http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/politics/15cnd-program.html?ei=5094&en=0a4739ca3ab6d63b&hp=&ex=1134709200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&oref=login

Quote :

"Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 ­- Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials. Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications. The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches. "This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches." Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight. According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters. Some of the questions about the agency's new powers led the administration to temporarily suspend the operation last year and impose more restrictions, the officials said. The Bush administration views the operation as necessary so that the agency can move quickly to monitor communications that may disclose threats to this country, the officials said. Defenders of the program say it has been a critical tool in helping disrupt terrorist plots and prevent attacks inside the United States. Administration officials are confident that existing safeguards are sufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, the officials say. In some cases, they said, the Justice Department eventually seeks warrants if it wants to expand the eavesdropping to include communications confined within the United States. The officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that deals with national security issues. The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted. While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it said the N.S.A. eavesdropped without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands over the past three years, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to those officials. Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the officials said. But they said most people targeted for N.S.A. monitoring have never been charged with a crime, including an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden. Dealing With a New Threat The eavesdropping program grew out of concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks that the nation's intelligence agencies were not poised to deal effectively with the new threat of Al Qaeda and that they were handcuffed by legal and bureaucratic restrictions better suited to peacetime than war, according to officials. In response, President Bush significantly eased limits on American intelligence and law enforcement agencies and the military. But some of the administration's antiterrorism initiatives have provoked an outcry from members of Congress, watchdog groups, immigrants and others who argue that the measures erode protections for civil liberties and intrude on Americans' privacy. Opponents have challenged provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the focus of contentious debate on Capitol Hill this week, that expand domestic surveillance by giving the Federal Bureau of Investigation more power to collect information like library lending lists or Internet use. Military and F.B.I. officials have drawn criticism for monitoring what were largely peaceful antiwar protests. The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security were forced to retreat on plans to use public and private databases to hunt for possible terrorists. And last year, the Supreme Court rejected the administration's claim that those labeled "enemy combatants" were not entitled to judicial review of their open-ended detention. Mr. Bush's executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States ­ including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners ­ is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the N.S.A. operation. The National Security Agency, which is based at Fort Meade, Md., is the nation's largest and most secretive intelligence agency, so intent on remaining out of public view that it has long been nicknamed "No Such Agency.'' It breaks codes and maintains listening posts around the world to eavesdrop on foreign governments, diplomats and trade negotiators as well as drug lords and terrorists. But the agency ordinarily operates under tight restrictions on any spying on Americans, even if they are overseas, or disseminating information about them. What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, the officials said. In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said. Under the agency's longstanding rules, the N.S.A. can target for interception phone calls or e-mail messages on foreign soil, even if the recipients of those communications are in the United States. Usually, though, the government can only target phones and e-mail messages in this country by first obtaining a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which holds its closed sessions at the Justice Department. Traditionally, the F.B.I., not the N.S.A., seeks such warrants and conducts most domestic eavesdropping. Until the new program began, the N.S.A. typically limited its domestic surveillance to foreign embassies and missions in Washington, New York and other cities, and obtained court orders to do so. Since 2002, the agency has been conducting some warrantless eavesdropping on people in the United States who are linked, even if indirectly, to suspected terrorists through the chain of phone numbers and e-mail addresses, according to several officials who know of the operation. Under the special program, the agency monitors their international communications, the officials said. The agency, for example, can target phone calls from someone in New York to someone in Afghanistan. Warrants are still required for eavesdropping on entirely domestic-to-domestic communications, those officials say, meaning that calls from that New Yorker to someone in California could not be monitored without first going to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court."

