Bush opens up wiretapping docs to House.
By on Jan 24th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Bush opens up wiretapping docs to House.
Ending “months of resistance,” President bush today “agreed to give House members access to secret documents about its warrantless wiretapping program” in an effort to provide immunity to telecoms:
The documents include the president’s authorization of warrantless wiretapping, Justice Department legal opinions going back to 2001, and the requests sent to the telecommunications companies asking for their assistance, said the official, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.
Reps. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) and Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) requested the documents in May, “saying they would not support telecom immunity without them.”
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Months of resistance? Try months of running the bank of paper shredders.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:52 pmPages of blacked-out text will prove their case.
/snark
January 24th, 2008 at 2:53 pmDoes anyone believe that bushco will actually produce the documents?This is just a ploy to get reid to give in on telecom imunity. After the fISA bill passes bush will renige saying since the telecoms have imunnity there is no reason to look at the docs. This hand has been played so many times.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:53 pmGreat, now the Democrats will say Bush was finally nice to us, so we’ll pat him on the back too. Telecom Immunity here we come. What next? Senator Dodd will be censured?
January 24th, 2008 at 2:54 pmIf this doesn’t work, telecoms will resort to the “It looks as if consumers will have to pay more” sob story.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:55 pmReps. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) and Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) requested the documents in May, “saying they would not support telecom immunity without them.â€
Well, I hope they don’t vote for immunity even with them. Not after the testimony by the AT&T Technician who said that they started wiretapping Americans shortly after Bush took office, at the behest of the Bush Administration. If they do give immunity, it should state “immunity from prosecution for any assistance they gave to the Bush Administration AFTER 911″. There is no excuse for the telcoms cooperating with Bush before 911.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:55 pmDoes anyone remember how Sen Roberts was going to investigate the bush whitehouse’s role in 9-11, after the election to insure that there was no politicalization of the process? After the 04 election Roberts decided to cancel the investigation because there was no reason to investigate since the election had already happened. This is the same game.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:56 pmTook them seven months to produce the documents, so the committee should get around to approving telecom immunity in, say, seven years…
January 24th, 2008 at 2:56 pmQuick, invest in whiteout duct tape manufacturers…!
January 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pmDoes anyone believe that bushco will actually produce the documents?This is just a ploy to get reid to give in on telecom imunity.
Reid doesn’t need anything from Bush to give the telcoms immunity. He has already decided in that direction. Otherwise he would not have introduced the bill with immunity in the first place. There are two bills before the senate, one with immunity and one without. Reid chose to advance the bill with immunity. In my opinion, that makes him unfit for office and he should be kicked to the curb.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:58 pmOk, you have what they say are the documents.
Now you also have proof positive that they have broken the law with these documents.
So can you please impeach the War Criminal now?
Oh, not enough time and way too much trouble, ok, well just thought I would ask.
Bush/Cheney
Hague Trials ‘09
Buck Fush
January 24th, 2008 at 2:58 pmAnyone voting for immunity will be fired/voted out/ toast.
Bastard Blue-dogs, this means you. Dem party, your spinelessness makes me sick; pwned by the Telecoms and trying to bend over for a war criminal. Update that resume. Your lobbyist buddies will be scouting your next gig and will need a copy after you get dumped. Fire Pelosi and Reid and get the country back on track.
Update that resume. Your lobbyist buddies will be scouting your next gig and will need a copy.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:59 pmIf the congress persons are so retarded as to think they are getting the real documents, it will be another sad day. It is hard to look more offensive than the folks that you are supposed to oversee.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:03 pmIs there any duct tape on these documents? Or was the EPA hogging it all?
January 24th, 2008 at 3:05 pmDoesn’t matter - all the incriminating bits have been redacted. Besides, the Dems would have rolled over and caved regardless of the content.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:11 pmI think the real surprise is that it took the current regime this long to destroy/hide/alter the documents to reflect the party line…..
January 24th, 2008 at 3:11 pmNothing like an avalanche of plungerspam to shut a thread down.
May I suggest a marketing class, so you’d learn how to effectively deliver a message to an audience?
January 24th, 2008 at 3:34 pmThere are countless lurkers coming to TP specifically for (the extensive) plunger posts.
Comment by sjc001 — January 24, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
And your evidence for this is…?
January 24th, 2008 at 3:59 pmSome prefer the details and not just synopsis. If it is too much for you, simply skip over them. There are countless lurkers coming to TP specifically for (the extensive) plunger posts.
Comment by sjc001 — January 24, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
Really? If they’re lurkers, how do you know they’re countless? Or any at all?
If plunger really has a huge audience like that, why not help him start his own blog where they could all hang out reading his commentary?
You can get a blog up and running in less than an hour.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:00 pmThe documents include the president’s authorization of warrantless wiretapping, Justice Department legal opinions going back to 2001, and the requests sent to the telecommunications companies asking for their assistance, said the official, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.
