posted on December 19, 2005 04:40:48 PM new
Bush doesn't mind destroying our freedoms one by one all in the name of keeping this country safe. By doing so he is allowing the terrorists to win.
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Monday said disclosure of his domestic eavesdropping program was a “shameful act” and said he will keep using it “for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens.”
“As president of the United States and commander in chief I have the constitutional responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country,” he said in an opening statement at a year-end news conference.
Asked if the Justice Department would be investigating who leaked the existence of the program, first disclosed Friday by The New York Times, Bush said he presumed the process had started.
“It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important program in a time of war. The fact that we’re discussing this program is helping the enemy,” he said at the White House event.
‘Legal to do so’
The spying program allows the National Security Agency to intercept the communications without court approval. A 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without court approval.
Bush said he approved the action without such orders “because it enables us to move faster and quicker. We’ve got to be fast on our feet.
“It is legal to do so. I swore to uphold the laws. Legal authority is derived from the Constitution,” Bush added.
The existence of the program triggered an outpouring of criticism in Congress, but an unflinching defense from Bush and senior officials of his administration.
The president spoke not long after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Congress had given Bush authority to spy on suspected terrorists in this country in legislation passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush and other officials have said the program involves monitoring phone calls and e-mails of individuals in this country believed to be plotting with terrorists overseas. They have also emphasized that it only involves people suspected of being tied to al-Qaida and that one end of the communication has to be abroad.
Bush stressed that calls placed and received within the United States would be monitored as has long been the case, after an order is granted by a secret court under the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Bush bristled at the suggestion he was assuming unlimited powers.
“To say ‘unchecked power’ basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject,” he said angrily in a finger-pointing answer. “I am doing what you expect me to do, and at the same time, safeguarding the civil liberties of the country.”
Despite Bush’s defense, there was a growing storm of criticism from Congress and calls for investigations, from Democrats and Republicans alike. West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, released a handwritten letter expressing concern to Vice President Dick Cheney after being briefed more than two years ago.
Rockefeller complained then that the information was so restricted he was “unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities.” He registered concern about the administration’s direction on security, technology and surveillance issues.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he would ask Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, his views of the president’s authority for spying without a warrant.
“Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?” asked Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Bush’s interpretation of the Constitution was “incorrect and dangerous.”
Call for Patriot Act's renewal
Bush also called on Congress to renew the anti-terror Patriot Act before it expires at the end of the year. “In a war on terror we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment,” he said.
The legislation has cleared the House but Senate Democrats have blocked final passage and its prospects are uncertain in the final days of the congressional session.
Raising his voice, Bush challenged Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton — without naming them — to allow a final vote on legislation renewing the anti-terror Patriot Act. “I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to explain why these cities are safer” without the extension, he said.
Reid represents Nevada; Clinton is a New York senator, and both helped block passage of the legislation in the Senate last week.
“In a war on terror we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment,” he said.
The news conference followed a Sunday night speech to the nation on Iraq policy in which the president asked that Americans “not give up on this fight for freedom.”
The news conference was the president’s 21st. The previous one was on Oct. 4.
The news conference ran just shy of an hour. It was the latest in a series of events — appearances outside Washington, meetings with members of Congress and an Oval Office address on Sunday night — in which the president has sought to quell criticism of the war in Iraq and reverse his months-long slide in the polls.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on December 19, 2005 05:38:00 PM new
They post crap like this to supposed fight our war effort against our enemies, Ron. It's just that their enemy is not our enemy...it's our President.
The existence of the program triggered an outpouring of criticism in Congress, but an unflinching defense from Bush and senior officials of his administration.
Gee...I wonder why they're not 'flinching' at all. Could be because they KNOW they've made the top dems and top republicans in both Houses KNOW it was going on....and now SOME are pretending to not have known about this at all.
Did kerry speak out against it too? Was HE PRETENDING to never have heard of this...even though Congress HAS BEEN DISCUSSING it?
Just like when he was running for the WH....maybe he should actually show up at their meetings more often and keep HIMSELF up to date. What a switch that would be....actually BEING THERE to hear intelligence information. Nope...not your kerry.
posted on December 19, 2005 06:02:04 PM new
What I wonder is ... If the first sentence of the story had been
President Clinton on Monday said disclosure of his domestic eavesdropping program was a “shameful act” and said he will keep using it “for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens.”
Would you still think it was no big deal? If Kerry was president and it came out that he had approved listening in on the phone calls of around 500 US citizens on any given day would you still be so glib about it? Would you still be so trusting and believe that it was a power that would not possibly be misused or abused?