12/16/2005 7:00:04 PM

slavery is freedom

12/16/2005 7:01:02 PM

Quote :

"A White House Briefing After the special program started, Congressional leaders from both political parties were brought to Vice President Dick Cheney's office in the White House. The leaders, who included the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, learned of the N.S.A. operation from Mr. Cheney, Gen. Michael V. Hayden of the Air Force, who was then the agency's director and is now the principal deputy director of national intelligence, and George J. Tenet, then the director of the C.I.A., officials said. It is not clear how much the members of Congress were told about the presidential order and the eavesdropping program. Some of them declined to comment about the matter, while others did not return phone calls. Later briefings were held for members of Congress as they assumed leadership roles on the intelligence committees, officials familiar with the program said. After a 2003 briefing, Senator Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who became vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee that year, wrote a letter to Mr. Cheney expressing concerns about the program, officials knowledgeable about the letter said. It could not be determined if he received a reply. Mr. Rockefeller declined to comment. Aside from the Congressional leaders, only a small group of people, including several cabinet members and officials at the N.S.A., the C.I.A. and the Justice Department, know of the program. Some officials familiar with it say they consider warrantless eavesdropping inside the United States to be unlawful and possibly unconstitutional, amounting to an improper search. One government official involved in the operation said he privately complained to a Congressional official about his doubts about the legality of the program. But nothing came of his inquiry. "People just looked the other way because they didn't want to know what was going on," he said. A senior government official recalled that he was taken aback when he first learned of the operation. "My first reaction was, ‘We're doing what?' " he said. While he said he eventually felt that adequate safeguards were put in place, he added that questions about the program's legitimacy were understandable. Some of those who object to the operation argue that is unnecessary. By getting warrants through the foreign intelligence court, the N.S.A. and F.B.I. could eavesdrop on people inside the United States who might be tied to terrorist groups without skirting longstanding rules, they say. The standard of proof required to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is generally considered lower than that required for a criminal warrant ­ intelligence officials only have to show probable cause that someone may be "an agent of a foreign power," which includes international terrorist groups ­ and the secret court has turned down only a small number of requests over the years. In 2004, according to the Justice Department, 1,754 warrants were approved. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can grant emergency approval for wiretaps within hours, officials say. Administration officials counter that they sometimes need to move more urgently, the officials said. Those involved in the program also said that the N.S.A.'s eavesdroppers might need to start monitoring large batches of numbers all at once, and that it would be impractical to seek permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court first, according to the officials."

12/16/2005 7:01:23 PM

Sorry for the triple(?) post, but that character limit's a bitch. Continued:

Quote :

"The Civil Liberties Question Several national security officials say the powers granted the N.S.A. by President Bush go far beyond the expanded counterterrorism powers granted by Congress under the USA Patriot Act, which is up for renewal. The House on Wednesday approved a plan to reauthorize crucial parts of the law. But final passage has been delayed under the threat of a Senate filibuster because of concerns from both parties over possible intrusions on Americans' civil liberties and privacy. Under the act, law enforcement and intelligence officials are still required to seek a F.I.S.A. warrant every time they want to eavesdrop within the United States. A recent agreement reached by Republican leaders and the Bush administration would modify the standard for F.B.I. wiretap warrants, requiring, for instance, a description of a specific target. Critics say the bar would remain too low to prevent abuses. Bush administration officials argue that the civil liberties concerns are unfounded, and they say pointedly that the Patriot Act has not freed the N.S.A. to target Americans. "Nothing could be further from the truth," wrote John Yoo, a former official in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and his co-author in a Wall Street Journal opinion article in December 2003. Mr. Yoo worked on a classified legal opinion on the N.S.A.'s domestic eavesdropping program. At an April hearing on the Patriot Act renewal, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, asked Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., "Can the National Security Agency, the great electronic snooper, spy on the American people?" "Generally," Mr. Mueller said, "I would say generally, they are not allowed to spy or to gather information on American citizens." President Bush did not ask Congress to include provisions for the N.S.A. domestic surveillance program as part of the Patriot Act and has not sought any other laws to authorize the operation. Bush administration lawyers argued that such new laws were unnecessary, because they believed that the Congressional resolution on the campaign against terrorism provided ample authorization, officials said. Seeking Congressional approval was also viewed as politically risky because the proposal would be certain to face intense opposition on civil liberties grounds. The administration also feared that by publicly disclosing the existence of the operation, its usefulness in tracking terrorists would end, officials said. The legal opinions that support the N.S.A. operation remain classified, but they appear to have followed private discussions among senior administration lawyers and other officials about the need to pursue aggressive strategies that once may have been seen as crossing a legal line, according to senior officials who participated in the discussions. For example, just days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Mr. Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer, wrote an internal memorandum that argued that the government might use "electronic surveillance techniques and equipment that are more powerful and sophisticated than those available to law enforcement agencies in order to intercept telephonic communications and observe the movement of persons but without obtaining warrants for such uses." Mr. Yoo noted that while such actions could raise constitutional issues, in the face of devastating terrorist attacks "the government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties." The next year, Justice Department lawyers disclosed their thinking on the issue of warrantless wiretaps in national security cases in a little-noticed brief in an unrelated court case. In that 2002 brief, the government said that "the Constitution vests in the President inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional authority." Administration officials were also encouraged by a November 2002 appeals court decision in an unrelated matter. The decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which sided with the administration in dismantling a bureaucratic "wall" limiting cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence officers, noted "the president's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance." But the same court suggested that national security interests should not be grounds "to jettison the Fourth Amendment requirements" protecting the rights of Americans against undue searches. The dividing line, the court acknowledged, "is a very difficult one to administer.""