Well, that effectively moots the faux argument that the telcos couldn’t “defend” themselves because they were not allowed to talk about what they did or didn’t do….
Cheers,
January 24th, 2008 at 4:01 pmThe whole point of getting the documents was to look to see whether telecom immunity was deserved and whether the surveillances were justified and could stand up to some “necessity” type argument.
We need to see the documentation on what was done, and what was accomplished, before deciding if the warrantless wiretapping was justified … and can be justified as a “necessary” exigency … in the future.
Cheers,
January 24th, 2008 at 4:05 pmsorry, I’m all PLUNGERED out, I agree with most of what he says but this is to much…
January 24th, 2008 at 4:17 pm#17 plunger:
Israeli Company Provides U.S. Wiretaps
One company reported to be under investigation is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm. Comverse provides almost all the wiretapping equipment and software for U.S. law enforcement.
Sorry, this isn’t true. Most switch manufacturers do their own in-house implementation of the actual targeting and tapping capability. Control of the wiretaps is done by an “administrative function” administered by the service provider (or service bureau). This equipment may be provided by either the switch manufacturers or third-party vendors such as Comverse (and others).
Cheers,
January 24th, 2008 at 4:22 pmI believe this is again, just for show.
The Dems are in on this from the get-go.
Next it will be:
“Listen-up citizens . . Your highly respected President has given us some documents and in return we’re going to grant immunity.”
The actual documents don’t even have to change hands.
All we get is what they say they’ve done, not necessarily what they have actually done.
All b.s. I tell ya.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:28 pmsjc001, if you’ve read my previous plunger related posts, I do have lots of respect for his research, but in his zeal to spread the word, he doesn’t seem to realize that many of us have read the same 42, 000 words at least twenty times. He needs a better marketing strategy if he wants to be an effective communicator. That’s the point I was trying to make.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:03 pmGuess Rayes and Hoekstra didn’t say which “May”?? WTF?? After 8 months of expunging and sanitizing, nothing the prez provides now will be the “real deal”. Fuggitaboutit!
January 24th, 2008 at 6:02 pmWhat we’re sadly discovering is that the ENTIRE government, including Congress, is “in on it” - the screwjob to the people. That’s why Reid and Pelosi lied to us and made promises they had no intention of keeping. They’re all “in on it”.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:04 pmZuch: Cite your sources for debunking, please or skedaddle. Why should anyone believe you when you use loose generalities and zilch links?? Methinks you’re just a “debunking troll”.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:06 pmZuch: You’re obviously not familiar with constitutional law and the laws of the united states. They clearly read that there is absolutely no provision of immunity when asked to break an existing law; unlike a presidential “pardon” (I.e. Libby), a sitting president cannot make a promise of no retribution for asking you to break the law. That’s why it’s law.
Secondly, there would be absolutely no reason whatsoever for a wiretap to begin which is not on record as either being “pre or post warrant”. The pres has the right to begin a wiretap without warrant but within 72 hours must present it to FISA and secure the document.
Thirdly, this massive national wiretapping of american citizens, which Bush overtly denied repeatedly in news conferences (remember that lie???) is patently and totally ILLEGAL. Bush screwed up, got telecoms to collude with him on the promise of illegitimate immunity, and now is covering his own ass. That’s the nut of the rest of his presidency: CYA all the way and kick anyone in the way to the curb. After all, it may mean prison time.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:10 pmNixon wiretaped one building, folks and we pitched his sorry ass out of the white house - how can we continue to allow this massive degree of criminal activity to continue? How many lies will we tolerate from this charlatan? One lie and he should have been history long ago. Where are our balls, country?
January 24th, 2008 at 6:12 pmAs for the telecoms who “aided and abetted” this illegal activity with some faux promise of immunity, I say, TS - bad decision/ horrendous judgment. They’ve violated our right to privacy and should now be punished accordingly. If they have to fold up their tents, so be it. Errors in judgment and the ship sinks.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:13 pm#37 Veritas:
Zuch: Cite your sources for debunking, please or skedaddle.
I know quite a bit about the business, you might say. Plunger thinks the “Jewish” Comverse is some big evil. Not so, although they may well be Mossad-connected. They’re not the exclusive players for CALEA equiment; check out the likes of Verint and SS8 (and the recently mentioned Narus). Not to mention, Nortel and Alcatel/Lucent build CALEA tap capability (the “acquisition function” or “AF”) right into their switches, and Ericsson wants to do the whole shebang (AF, DF, etc.) themselves. Similarly for Nokia and Siemens, the “AF” is in their switches (and that’s kind of how it has to be; getting at the wiretap information w/o access to the guts of the switch is difficult both technically and logistically). For IP snoops, Cisco does their own internal “taps” (although it can be controlled over a network connection through the Cisco SII functionality by a “MF”/”DF”).
