America... Spying on Americans

That's simply an uneducated claim. Get yourself straight on Abramoff's political history and on the functioning of the K Street project.

I agree. However, if all else fails, I (the voters) have the last word.

Really? Show me when a minority party was bribed in the numbers such as the current case.

If it was "legal" for Bush to take money from Abramoff, why is he trying to "distance" himself from the money? It's a contradiction.

As you pointed out, you can't do such a thing; there's no reason to bribe the minority party.

But that explanation (Republicans were in the majority, it's the only reason why they will be the ones implicated here) is incomplete; it ignores the K Street project, where the Republican party worked hand in hand with lobbyists (abramoff) to pump gigantic amounts of money into our political process. This is a strategy that couldn't do anything but work for the Republicans; until they started to overreach, that is.

The fact that many of the 'champions' of modern Republican thought - Reed, Norquist - are caught up in this is just more icing on the cake. It shows you what these pigs are really after: money and power. All their principled talk about Republicanism is bullshit.

Cycloptichorn

The point is irrelevant logically and certainly legally. Are all majority parties equally guilty of this level of corruption? Clearly not, so this present crowd gets no out there.

But because you aren't bothering to get yourself educated about this whole matter and about Abramoff, his history and his political activism and his political connections and his political goals, your merely allowing yourself to remain a bit blind and stupid as to the level of corruption and as to the dangers this fellow and his crowd present to the US political system. I recommend you stop reading your favored websites and watching Fox and look for the CSpan coverage of the McCain investigation of the matter.

I know all I need to know to recognize that Abramoff is a scumbag and a leach like most lobbiests. I expect him and anyone who profitted from any of his "payoffs" to go right to effing jail.

Therefore, take your snippy little comments somewhere else.

It's amazing how some of these people think that just because one person of a given party does something wrong that everybody associated with that party thinks that illeagal act is right.

ralpheb, Your perception is wrong; most of us agree that no matter which party they belong, if they sold their votes for money, they should be impeached and thrown in prison - for many years, if not for the rest of their miserable lives.

I know for a fact that I don't give a **** if they're Democrat or Republican! If they took money, I want them in jail, doing time with the rest of the criminals. I think it is about time this **** hit the fan, and I'm looking forward to these guys hitting the dust!! I hear that Reid (D) from Nevada is implicated ... and if guilty, am looking forward to him being put away just as much as DeLay, if he is guilty. I'm tired of these guys getting away with all the corruption!!

Anon

Well, you better get busy finding out what is going on here. A number of people are already indicted, including David Safavian, most recently part of the administration as head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Office of Management and Budget (five counts), Scanlan, Kidan (both have plead guilty) and more on the way.

It seems Blair inherited the Bush Doctrine on terrorism.


Apprehended for 'offensive' T-shirt

John Catt, an 80-year-old peace campaigner, was stopped by police officers as a terrorist suspect in Brighton in September -- for wearing a T-shirt with anti-Blair and Bush slogans.

Mr Catt, who served in the RAF during the Second World War, was stopped, searched by police and made to sign a form confirming he had been interviewed under the 2000 Terrorism Act.

The official record of the encounter confirms that the "purpose" of the search was "terrorism" and the "grounds for intervention" were "carrying plackard and T-shirt with anti-Blair info" (sic).

Mr Catt was offered a caution by police, but refused and plans to plead not guilty at a trial due to start in January. He had travelled into Brighton from his home in Withdean, on the outskirts of the city.

"I said I was going to voice my opposition to the Iraq War. He [the policeman] said: 'We're going to give you a copy of this form.'

"People should have the right to protest non-violently. The anti-terrorism laws should not be used to stop people doing that."

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article332149.ece
http://www.parliament-square.org.uk/independent101205.htm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1937539_2,00.html

its all there, as well as the debunking of those right wing, apologist talking points.

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006455.php


btw tico, since you went the link(s) by greenwald, with even a cursory examination of the links one might well have noticed that there was more than one poster signed in as "anonymous."


GO PENN STATE AND JOE PA!






Great, Great game! (As was the Rose Bowl!) Best two nights of college football ever!

Yes it was! I wonder how much of a beating Penn State could have put on FSU if they had Hunt and their star receiver in.

BUT God what a great defensive game!

Yes, and had you made a cursory examination of my reply post you would see that I pointed that out to you, and asked you to clarify which one you thought was me:



LINK

Impeachment:

I wish you had repeated Glenn Greenwald. You might have made some sense and your posts would not have been so morally autistic.