I've emailed the following to Richard Burr, Elizabeth Dole, and David Price:

Quote :

"I've recently been shocked and appalled by the news that our president has authorized the NSA to conduct illegal wiretaps on citizens of this country without court approval, and am astounded that he has 'no comment' on the matter. Bush's order is arguably unconstitutional as well: it seems to violate the fourth amendment, and it certainly violates the requirement (Article II, sec. 3) that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." I am curious about your views on this matter. As your constituent, I would appreciate an articulate answer to the following questions: 1. Does the president have unlimited power in a time of war, particularly an undeclared one? 2. Do you believe the government has a right to spy on its citizens with no regulating oversight? 3. Do you support a full and open Congressional investigation into the executive branch's authorization of spying on American citizens? Thank you for your time, and your attention to this important matter."

I will absolutely post any reply I receive from any of their offices.

[Edited on December 16, 2005 at 7:02 PM. Reason : ...]

12/16/2005 7:02:12 PM

You realize this is the same thing MathFreak posted in the other thread right?

12/16/2005 7:10:40 PM

1. "what does your news story have anything at all to do with the Patriot Act?"
2. Thread title.
3. My thread actually has the report, which won't be available forever.

[Edited on December 16, 2005 at 7:15 PM. Reason : You know me...the single sourcer.]

12/16/2005 7:14:15 PM

Touché on all 3 counts. Carry on.

12/16/2005 7:19:58 PM

Convenient how the NYT released a story THREE YEARS OLD the day after (and thus, biggest news day) the Iraqi elections.

But of course the media isn't biased.

btw, I heard Saddam's sons are dead and we caught Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

12/16/2005 10:41:30 PM

you just discredited the entire thing.

good work, sir

12/16/2005 11:05:07 PM

Nice rebuttal of the facts, kdawg(c). Your deductive prowess is an inspiration to us all.

12/16/2005 11:46:23 PM

This seems to have more to do with the Patriot Act being up for review, than trying to take the spotlight away from the Iraqi elections.

12/17/2005 1:05:33 AM

Timing is everything.

12/17/2005 1:08:09 AM

Quote :

"The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices"

bullshit they've been spying on us for years

12/17/2005 1:43:58 AM

Sounds to me like someone has violated his oath of office.

12/17/2005 1:51:58 AM

thanks to the media were gonna get attacked again. everything the government is doing to catch terrorirists red handed is blurted out by the media like this. then sotries like "o well a seaport could be attacked by terrorists so easily, all they have to do is blah blah and they can destroy a whole us city"

12/17/2005 2:20:31 AM

because the government tells us everything

12/17/2005 2:21:50 AM

ya know what kills this story?? THE FACT THAT THIS WAS NOT A SECRET!!

at the very least Rockafeller knew about it...the special court knew about it....the judge knew about it...if rockafeller knew about it then other senators probably did too...

"the official said the administration had briefed congressional leaders about the program about the program and notified the judge in charge of the foreign intelligence surveilence court"

all these people knew about it....the story said it was a secret and it was NOT...there was nothing secret about it....that coupled with the fact that its 3 years old and the FACT that its release being timed to hype up the release of a book....make this story a pile of garbage

12/17/2005 8:19:11 AM

^If anything the story is being brought up now because of it's effect on the Senate vote to re-up the Patriot Act.

