America... Spying on Americans

Specter wants hearings
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid disputed Bush's contention that members of Congress had been informed.

Reid was one of several lawmakers of both parties who have backed a planned hearing on the issue by Specter, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Congress has not been involved in setting up this program. This is totally a program of the president and the vice president of the United States," Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said on Fox. He said he was briefed on it only a few months ago, long after the program was reported to have been started.

Specter said he wanted to know what legal authority the White House had used. "Let's not jump to too many conclusions. Let's look at it analytically. Let's have oversight hearings. And let's find out exactly what went on," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina echoed the call for an investigation and said he knew of no legal basis for the White House to circumvent existing laws. "It is about winning the war, adhering to the values that we're fighting for. And you can't set those values aside in the name of expediency," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Just wondering here, but since both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (among others) were briefed on this months ago, why do you suppose they remained silent - but are oh so aghast at these findings now?

Btw: my brother is currently serving in Iraq, after spending a tour in Afghanistan in 2002, so try another ploy. McCarthyism doesn't suit you.

woiyo wrote:

2. Now, potential communications can not be intercepted and we could be at greater risk.

Any terrorist who doesn't communicate through strongly encrypted channels these days isn't worth intercepting anyway. The probability behind your words "potential" and "could" is trivial.

Are you suggesting the NSA can't interecept "strongly encrypted channels"?

woiyo wrote:

Once again, THANK YOU NY TIMES for providing aid and comfort to the enemy. We can alway count on the NY TIMES to do the enemy's work.

Since we're at it: Thank you, New York Times, for providing useful information to the public. We can always count on the New York Times to reveal crimes by government instead of shilling for the criminals in office.

Ticomaya wrote:

Are you suggesting the NSA can't interecept "strongly encrypted channels"?

They can intercept them, but they can't make sense of them -- if they could, the encryption wouldn't be very strong.

McCain: Bush Right to Use NSA


Sen. John McCain disappointed Democrats on Capitol Hill on Sunday by defending the Bush administration's decision to use the National Security Agency to monitor a limited number of domestic phone calls in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Saying that Sept. 11 "changed everything," McCain told ABC's "This Week": "The president, I think, has the right to do this."

"We all know that since Sept. 11 we have new challenges with enemies that exist within the United States of America - so the equation has changed."

McCain said that while the administration needs to explain why it didn't first seek approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, he suggested that the Patriot Act might have superseded the 1978 FISA Act, allowing "additional powers for the president."

McCain said the fact that congressional leaders - including top Democrats - were consulted on the NSA authorization "is a very important part of this equation." He suggested that any congressional hearings into the Bush decision focus on that aspect. "I'd like to hear from the leaders of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, who, according to reports, we're briefed on this and agreed to it," he told "This Week." "They didn't raise any objection, apparently, to [whether] there was a, quote, violation of law."

Asked about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's claim that she "raised concerns" about granting the NSA new powers during one meeting with White House officials, McCain said: "I don't know about any meetings, but I certainly never heard complaints from anyone on either side of the aisle.

"When this process was being carried out I would imagine that the leaders of Congress would be very concerned about any violation of law as well," he said. "Apparently [those concerns have] not been raised until it was published in the New York Times."

McCain also warned that any congressional investigation should take care not to force additional disclosures from the White House that could help the enemy, saying: "I don't see anything wrong with congressional hearings but what kind of information are you going to put into the public arena that might help the al Qaida people in going undetected."

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said, "I take him (Bush) at his word" that the order was critical to saving lives and consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution."

"The president, I think, has the right to do this, and yet, I don't know why he didn't go" through court procedures, McCain told ABC's "This Week."

Yes, woiyo, I'm sure.

kuv wrote:

Btw: my brother is currently serving in Iraq, after spending a tour in Afghanistan in 2002, so try another ploy. McCarthyism doesn't suit you.

What does the fact that your brother is a military man have to do with you, or any point Asherman was making?

They are not uniformed, and incite childern to murder others by blowing themselves up. They prey on the weak. They may hate the USMC, but they almost certainly respect them more than Americans who are willing to support them at the expense of their own govenment.

Ticomaya wrote:

Are you suggesting the NSA can't interecept "strongly encrypted channels"?

They can intercept them, but they can't make sense of them -- if they could, the encryption wouldn't be very strong.

Notice that this is not strictly a partisan issue. Arlen Specter, who must have been briefed as head of the judicial committee, is just as aghast as Pelosi and Reid.

Thomas wrote:

Yes, woiyo, I'm sure.

How can you be so sure?

Ticomaya wrote:

You are asking a hypothetical I'm not prepared to give an answer to. In this specific case, I'm confident there were sufficient safeguards on this secret eavesdropping program to limit its application to cases where there was probable cause to monitor the conversations.

What gives you this confidence? Because the government said it's so? Isn't the court supposed to determine whether there is probable cause?

Quote:

I do not find this slight infringement -- which in practice, as has already been discussed, is generally little more than the circumventing of the rubber stamp treatment by the reviewing magistrate

If it was a rubber stamp, why circumvent it?

Well, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see the New York Times publish an article explaining that the NSA has developed the capability of interpreting those strongly encrypted messages, citing "several officials" who have expressed reservations that the government is able to unscramble what are obviously intended to be private messages, and that the civil liberties of those folks are being trampled on.

Ticomaya wrote:

kuv wrote:

Btw: my brother is currently serving in Iraq, after spending a tour in Afghanistan in 2002, so try another ploy. McCarthyism doesn't suit you.

What does the fact that your brother is a military man have to do with you, or any point Asherman was making?

your santa hat is on way too tight, the lack of oxygen is affecting your vision.

Asherman wrote:

They are not uniformed, and incite childern to murder others by blowing themselves up. They prey on the weak. They may hate the USMC, but they almost certainly respect them more than Americans who are willing to support them at the expense of their own govenment.

[/b]

He certainly wasn't referring to any Americans known to have taken up arms in Iraq or Afghanistan against US Armed Forces. He was making the case that "If your not for Bush, you are against America."

What is it with you right wingers and your inablity to handle dissent without throwning down the traitor card on the table. With that attitude you would have sided with the Redcoats in 1776.

Ticomaya wrote:

Well, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see the New York Times publish an article explaining that the NSA has developed the capability of interpreting those strongly encrypted messages, citing "several officials" who have expressed reservations that the government is able to unscramble what are obviously intended to be private messages, and that the civil liberties of those folks are being trampled on.

Neither would I. But what makes you think this would be a greater evil than not reporting it?