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2005/12/purposely-misquoting-fisa-to-defend.html


http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=18169267&postID=113490211151207499

"anonymous" postings:

5:57pm
7:25pm
7:43pm
9:44pm
10:04pm
10:31pm
12:46am
12:54pm
2:26pm

NSA Destroyed Evidence of Domestic Spying
NSA Destroyed Evidence of Domestic Spying
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 05 January 2006

The National Security Agency, the top-secret spy shop that has been secretly eavesdropping on Americans under a plan authorized by President Bush four years ago, destroyed the names of thousands of Americans and US companies it collected on its own volition following 9/11, because the agency feared it would be taken to task by lawmakers for conducting unlawful surveillance on United States citizens without authorization from a court, according to a little known report published in October 2001 and intelligence officials familiar with the NSA's operations.

NSA lawyers advised the agency to immediately destroy the names of thousands of American citizens and businesses it collected shortly after 9/11 in its quest to target terrorists in this country. NSA lawyers told the agency that the surveillance was illegal and that it could not share the data it collected with the CIA or other intelligence agencies.

The lawyers said the surveillance could result in numerous lawsuits from people identified in the surveillance reports, two former US officials told the Houston Chronicle in an October 27, 2001, report, and was illegal despite any terrorist threat that existed in the days following 9/11.

By law, the NSA cannot spy on a US citizen, an immigrant lawfully admitted to this country for permanent residence, or a US corporation. But, with the permission of a special court, it can target foreigners inside the United States, including diplomats.

The revelation raises new questions about the legality of the NSA's domestic spying initiative, authorized by President Bush in 2002, which has come under intense scrutiny by Republicans and Democrats and will likely lead to Congressional hearings.

The fact that the NSA has purged the names of thousands of Americans and businesses it collected after 9/11 suggests that at the time there were questions about the constitutionality of the agency's efforts to combat terrorism by secretly spying on Americans.

Still, the intelligence destruction angered CIA and FBI officials as well as staff members of the House and Senate intelligence committees who feared that leads on potential terrorists would be permanently lost.

"In heated discussions with the CIA and congressional staff, NSA lawyers have turned down requests to preserve the intelligence because the agency's regulations prohibit the collection of any information on US citizens," the Chronicle reported.

The NSA, based in Fort Meade, Maryland, operates under the Department of Defense. It distributes analysis summaries of its intelligence-gathering to a certain number of senior US officials, but it doesn't share its raw data - transcripts from wiretaps - with anyone. The raw data is prized by intelligence analysts because it provides additional context and more leads than the watered-down summaries.

However, those guidelines changed after 9/11 also.

The NSA ended up giving its raw data to then Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton on at least 10 different occasions since 9/11. Bolton, nominated by Bush to be US ambassador to the United Nations, let slip during his confirmation hearings in April that he asked the NSA to unmask the identities of the Americans blacked out in the agency's raw reports, to better understand the context of the intelligence.

However, evidence suggests that Bolton used the information for personal reasons, in direct violation of rules governing the dissemination of classified intelligence. During one routine wiretap, the NSA obtained the name of a state department official whose name had been blacked out when the agency submitted its report to various federal agencies.

Bolton's chief of staff, Frederick Fleitz, a former CIA official, revealed during the confirmation hearings that Bolton had requested that the NSA unmask the unidentified official. Fleitz said that when Bolton found out his identity, he congratulated the official, and by doing so he had violated the NSA's rules by discussing classified information contained in the wiretap.

It turned out that Bolton was just one of many government officials who learned the identities of Americans caught in the NSA intercepts. The State Department has asked the NSA to unmask the identities of American citizens 500 times since May 2001.

At the time of the NSA purge in October 2001, US Rep. Charles F. Bass, R-NH, who served for four years on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, suggested that the NSA routinely skirted the law by eavesdropping on Americans.

"I think it could be the biggest information problem that we face," Bass told the Chronicle. "If somebody is abroad and they even mention the name of an American citizen, bang, off goes the tap, and no more information is collected."

But what seemed to be a blatant violation of the law shortly after 9/11 was beginning to get a second look a year later, when Bush first authorized the NSA to spy on Americans, and lawmakers suggested that domestic spying was all but guaranteed to avoid terrorist attacks.

Porter Goss, the former Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said as much in a wide ranging interview with the Miami Herald on June 11, 2002.