In fact, its a major reason why the act did not get renewed yesterday.

12/17/2005 8:30:37 AM

Quote :

"This seems to have more to do with the Patriot Act being up for review, than trying to take the spotlight away from the Iraqi elections."

Wow...I'm surprised that some people are so brain-washed to believe it was coincidence. Kind of like the day Judge Alito was nominated as a candidate to repleace Justice O'Conner happened to be the same day Harry Reid called a closed-door session of the US Senate. And like Clinton attacking Iraq the day his impeachment trial began.

But let's not talk about Clinton attacking Iraq. That opens up an entire can of worms a lot of people can't deal with.

12/17/2005 9:37:31 AM

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=fundLaunches&storyID=2005-12-17T152926Z_01_MOL748915_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-NSA.xml



The real question is, why not just do it legally?

They must have been doing something so shady they didnt want a judge to hear about it.

[Edited on December 17, 2005 at 10:43 AM. Reason : =]

12/17/2005 10:43:01 AM

Quote :

"Wow...I'm surprised that some people are so brain-washed to believe it was coincidence"

hahahahha

12/17/2005 3:13:35 PM

Quote :

"Convenient how the NYT released a story THREE YEARS OLD the day after (and thus, biggest news day) the Iraqi elections. But of course the media isn't biased "

Well, if they were so biased on a 3 year old story, then you would think that a few days before our election would have been more appropriate.

12/17/2005 4:23:32 PM

^ FTW.

12/19/2005 12:57:47 PM

^
It would be ftw, except you have to realize they can't waste all their ammo at once -- they've gotta make it last for maximum benefit. The NYT was already doing Kerry's heavy lifting for the entire campaign season, how were they supposed to know he'd run such a profoundly incompetent campaign that it wouldn't do any good?

12/19/2005 1:19:13 PM

Quote :

" But let's not talk about Clinton attacking Iraq. That opens up an entire can of worms a lot of people can't deal with."

who is it, exactly, that can't deal with clinton attacking iraq? i certainly can. clinton was as corrupt an asshole as most other presidents

12/19/2005 1:27:48 PM

This whole "spying" thing isn't a big damn deal, I don't know why everyone is so worried. He briefed senior members of congress before authorizing it and just in case you extreme liberals don't know this, he also restricted the conditions of usage to include:

1) One of the members of the call has to be located outside of the United States
2) Said member must be suspected to have ties to Al Qaeda

They aren't using this to listen to you invite people to a kegger with underage drinking.

12/19/2005 1:51:38 PM

^^^Your analogy is the equivalent of saying "It's best to save some of your ammo so that you have some bullets left for after your opponent has already shot you and run away." I seriously doubt that anyone would say "this bit of news is great, but it's best to save it for the middle of a non-election year when it doesn't matter" if they were truly biased. "Maximum benefit" would be using it, along with whatever else they have, just before an election so as to affect public opinion in productive way.

[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 1:53 PM. Reason : extra ^]

12/19/2005 1:52:39 PM

^
Except the issue isn't to affect public opinion exclusively. It's to affect public opinion -- which they could only have done so much in an election year before being accused of politicizing, compared to now when the President's poll ratings suck -- but more importantly to make $texas off of book sales (which have the potential to affect public opinion far more than a newspaper story).

This is all just typical left-wing giddiness over the prospect of impeaching Bush. It's the failed endgame of a process that's been in the works for at least a year now...

[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 2:04 PM. Reason : ---]

12/19/2005 2:03:49 PM

So your saying that the NYT waited until now to release this story because they felt like it would increase their booksales the most? Are you surethat's the argument you wanna go with?

12/19/2005 2:15:48 PM

Your reading comprehension abilities are about as good as MathFreak's. gg.

12/19/2005 2:19:32 PM

Quote :

"which they could only have done so much in an election year before being accused of politicizing"

Did you say before being accused of politicizing? Are you implying that there's been a time within the last 5 years that the Times wasn't actually being accused of politicizing by the "OMF T3H MEDIA" crowd?

Quote :

"(which have the potential to affect public opinion far more than a newspaper story)."

According to whom/what? It wasn't a book promotion that brought down Nixon, after all.