I don't believe that republicans would be so glib about this is it were a democratic president doing it and yet what they seem to be ignoring is that once you make it no big deal for one administration, you make it so for each that follow. And who is to say what the criteria is? Bush says that whoever leaked this is helping the enemy... does that mean that it's now considered OK to tap the lines on politicians and their staff or to tap the lines of typically liberal newspapers and their reporters?
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An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
[ edited by fenix03 on Dec 19, 2005 06:03 PM ]
posted on December 19, 2005 06:42:21 PM new
If Kerry was President....we would all probably be dead or servants to the Muslims.
Amen,
Reverend Colin http://www.reverendcolin.com
posted on December 19, 2005 07:26:40 PM new
Well of you aren't making or receiving international cell phone calls to you terrorist cell brotheren, you don't have anything to worry about.
"“More Iraqis think things are going well in Iraq than Americans do. I guess they don’t get the New York Times over there.”—Jay Leno".
posted on December 19, 2005 09:39:35 PM new
Funny...I don't think I ever heard Bush & Co. say that the disclosure of the identity of a CIA agent involved in undercover work was a "shameful act"...but then, they were the ones doing the disclosing in that instance, weren't they?
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posted on December 19, 2005 09:43:40 PM new
lol....I agree with that Colin. kerry, even before we knew if he'd be our next President or not....was willing to HELP Iran out with the nuclear weapons program....for crying out loud....
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I agree with bear, fenix. Have never been able to understand those who think our government should be restricted from listening in on calls from courtries outside of America...who are on our suspected terrorists lists. Just like we have certain countries where their people are either barred or more closely supervised when they come here.
I'll never understand the left's position on this and yes, it does appear to me to be enabling our enemies...rather than protecting us from them.
posted on December 19, 2005 09:54:54 PM new
But Linda - you are not answering the question. If Kerry, or Bill Clinton, or in two years Hilary Clinton is discovered to be tapping the phones of US citizens without warrants by stating that they believe the person might present a threat are you going to support that decision and have faith that there is no abuse of the practice?
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on December 19, 2005 10:10:40 PM new
Oh bunni....just who has been indicted for that? NOBODY.
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fenix - I don't even know why you'd ask me that question...after I have posted time and time and time again that I SUPPORTED CLINTON'S BOMBING OF IRAQ in 1998....when he did it for, according to HIM, the exact same reasons this President did. He was bombing them, HE said, because of their NUCLEAR, BIO and chemical weapons programs.
Does that look to you like I base this countries security on playing politics?
Yes, if the clinton administration ever got permission and wasn't OVER LAWYERED to not order it....I would support it then too. But just like he wouldn't do anything about binliden when he could have...his LAWYERS advised him against it. SO....I really don't think EITHER clinton would order it to begin with. In all honestly.
kerry would NEVER defend this country by doing something like that....who's trying to fool who here?
He was a TRAITOR to this country during the VN war.
I'd NEVER count on him to do ANYTHING to protect this country....he's an Internationalist.....not a true patriot of America.
Can't you understand that part of why your dems can't win seats or the WH is, in part, because MOST American's know/feel a dem wouldn't protect this Nation in the same way a Republican has/would?
Read the stats on it....
American voters TRUST rep. to protect us...dems to do more for social programs.
posted on December 19, 2005 10:16:13 PM new
f::enix - I don't even know why you'd ask me that question...after I have posted time and time and time again that I SUPPORTED CLINTON'S BOMBING OF IRAQ in 1998....when he did it for, according to HIM, the exact same reasons this President did.::
Because I don't believe that a public bombing and secret wire taps have anything in common because you seem to believe that most of the top democrats are corrupt and untrustworthy. Because you have often mentioned various conspiracy theories involving them and I have a hard time believing that someone that posted the link to that you posted to the Hilary story that perpetrates more of these theories would not imagine that such unfettered ability to tap the lines of US citizens would not be abused by them.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on December 20, 2005 12:30:23 AM new
""Could be because they KNOW they've made the top dems and top republicans in both Houses KNOW it was going on""
By law(which the neocons don't recognize) the people who knew could not even discuss it with each other....that is NOT a check or a balance.
""Well of you aren't making or receiving international cell phone calls to you terrorist cell brotheren, you don't have anything to worry about."""
posted on December 20, 2005 06:12:46 AM new
It's legal so what is your point?
This has been done by President's past, just some slime ball reporter didn't report it.
