America... Spying on Americans

It just can't be repeated enough since you all keep saying "terrorist" in connection with this spying on Americans. We only have Bush's words in his speeches that the people they listen to are terrorist. Without going through the proper procedures and without oversight, there is no way to know whether Bush is telling the truth or not. Saying we got to trust them, don't cut it.

Oversight means more than telling a select few who could't consult with anyone else or do anything about it even if they didn't agree with it.

That you don't consider eavesdropping on Americans without probable cause to be violation of hte 4th amendment does surprise me. Especially since you "guys" call yourselves conservatives.

Having one person on the line that has relations with terrorists or terrorist organization is probable cause.

Then in that case, it should be easy matter to get a warrant.

Yep.

We have been told that terrorists talk in code to hide what their purpose is. If I tell my friend in Germany who just happens to have the same name as a terrorist in Pakistan, "The sky is blue today, no clouds." How does the NSA know that isn't terrorist code?

There is no reasonable way this would be limited to actual terrorists. Terrorists change phones, locations and names.

If there is probable cause get a warrant. If there isn't probable cause then the surveillance is NOT reasonable.

I am relieved. Bush has now given the spying a name. The effort is now dubbed '"a terrorist surveillance program."

To Bush the insertion of "Terrorist" justifies any and all actions. Criminal or otherwise.

It does raise the question of was the program limited to just terrorists or is Bush branding everyone caught up in it a terrorist after the fact?

Like the Quaker Church in Pennsylvania that Bush has been spying on? Or PETA? Or the anti-war protestors? The sheeple who want to give up rights because they are insecure cowards make me nauseous.

I wonder why Nixon didn't just do a PR campiagn to convince Americans it was just fine and dandy that he broke the law? WTF is this country coming to?

Here is a link to some of the questions Spector is going to ask.

IMPORTANT!
This little tidbit should nail Bushco's arse for good.---BBB

White House Rebuffed 2002 Effort to Relax FISA Standards
By Steven Aftergood
FAS
Wednesday 25 January 2006

The Bush Administration rejected a Congressional initiative in 2002 that would have lowered the legal threshold for conducting surveillance of non-US persons under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from "probable cause" that the target is a terrorist or agent of a foreign power to "reasonable suspicion."

Administration officials said at the time that the legislative proposal was unnecessary and possibly unconstitutional.

Yet in a speech this week on the NSA domestic surveillance program, Deputy Director of National Intelligence Gen. Michael V. Hayden indicated that the executive branch had unilaterally adopted a similar "reasonable suspicion" standard.

Instead of FISA's more stringent "probable cause" requirement, the presidentially-directed NSA surveillance operation applied to international calls that "we have a reasonable basis to believe involve al Qaeda or one of its affiliates," Gen. Hayden said on January 23.

The unexplained contradiction between the Administration's public rejection of the "reasonable suspicion" standard for FISA, and its secret adoption of that same standard was noted yesterday by attorney and blogger Glenn Greenwald.

See "The Administration's New FISA Defense is Factually False," January 24:

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/

The 2002 legislative proposed, S. 2659 introduced by Rep. Michael DeWine (R-OH), "raises both significant legal and practical issues [and] the Administration at this time is not prepared to support it," said James A. Baker of the Justice Department.

Among other concerns, Mr. Baker said, "If we err in our analysis and courts were ultimately to find a 'reasonable suspicion' standard unconstitutional, we could potentially put at risk ongoing investigations and prosecutions."

See Mr. Baker's prepared statement from the July 31, 2002 hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The transcript and other prepared statements from that Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "Proposals to Amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" are available here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/index.html#fisa

Sadly, a large part of the country agrees with him.

Another article; same subject
Another article; same subject.---BBB

In 2002, Justice Department said eavesdropping law working well
Posted on Wed, Jan. 25, 2006
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers

A July 2002 Justice Department statement to a Senate committee appears to contradict several key arguments that the Bush administration is making to defend its eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court warrants.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law governing such operations, was working well, the department said in 2002. A "significant review" would be needed to determine whether FISA's legal requirements for obtaining warrants should be loosened because they hampered counterterrorism efforts, the department said then.

President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other top officials now argue that warrantless eavesdropping is necessary in part because complying with the FISA law is too burdensome and impedes the government's ability to rapidly track communications between suspected terrorists.

In its 2002 statement, the Justice Department said it opposed a legislative proposal to change FISA to make it easier to obtain warrants that would allow the super-secret National Security Agency to listen in on communications involving non-U.S. citizens inside the United States.
Today, senior U.S. officials complain that FISA prevents them from doing that.

James A. Baker, the Justice Department's top lawyer on intelligence policy, made the statement before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 31, 2002. He was laying out the department's position on an amendment to FISA proposed by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio. The committee rejected DeWine's proposal, leaving FISA intact.

So while Congress chose not to weaken FISA in 2002, today Bush and his allies contend that Congress implicitly gave Bush the authority to evade FISA's requirements when it authorized him to use force in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks three days after they occurred - a contention that many lawmakers reject.