"The most critical question of all - how much spying on Americans do we want," said Goss, now the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. "What this comes down to is domestic surveillance [on individuals and groups], and I don't know how you do that without spying on Americans. I can't emphasize enough that that's the hardest part."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak investigation, and is a regular contributer to t r u t h o u t.

Okay ... thanks for clarifying. You are, obviously, still wrong.

The "Anonymous" poster that seemed to be making an argument most consistent with mine has signed as "Gary" or "G" on most of his postings. As I've said, I've never heard of Glenn Greenwald, much less his blog site, and had never visited same until you directed me there. The anonymous "Gary" or "G" is not I .... although he does make a lot of sense.

Heck of a Job, Hayden!
Heck of a Job, Hayden!
By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Thursday 05 January 2006

The eavesdropping-on-Americans scandal came as shock and betrayal to most employees of the National Security Agency - and to other intelligence officers, active and retired.

The idea that the once highly respected former director of NSA, Gen. Mike Hayden, had allowed himself to be seduced into sinning against NSA's first commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Spy on Americans," was initially met with incredulity. Sadly, no other conclusion became possible as we watched Hayden and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales spin and squirm before the press on December 19 in their transparent attempt to square a circle.

For many of us veteran intelligence officers, the press conference put a damper on the Christmas spirit. The Gonzales-Hayden pas de deux should trouble other Americans as well, because the malleable Gen. Hayden, now bedecked with a fourth star, is Deputy Director of National Intelligence - the second highest official in the US intelligence community. Only time will tell what other extralegal activities he will condone.

The framers of the US Constitution must have been turning in their graves on December 19 as they watched Gonzales and Hayden defend the eavesdropping - especially as the two grappled with the $64 million question: Instead of simply flouting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), why didn't the administration ask Congress to change it, if the law really needed to be made less restrictive? (And that remains a big "if.")

Well-briefed by executive branch lawyers, Gonzales recited "our legal analysis - our position" that Congress's authorization of force in the wake of 9/11 gave the president the right to disregard FISA's prohibition, absent a court order, against using NSA to eavesdrop on Americans. This "position," of course, is quite a stretch; even the regime-friendly Washington Post has termed it "impossible to believe" the government's contention. While reading from his script, the Attorney General presented his case as well as it could be argued, but twice he slipped while answering a question as to why the administration decided to disregard the FISA law rather than try to amend it.

Letting the Cat out of the Bag

Asked why the administration had decided to take a "backdoor approach," Gonzales twice let the cat out of the bag:

"We have had discussions with Congress - as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible."

They went ahead and did it anyway.

Gen. Hayden's remarks were equally intriguing, as he repeatedly emphasized the need for "speed and agility." Describing the current eavesdropping effort as a "more aggressive program than would be traditionally available under FISA," he seemed equally at pains to stress that the program deals only with international calls for short periods of time. He is saying, in other words, that US citizens are monitored only sometimes - and just a little, so we're dealing with only tiny incompatibilities with the FISA law - and, anyhow, the president has said he has the authority anyway. New York Times reporter James Risen, who broke the story on NSA eavesdropping on Americans, says the communications of "roughly 500 people in the US have been intercepted every day over the past three or four years," which hardly jibes with the impression that Hayden seems to be trying to foster.

As for speed and flexibility, Hayden knows, better than virtually anyone else, that both are already built into the FISA law, which allows the government to begin eavesdropping immediately, as long as it sends catch-up paperwork to the FISA court within 72 hours. His acquiescence in administration instructions to make an end-run around FISA is a serious blow to the morale of those thousands who once worked for Hayden - and had admired him - as director of NSA, as well as to thousands of other intelligence officers, past and present, hoping against hope for more integrity at senior levels.

NSA Alumni

Appearing Tuesday on Democracy Now!, former NSA officer Russell Tice talked about NSA's ethos regarding eavesdropping on US citizens:

"A SIGINT [signals intelligence] officer [is] taught from very early on in their careers that you just do not do this. This is probably the number one commandment - you do not spy on Americans. It is drilled into our head over and over again in security briefings at least twice a year, where you ultimately have to sign a paper that says you have gotten the briefing. Everyone at NSA, who's a SIGINT officer knows that you do not do this - Apparently the leaders of NSA have decided that they were just going to go against the tenets of something that's gospel to a SIGINT officer - Hayden knew that this was illegal."

Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (ret.) was assigned to NSA headquarters in the late nineties while working for Gen. Hayden, who was then head of the Air Force Intelligence Agency. At that time she - like others - had a favorable impression of Hayden and was therefore stunned upon learning of his acquiescence in, and rationalization of, eavesdropping on Americans. In a recent conversation, Karen used as an analogy what Gen. Brent Scowcroft said recently about Dick Cheney, with whom he had worked for many years - "I don't know Dick Cheney." As for her, said Karen, "I don't know Gen. Hayden."

Cancer Metastasizes at the Top

It does not seem so very long ago that John Dean saw fit to warn President Richard Nixon that there was a "cancer on the presidency." Now prevalent among top Bush administration officials is a two-fold malady. One - GAGA (Go-Along-to-Get-Along) - has been around a long time. The other might be called "Colin Cancer," after former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell.

At Christmas, the still unrepentant Powell came out of limbo, just before the Vatican closed it down. Once again he was feted in the indiscriminate mainstream media, which has decided to forgive and forget his unconscionable role in spreading a trumped-up justification for what he well knew was an unprovoked war (not to mention the media's complicity in that same deceit). Powell's claims that he had no information that there were doubts regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are demonstrable lies.

Has he forgotten the strong doubt expressed by chief UN inspector Hans Blix and his people on the ground in Iraq, who enjoyed virtually unfettered access in the months immediately before the US/UK attack on March 19, 2003, and who pleaded in vain to be allowed to continue their search for WMD? Does he not remember that his own intelligence analysts at State had warned him time and time again of the bogus "intelligence" reports being manufactured at the Pentagon and the aiming-to-please analysis being served up at CIA? (Much of this is documented in the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee of July 2004.) Heck of a job, Colin!

And is it not curious that Powell "forgot" to take his own intelligence analysts along with him to CIA headquarters for those (in)famous four days and nights of preparation for his shameful performance at the UN on February 5, 2003, and that he neglected to heed his analysts' warnings about the falsehoods and hyperbole they had seen in early drafts of that speech?

Sorry, but I find it impossible to feel sorry for Colin Powell as he laments the fact that his UN speech left a "blot" on his record. What about the blot it put on the reputation of the United States? What about the 2,200 US servicemen and women who have died in Iraq - not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed because he, and those like him, lacked to guts to shake off the GAGA syndrome and try to halt the march of folly? Powell was one of the very few who might have stopped it.

True to character, Powell continues to march in lockstep with the president, telling ABC last week that he saw "nothing wrong with the president authorizing" warrant-less eavesdropping, which, Powell added, "should continue." As for the missing weapons of mass destruction, Powell insisted to George Stephanopoulos: "Some of the intelligence was right. There's no question that Saddam Hussein had the intention of having such weapons." It is a very old, tiresome chestnut; but George just smiled sweetly, not willing to challenge the matinee idol.

Suffice it to say that Powell's chutzpah and the continued lionization of him in the media give very poor example for younger generals, most of whom lack antibodies for GAGA - which, in turn, makes them all the more susceptible to Colin cancer. What the Haydens of this world need is positive example, but Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has assembled a coterie of star-studded sycophants. Joint Chiefs chair Marine Gen. Peter Pace did summon the courage recently to correct Rumsfeld and insist that our troops are required to stop the torture they witness, not simply to "report" it. We shall have to see how long Pace lasts in the job.

Hope in Whistleblowers

The good news is that truth tellers (also known as leakers) have stopped being intimidated and are doing their patriotic duty. The New York Times's James Risen, who first revealed the program allowing eavesdropping on Americans, has emphasized that this is the "purest case of whistleblowers coming forward" that he has encountered in his 25 years as a reporter. According to Risen, many of then were "tormented by their knowledge" of the way the Bush administration was "skirting the law." "Something was wrong - and they came forward, I believe, simply to make the public aware of this," said Risen who, appropriately, calls the truth tellers "patriots."

Risen pointed out that these are people involved in the day-to-day struggle to defeat terrorism and who have intimate knowledge of the issues. "They came to us because they thought you have to follow the rules and you have to follow the law."

Risen's sources, of course, are the very people the Justice Department has launched a major investigation to apprehend and, as the saying goes, "bring to justice."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ray McGovern works at Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. After 27 years as a CIA analyst, he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a movement that is holding former colleagues to the ethos of truth telling in the analysis directorate.