Hatred for this President is dividing this country farther and farther apart, how far do you think it will go? I don't see any President in the next election getting this country back together, if a Democrat wins the Republicans are going to make it difficult just as the Democrats are doing now. Democrats have started a downward spiral and who knows where it will stop?
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
posted on December 20, 2005 09:04:55 AM new
This started in 1992, so after 8 years of those failures, now the democrats were not willing to take a chance on something new, they themselves have attacked and are causing the most divisive actions at the present. If and that is a big if, a democrat were to win in 2008, then the republicans will probably be no better and keep the spiral going.
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
posted on December 20, 2005 09:21:08 AM new
Those are fair reasons, fenix.
And you're right. Because of the way the dems have acted since 9-11....I would NEVER vote for a dem President again. Never.
Don't feel like they [the top dem leaders] can be trusted to protect our Country.
----
And I agree...it's the dem party who's been causing this great division. They can't even get their own party in agreement on so many issues that are important to American's today. This war being one of them....and the biggest one to me.
posted on December 20, 2005 09:30:55 AM new
For anyone who wants to read FACTS on the PA, rather than biased opinions, here you can see which laws were already in place before the name was changed to the PA. They changes the clinton and Bush administrations have made. What the USSC has ruled unconstitutional...etc.
posted on December 20, 2005 10:16:11 AM new
"But Linda - you are not answering the question. If Kerry, or Bill Clinton, or in two years Hilary Clinton is discovered to be tapping the phones of US citizens without warrants by stating that they believe the person might present a threat are you going to support that decision and have faith that there is no abuse of the practice?
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ •
If Clinton would have done this after 9-11, I would support him as I do President Bush.
If Kerry had been elected he would have already been assassinated by his loony wife for leaving the toilet seat up.
posted on December 20, 2005 05:39:25 PM newIt's legal so what is your point?
Where in the Constitution is this granted.
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Nixon Administration's argument that the President could order wiretaps without obtaining a warrant. Unlike today's Court, the vote wasn't close -- 8-0 (Associate Justice Rhenquist had just been confirmed, and did not take part in the consideration or the decision of the case). The following language from Justice Douglass's concurring opinion says it all:
"As illustrated by a flood of cases before us this Term, e. g., Laird v. Tatum, No. 71-288; Gelbard v. United States, No. 71-110; United States v. Egan, No. 71-263; United States v. Caldwell, No. 70-57; United States v. Gravel, No. 71-1026; Kleindienst v. Mandel, No. 71-16; we are currently in the throes of another national seizure of paranoia, resembling the hysteria which surrounded the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Palmer Raids, and the McCarthy era. Those who register dissent or who petition their governments for redress are subjected to scrutiny by grand juries, 7 by the FBI, 8 or even by the military. 9 Their associates are interrogated. [407 U.S. 297, 330] Their homes are bugged and their telephones are wiretapped. They are befriended by secret government informers. 10 Their patriotism and loyalty are questioned. 11 [407 U.S. 297, 331] Senator Sam Ervin, who has chaired hearings on military surveillance of civilian dissidents, warns that "it is not an exaggeration to talk in terms of hundreds of thousands of . . . dossiers." 12 Senator Kennedy, as mentioned supra, found "the frightening possibility that the conversations of untold thousands are being monitored on secret devices." More than our privacy is implicated. Also at stake is the reach of the Government's power to intimidate its critics. "When the Executive attempts to excuse these tactics as essential to its defense against internal subversion, we are obliged to remind it, without apology, of this Court's long commitment to the preservation of the Bill of Rights from the corrosive environment of precisely such expedients. 13 [407 U.S. 297, 332] As Justice Brandeis said, concurring in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377 : "Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty." Chief Justice Warren put it this way in United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 264 : "[T]his concept of `national defense' cannot be deemed an end in itself, justifying any . . . power designed to promote such a goal. Implicit in the term `national defense' is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of . . . those liberties . . . which [make] the defense of the Nation worthwhile." "The Warrant Clause has stood as a barrier against intrusions by officialdom into the privacies of life. But if that barrier were lowered now to permit suspected subversives' most intimate conversations to be pillaged then why could not their abodes or mail be secretly searched by the same authority? To defeat so terrifying a claim of inherent power we need only stand by the enduring values served by the Fourth Amendment. As we stated last Term in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 455 : "In times of unrest, whether caused by crime or racial conflict or fear of internal subversion, this basic law [407 U.S. 297, 333] and the values that it represents may appear unrealistic or `extravagant' to some. But the values were those of the authors of our fundamental constitutional concepts. In times not altogether unlike our own they won . . . a right of personal security against arbitrary intrusions . . . . If times have changed, reducing everyman's scope to do as he pleases in an urban and industrial world, the changes have made the values served by the Fourth Amendment more, not less, important." We have as much or more to fear from the erosion of our sense of privacy and independence by the omnipresent electronic ear of the Government as we do from the likelihood that fomenters of domestic upheaval will modify our form of governing."
