely close). No, the country isn’tt falling to pieces (we’ve been through far, far worse). Maybe “your guy” will win next tiime … if he/she does, crises averted … if he/she doesn’t, you’re in the minority (again) so suck it up.

MA is simply living in backwash land and does not think outside the borders.

I do have one question: some progs have been screechingin the last couple of days about “domestic number patterns being monitored”. Do you think any of the 19 barbarian hijackers routed their call through Pakistan or Osama – or did they just call directly from the East Coast to San Diego?

They called directly to their leader in Saudi Arabia. That is an International call and could be wiretapped legally. You are a moron.

Call logs are not the issue, “traitors” are not the issue, a police-state IS THE ISSUE!

Months before the USA TODAY article, a class-action lawsuit was filed against AT&T –

Klein’s job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.

Comment by GURU^ — May 15, 2006 @ 12:41 pm

“So, what kind of guru ARE you? Don’t you know you could make more money as a butcher?”

Transcript from exchange between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Stephen Hadley (from Crooksandliars.com)

BLITZER: Can you say that over the past nearly five years, this program of collecting all these phone calls, the records, has resulted in thwarting one terrorist attack against the United States?

HADLEY: Again, I cannot confirm or deny the claims in the “USA Today” story. But what I can say is that the intelligence activities we have conducted against al Qaeda lawfully briefed to the Congress, narrowly focused on the war on terror, has prevented attacks and saved lives.

BLITZER: There have been specific attacks that were in the working stages that, as a result of this data mining, whatever it’s called, you managed to stop that attack? Is that what you’re saying?

HADLEY: I said as a result of intelligence activities undertaken by the United States.

BLITZER: I know, but I’m talking about the collection of the phone numbers. Does that specific program resulted in thwarting a terrorist act?

HADLEY: And as I said to you, I cannot confirm or deny the claims of that story. What I can tell you is the intelligence activities protected and saved lives and protected America, and the president has cited in some of his speeches incidents when that has occurred.

Nothing on how successful the collecting of tens of millions of our phone records has been in fighting terrorism and undermining our civil liberties. Don’t you find that peculiar?