It’s simply not true that Comverse has things wrapped up.
As for RSA encryptation, the algorithms are basically “shareware” by now (and used, for instance, in PGP open-source product). Anyone can look at the algorithms as see if there’s some secret “trap-door” that that nefarious Jew Adi Shamir might have snuck in, that siphons off all the information to the Mossad.
Now, that’s not to say that Israel (and the Mossad) haven’t tried to penetrate whatever security they could (and I’m pretty sure that both the U.S. and Russia would do and have done the same), or put in trap-doors or trojans into things.
If you read the web, you’ll see claims (which I personally think preposterous) that the NSA or CIA managed to pass Intel 8085 mask sets to the Russians /w some supposed back-door or “time-bomb” inserted which supposedly caused the Russians to use these mask sets, put these processors into pipeline equipment on the trans-Siberian pipeline, and cause these chips to go bonkers and cause a pressure surge that caused the pipeline to rupture … causing the crash of the Soviet economy, the subsequent fall of the Berlin Wall, Gorby to invent the word “perestroika”, and Britney Spears to forgo underpants. All nonsense, of course, and no serious engineer would believe this preposterous scheme for a second.
Intelligence agencies aren’t super-human. See, e.g. the failure to decode the phone call warning of 9/11. See, e.g., just the plain ol’ intelligence snafus of 9/11 and the Iraq War (and believe me, the Mossad did no better than we did for the most part).
The Mossad is pretty good as they go, but I think it wrong to piss your pants about them …. and even more wrong to get into stuff verging on outright anti-Semitism here. I don’t like the policies of Likud, and I don’t like the policies of Israel over the decades very much. I think that the U.S. should have given the Jews a “homeland” after WWII; could have given them ten times as much easily, and much better land, more water, better climate, etc.
That being said, Plunger is going a bit off the rails here.
Cheers,
January 24th, 2008 at 7:07 pm#38 Veritas:
Zuch: You’re obviously not familiar with constitutional law and the laws of the united states. They clearly read that there is absolutely no provision of immunity when asked to break an existing law; unlike a presidential “pardon†(I.e. Libby), a sitting president cannot make a promise of no retribution for asking you to break the law. That’s why it’s law.
Not sure where you’re coming form here. AAMOF, I happen to know quite a bit about both Constitutional law and wiretapping law (you can trace my link to find out who I am and look around a bit if you disagree).
I don’t think I said anything like what you’re claiming I said here. Matter of fact, I agree with you that there should be no “immunity” and that someone who broke the law ought to take responsibility for such. Sadly enough, from a legal perspective, Congress can pass a law retroactively decriminalising certain behaviour (but not the opposite, there’s where the ex post facto prohibition comes in). I don’t think that is a good idea, but the “necessity” of the criminal behavious may influence whether Congress deigns to do so. I’d note also that the real “good faith” provision in the telecom law (that says that if the AG certified it OK, the telecom is immune) which would make the telecoms not liable was and is already in effect; all the gummint had to do was have the AG do this, and NP for the phone companies. Thus there was always a “good faith” immunity. But let’s find out … umm, let’s say, why they didn’t get the AG on board…. And the telco lawyers (who damn well know that warrants are needed) should have said “waiddaminnit” when the gummint came knocking. To claim they’re ignorant of the law beggars belief. I don’t think a “good faith” argument can be made, and the same with a “necessity” defence; if it can, put the facts on the table in open court rather than having liars lobbying Senators than haven’t a clue except for the amount of the check. Here’s my take on “necessity”, BTW.
Simply put, Veritas, I’m on your side. But I want to keep the argument honest and stick to facts as well.
Cheers,
January 24th, 2008 at 7:28 pmJeebus, BushCo is like a petulant, snotnosed, insufferable child. Gotta drag ‘em by the ear just to get ‘em to act with a shread of decency, forget about adhering to the law, let alone refraining from defecating on the Constitution. They listened to Nancy Reagan say “Just say no,” then they chanted that refrain, then they giddily injected it into their veins, then they deified it, then they tattooed it on their chests with a branding iron, then they disemboweled their first born children on a bloody altar emblazoned with “JUST SAY NO!” across its cold, dead stones.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:18 am.
SINCE WHEN IS WARRANTLESS… LEGAL?
Congress votes to usurp the Rights that provide the People of America their “SECURITY†from Tyranny. Congress “claims†to be usurping the People of America for “National Security†ergo, Congress fails to faithfully support and defend the Constitution of the USA and instead moves toward TYRANNY. I guess the People of the USA aren’t a National interest to Congress.
T R E A S O N!
WHAT DOES CONGRESS SUPPORT AND DEFEND IF NOT THE CONSTITUTION OF THE USA?
.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:12 am