Glenn Greenwald, an Internet blogger, first connected the earlier Justice Department statement to the Bush administration's current arguments on his Web log, called Unclaimed Territory.

Baker's 2002 statement drew new attention Wednesday as the White House continued its campaign to justify eavesdropping on Americans who are suspected of being in contact with al-Qaida or other terrorist groups, despite possible violation of FISA.

Bush visited the NSA's sprawling complex at Fort Meade, Md., on Wednesday to deliver a closed-door morale-boosting talk to its workforce.

He later repeated to reporters that the eavesdropping operation was limited to communications in which one participant was outside the United States.

"When terrorist operatives are here in America communicating with someone overseas, we must understand what's going on if we're going to do our job to protect the people," Bush said.

The administration insists that Bush has the legal and constitutional authority to order the NSA program, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But Democrats and some Republicans contend that Bush may have violated FISA, which governs how the government can monitor international calls and e-mails.

The law requires the government to show a secret federal court that it has "probable cause" to believe that a target for domestic eavesdropping is an agent of a foreign government or involved with a terrorist organization like al-Qaida.

DeWine's bill would have lowered the "probable cause" standard to one of only "reasonable suspicion" for warrants involving foreigners in the country.

Baker said in 2002 that because the "proposed change raises both significant legal and practical issues, the administration at this time is not prepared to support it."

He said that Justice Department lawyers were trying to determine whether the lower standard would pass "constitutional muster."
Baker also said that the Justice Department had "been aggressive in seeking FISA warrants" and that congressional approval of the USA Patriot Act had allowed investigators "to use our expanded FISA tools more effectively to combat terrorist activities."

"It may not be the case that the probable cause standard has caused any difficulties in our ability to seek the FISA warrants we require," he said then.

Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, said Wednesday that Gonzales stands by the administration's current view that FISA warrant requirements impose "additional layers of review" that sacrifice "critical speed and agility."

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent Gonzales a letter detailing a series of pointed questions that he intends to ask during a Feb. 6 hearing into the NSA program's legality.

The letter noted that under FISA, federal authorities can wiretap anyone and then seek a warrant within 72 hours.

Specter said he wanted Gonzales to explain why Bush didn't ask Congress to change FISA to make it easier to conduct surveillance with judicial approval.

He also indicated that Congress could have adjusted the law when it passed the anti-terrorism Patriot Act in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

To read Greenwald's posts on the 2002 Justice Department statement, go to http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/

Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondents William Douglas and James Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

It's the magic of the internet; the former statements of the Admin have really come back to haunt them.

We all know that Bush told a grevious lie when he said last year that Constitutionally protections such as judges were neccessary to protect rights, and they were still being used!

In the coming months, we will see some nice commercials pointing things such as this out...

Cycloptichorn

I know, this morning I acted on impulse and watched TV news and saw some of Bush speech. Basically his answer to everything was, we are at war and I will do what is necessary to protect the American people. Unfortunately that seems to work each every time he uses it.

He also said that FISA was basically outdated; (or similar words) as though that gives him some kind of excuse to go around it.

What is McG telling us? Could it be:

That damn Constitution that includes those abhorrent Fourth and Fifth Amendments merely protects BAD PEOPLE who want to hurt us. Down with the Constitution! There's nothing wrong with placing an invisible police man in every home and business in America to watch everything we do and to listen to everything we say in order to seek out evidence of wrongdoing!

If you're a GOOD PERSON, and you have nothing to hide, what difference does it make if the government is omnipresent in your lives--watching everything you do and listening in on all your conversations? If you're patriotic, have nothing to hide, and care one iota about the security of this nation, you ought to be happy to waive your silly rights. Good people have nothing to fear from a police state. Glory be to the Omniscient Government and our savior BUSH!

WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!

I note that all arguments concerning the legality of the NSA spying program seem to have ceased...

Cycloptichorn

Huh. Still making mountains out of molehillls, Deb? Or trying to it appears.

It that's truly the case, then Bush would have no problem obtaining FISA court approval to conduct electronic surveillance. After all, this is what Bush told us:



http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040420-2.html

Why did Bush LIE and tell us that "we're not going to change" our deepest beliefs because of these thugs? Why did he lie and tell the American people that "we're talking about getting a court order" for electronic surveillance as required by the Constitution to chase down terrorists? When Bush made that speech, he KNEW he was lying. He had been conducting domestic electronic surveillance of United States persons WITHOUT court approval for nearly four years. He autocratically decided LONG before he made that speech to violate our freedoms and our constitutional values in his pursuit of thugs.

Why is he now changing his PR story now? Is it because he was caught lying during his previous PR speech? Because he was caught desecrating our deepest belief in freedom embodied in our constitutional values? When he now claims that his secret, warrantless surveillance of the American people is targeted at "terrorists," how can we believe him? He has proven to us that he is a LIAR.