If Against All Enemies, The Price of Loyalty, Bushworld, The Bush Dynasty, et. al. didn't affect public opinion enough to swing an election, what makes you think the Times anticipates this new book will affect public opinion?

Further, what purpose would affecting public opinion serve in this case? A proxy attack on the GOP's chances in the midterms? I'd say that's unlikely. There's plenty of direct fodder already available for that in the form of individual Congressman and Senator profiles.

If this story was released in October 2004, it would probably have buried Bush. If that was the Times' intention, they would've done it then.

Quote :

"This is all just typical left-wing giddiness over the prospect of impeaching Bush."

Call it what you want, but I find it a hell of a lot less frightening than right-wing giddiness of the consolidation of power going on in the executive branch. This is another step in the direction of fascism.

12/19/2005 2:33:25 PM

I really don't understand why Kdawg and Co bring random, irrelevant facts into these arguments anymore. Who cares how liberal the NYT is and how Conservative Fox news is? Does that change the fact that the governemtn thinks its perfectly reasonable to spy on American Citizens?

12/19/2005 2:33:46 PM

^^

Quote :

"Gamecat: Did you say before being accused of politicizing? Are you implying that there's been a time within the last 5 years that the Times wasn't actually being accused of politicizing by the "OMF T3H MEDIA" crowd?"

I'm not talking about the "OMF T3H M3D1A!!1" crowd, I'm talking about the public at large. For better or worse, fringe left-wing rags like the New York Times still have some limited credibility with average voters. No different than CBS.

---

Quote :

"Gamecat: According to whom/what? It wasn't a book promotion that brought down Nixon, after all."

That's also b/c the publishing industry 20 years ago is nothing like it is today. There are plenty of studies being published by different political scientists indicating books hold a greater influence than newspapers -- I mean Kerry himself still bitches about Unfit for Command.

---

Quote :

"Gamecat: If Against All Enemies, The Price of Loyalty, Bushworld, The Bush Dynasty, et. al. didn't affect public opinion enough to swing an election, what makes you think the Times anticipates this new book will affect public opinion?"

1) You're switching the issue mid-stream. No one said the NYT expect all those books to "swing an election" -- far different from saying they had no influence at all.

2) The country fundamentally likes Bush as a person. So his personal honesty / trustworthiness ratings were a far better buffer in 2004 than they have been post-Katrina.

3) Have you actually read those books? The overwhelming majority of them suck, regardless of your political views

The quality of kook fringe liberal writing has gone downhill the past several years now.

---

Quote :

"Gamecat: Further, what purpose would affecting public opinion serve in this case? A proxy attack on the GOP's chances in the midterms? I'd say that's unlikely. There's plenty of direct fodder already available for that in the form of individual Congressman and Senator profiles."

It's all about taking out W a la Nixon, you said it yourself a few paragraphs up. You know this. If it hurts the GOP in the midterms, all the better.

---

Quote :

"Gamecat: If this story was released in October 2004, it would probably have buried Bush. If that was the Times' intention, they would've done it then."

Not likely, especially with all the other issues the papers were trying to throw up in that last month. It either would have gotten ignored amid everything else, or backfired entirely.

---

Quote :

"Gamecat: Call it what you want, but I find it a hell of a lot less frightening than right-wing giddiness of the consolidation of power going on in the executive branch. This is another step in the direction of fascism."

I love this "consolidation of executive power" argument from the party that brought us such luminaries as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Carry on

[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 2:47 PM. Reason : ---]

12/19/2005 2:44:58 PM

Cute dodge.

12/19/2005 2:47:06 PM

hahaha spoken like someone doesn't like certain truths

12/19/2005 2:47:50 PM

Perhaps you can tell me why you want Bush to follow in the mold of FDR?

12/19/2005 2:48:22 PM

Quote :

"For better or worse, fringe left-wing rags"

i suppose that's the cue for anyone with any sense to know you're fucking around?

12/19/2005 2:50:23 PM

Quote :

"Not likely, especially with all the other issues the papers were trying to throw up in that last month. It either would have gotten ignored amid everything else, or backfired entirely. "

so, if this couldnt have affected bush duing an ELECTION year, WHY, again, are you so pissed at the NYT now?