The entire decision can be found on findlaw.com here. Every American should be outraged at the destruction of our Constitution perpetrated by this administration. Thus, we conclude that the Government's concerns do not justify departure in this case from the customary Fourth Amendment requirement of judicial approval prior to initiation of a search or surveillance. Although some added burden will be imposed upon the Attorney General, this inconvenience is justified in a free society to protect constitutional values. Nor do we think the Government's domestic surveillance powers will be impaired to any significant degree. A prior warrant establishes presumptive validity of the surveillance and will minimize the burden of justification in post-surveillance judicial review. By no means of least importance will be the reassurance of the public generally that indiscriminate wiretapping and bugging of law-abiding citizens cannot occur.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on December 20, 2005 05:41:07 PM newWell of you aren't making or receiving international cell phone calls to you terrorist cell brotheren, you don't have anything to worry about.
NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."
Although The Standard-Times knows the name of the student, he is not coming forward because he fears repercussions should his name become public. He has not spoken to The Standard-Times.
The professors had been asked to comment on a report that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to spy on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002 in this country.
The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants.
The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung.
In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book.
The student told Professor Pontbriand and Dr. Williams that the Homeland Security agents told him the book was on a "watch list." They brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student, the professors said.
Dr. Williams said in his research, he regularly contacts people in Afghanistan, Chechnya and other Muslim hot spots, and suspects that some of his calls are monitored.
"My instinct is that there is a lot more monitoring than we think," he said.
Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk.
"I shudder to think of all the students I've had monitoring al-Qaeda Web sites, what the government must think of that," he said. "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless."
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on December 20, 2005 05:42:30 PM new
So Ron what other freedoms are you willing to give up so Bush can fight his war?
Why don't you list your phone number here so Bush can listen to all your conversations?
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on December 20, 2005 05:42:54 PM new
yea colin,knowing what Monica did with those things is kind of a turn off.I remember seeing movies and adds where the true cigar aficionado will take the cigar up to his nose and smell the whole length of it.....now I now why
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Beauty is only a light switch away
[ edited by classicrock000 on Dec 20, 2005 05:48 PM ]
posted on December 20, 2005 06:44:04 PM newBill Clinton, or in two years Hilary Clinton is discovered to be tapping the phones of US citizens without warrants by stating that they believe the person might present a threat are you going to support that decision and have faith that there is no abuse of the practice?
Heir willie did tap phones.
Clinton NSA Eavesdropped on U.S. Calls
During the 1990's under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon.
On Friday, the New York Times suggested that the Bush administration has instituted "a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices" when it "secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without [obtaining] court-approved warrants."
But in fact, the NSA had been monitoring private domestic telephone conversations on a much larger scale throughout the 1990s - all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.
In February 2000, for instance, CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft introduced a report on the Clinton-era spy program by noting:
Story Continues Below
"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency."
NSA computers, said Kroft, "capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world."
Echelon expert Mike Frost, who spent 20 years as a spy for the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, told "60 Minutes" that the agency was monitoring "everything from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs."
Mr. Frost detailed activities at one unidentified NSA installation, telling "60 Minutes" that agency operators "can listen in to just about anything" - while Echelon computers screen phone calls for key words that might indicate a terrorist threat.
The "60 Minutes" report also spotlighted Echelon critic, then-Rep. Bob Barr, who complained that the project as it was being implemented under Clinton "engages in the interception of literally millions of communications involving United States citizens."
One Echelon operator working in Britain told "60 Minutes" that the NSA had even monitored and tape recorded the conversations of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond.
Still, the Times repeatedly insisted on Friday that NSA surveillance under Bush had been unprecedented, at one point citing anonymously an alleged former national security official who claimed: "This is really a sea change. It's almost a mainstay of this country that the NSA only does foreign searches."
"“More Iraqis think things are going well in Iraq than Americans do. I guess they don’t get the New York Times over there.”—Jay Leno".
Could be because they KNOW they've made the top dems and top republicans in both Houses KNOW it was going on....and now SOME are pretending to not have known about this at all.