[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 2:51 PM. Reason : .]

12/19/2005 2:51:28 PM

^

Quote :

"jwb9984: so, if this couldnt have affected bush duing an ELECTION year, WHY, again, are you so pissed at the NYT now?"

And where, exactly, did I give any indication that I'm "pissed at the NYT"? I think this whole thing is funny, I enjoy it. I admire teh L3ft and their efforts, especially how pissed they'll be when their best efforts go nowhere.

---

Quote :

"Gamecat: Perhaps you can tell me why you want Bush to follow in the mold of FDR?"

Because I'm a neocon and actually like FDR. The issue isn't why I approve of Bush, it's chuckling at the hypocrisy of all the flaming leftists up in arms over the same consolidation of executive authority that they've championed since before my grandparents were born...


[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 2:54 PM. Reason : ---]

12/19/2005 2:52:36 PM

Quote :

"There are plenty of studies being published by different political scientists indicating books hold a greater influence than newspapers"

Do any of them have names? Or are you using anonymous sources?

Quote :

"I mean Kerry himself still bitches about Unfit for Command"

Slander pisses off liberals, too. Nothing shocking here.

Quote :

"No one said the NYT expect all those books to "swing an election""

No one said the NYT expected all those books to swing an election either.

Quote :

"Have you actually read those books?"

I've read Against All Enemies, which I didn't think sucked at all, and I haven't seen you or anyone else fairly refute. But go ahead and launch into the trademarked diatribe about Clarke's "out of the loop"ness or his self-promotion. Somebody might not have heard it before.

Quote :

"The quality of kook fringe liberal writing has gone downhill the past several years now."

...as you've grown progressively more conservative. Somehow, I doubt the two are unrelated.

Quote :

"It either would have gotten ignored amid everything else, or backfired entirely."

Can I borrow your crystal ball sometime?

Quote :

"especially how pissed they'll be when their best efforts go nowhere."

Can't wait till November '06. We've got to save this quote.

Quote :

"The issue isn't why I approve of Bush, it's chuckling at the hypocrisy of all the flaming leftists up in arms over the same consolidation of executive authority that they've championed since before my grandparents were born..."

You've still yet to explain what makes the consolidation of power in the executive branch, particularly in this manner, a good thing.

12/19/2005 3:04:05 PM

Quote :

"President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials."

now, "i'm not a lawyer, tim," but tgd posted a link to the statute that they supposedly followed "within the law," and it says this
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/50/chapters/36/subchapters/i/sections/section_1802.html

Quote :

" (a)(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that - (A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at - (i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or (ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; (B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party"

12/19/2005 3:11:03 PM

OMF DirtyGreek

YOU'RE NO CONSITUTIONAL SCHOLAR

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE READING COMPREHENSION NECESSARY TO INTERPRET THAT STATEMENT???

12/19/2005 3:19:12 PM

I know

It's like the bible. Right when you think you know what Jesus meant, the preacher tells you that when he said "turn the other cheek," he was NOT advocating pacifism and that overturning the monechanging tables in the temple proves that he wasn't a pacifist.

I wish I wasn't so stupid.

12/19/2005 3:22:30 PM

haha

12/19/2005 4:43:12 PM

^^
that would be cute DG, except the statute also includes definitions for foreign powers, agents of foreign powers, United States persons, etc.

and as you might suspect, conspirators against the United States, agents of foreign powers and the like don't qualify as United States persons under those statutory definitions...

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Quote :

"Gamecat: Do any of them have names? Or are you using anonymous sources?"

I'm sure they do, I just don't have the interest to go dig them up. I read something in the paper then file it away in my brain for future recollection. I don't jot down every specific detail for a TWW debate with an enraged lib

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Quote :

"Gamecat: Slander pisses off liberals, too. Nothing shocking here."

And do you think it would have pissed him off nearly as much had it not been so influential? I mean do either Kerry or Bush get pissed at salisburyboy?

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Quote :

"Gamecat: I've read Against All Enemies, which I didn't think sucked at all, and I haven't seen you or anyone else fairly refute. But go ahead and launch into the trademarked diatribe about Clarke's "out of the loop"ness or his self-promotion. Somebody might not have heard it before."

oh I wasn't going to comment on his "out of the loop"-ness, but you can't tell me the hubris and perpetual self-aggrandizement aren't more than a little nauseating...

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Quote :

"Gamecat: ...as you've grown progressively more conservative. Somehow, I doubt the two are unrelated."

Actually I've grown far more liberal over the time you've known me, but you knew this already.

The fact is, talking objectively, the overwhelming bulk of modern liberal writing is shit. Conservative writing might not be much better, but liberal writing is still shit. Period.

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Quote :

"Gamecat: Can I borrow your crystal ball sometime?"

It looks like you've already got your own, with the "This would probably have sunk Bush" commentary. Did you break it? Or is this just part of your typical left-wing m.o., have plenty of your own already but insist on taking everything away from the conservatives too out of spite?

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Quote :

"Gamecat: Can't wait till November '06. We've got to save this quote."

Agreed

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Quote :

"Gamecat: You've still yet to explain what makes the consolidation of power in the executive branch, particularly in this manner, a good thing."

And you've still yet to explain why the same consolidation you people have been championing for decades is now a bad thing. The difference is you're the one making the assertion, so the burden is on you.


[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 5:19 PM. Reason : ---]

12/19/2005 5:16:28 PM

Quote :

"TGD: oh I wasn't going to comment on his "out of the loop"-ness, but you can't tell me the hubris and perpetual self-aggrandizement aren't more than a little nauseating... "

As if on cue. Thanks. By the way,

Quote :

"I haven't seen you or anyone else fairly refute."

Quote :

"TGD: It looks like you've already got your own, with the "This would probably have sunk Bush" commentary."

Probably would have... != It either would have ... or ...

ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER? DO YOU SPEAK IT?

Quote :

"TGD: And you've still yet to explain why the same consolidation you people have been championing for decades is now a bad thing."

A couple questions, if you don't mind:

1) Who the fuck is this "you people" you're always referring to and including me with?
2) When have I championed government consolidation?

Just curious.

As for your challenge, it should be pretty easy to figure out, if not self-evident to anyone not being a contrarian douchebag, that the problem is the diminishing of the system of checks and balances. The president isn't a dictator, and isn't permitted to circumvent the Constitutionally protected check of the judiciary--or Congress for that matter.

Quote :

"Q If FISA didn't work, why didn't you seek a new statute that allowed something like this legally? ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: That question was asked earlier. We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program."

And don't give me the standard "OMF WHAT IF WE NEED A WARRANT AT 3AM ON CHRISTMAS DAY" line of shit. Warrants can be given retroactively up to 72 hours after the fact.

[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 5:49 PM. Reason : ...]

12/19/2005 5:35:12 PM

[Sorry for the double post, but new information has surfaced before anyone replied.]

The plot thickens:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10536559/site/newsweek/

Quote :

"Bush’s Snoopgate The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security. Dec. 19, 2005 - Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate—he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda—but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation. The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that “the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab. No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism. What is especially perplexing about this story is that the 1978 law set up a special court to approve eavesdropping in hours, even minutes, if necessary. In fact, the law allows the government to eavesdrop on its own, then retroactively justify it to the court, essentially obtaining a warrant after the fact. Since 1979, the FISA court has approved tens of thousands of eavesdropping requests and rejected only four. There was no indication the existing system was slow—as the president seemed to claim in his press conference—or in any way required extra-constitutional action. This will all play out eventually in congressional committees and in the United States Supreme Court. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974. In the meantime, it is unlikely that Bush will echo President Kennedy in 1961. After JFK managed to tone down a New York Times story by Tad Szulc on the Bay of Pigs invasion, he confided to Times editor Turner Catledge that he wished the paper had printed the whole story because it might have spared him such a stunning defeat in Cuba. This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason—and less out of genuine concern about national security—that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story."

12/19/2005 6:55:46 PM

This bolding phrases in the articles smacks of salisburyboy-ism. How can I trust you're not bolding out of context?

12/19/2005 6:57:06 PM

I dunno, by reading the whole fucking article?

12/19/2005 7:02:18 PM

That's something Salisburyboy would say too.

12/19/2005 7:05:04 PM