Bush vows more eavesdropping 13 minutes ago

President George W. Bush vowed on Monday to authorize more eavesdropping on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists and said he believed a probe was underway into who committed "the shameful act" of revealing the covert program.

Bush, struggling with low approval ratings and wide public discontent with the rising U.S. death toll, also defended his decision to invade Iraq, saying "it wasn't a mistake."

At a year-end White House news conference he faced a barrage of questions about his decision to authorize eavesdropping on international telephone and other communication by Americans suspected of links to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

"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.

Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers have backed plans by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, to hold a hearing on the issue. Many have questioned whether spying on Americans violates the U.S. Constitution.

The spying program, under which the National Security Agency was given the authority to intercept the communications without court approval, was first disclosed by the New York Times last Friday. A 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without court approval.

"There's a process that goes on inside the Justice Department about leaks. I presume that process is moving forward," Bush said. "My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war."

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said earlier on Monday the U.S. Congress' authorization of military force after the September 11, 2001, attacks also gave Bush the right to order the eavesdropping.

Bush said the program had been effective in disrupting terrorist acts, but gave no details.

"I've reauthorized this program more than 30 times since September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill our American citizens," he declared.

Bush noted that he had sworn to uphold the law. "Do I have the legal authority to do this? The answer is "absolutely"."

On Iraq, Bush pointed to the country's election last Thursday as a sign of progress in the war, which is costing taxpayers $6 billion a month and in which more than 2,100 U.S. troops have died.

"It wasn't a mistake to go into Iraq," he said. "It was the right decision to make. I think that there's going to be a lot of analysis done on the decisions made on the ground in Iraq ... History will judge."




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Interesting theory about BushCo's domestic spying.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/12/di...py-program.html

this word absolutely scares me.


As they did Hitler, Napoleon or possibly Nero?

Bush has stated before that he's not worried about what people think of him now...and that he will be vindicated at some future date....does this not sound like the ranting of history's megalomaniacal and overly ambitious men who felt they were called to some great destiny? This is also scary to me.

I think that the comparison with Hitler is a bit over the top (even though I know you didn't mean it in any broad-brush sense). However, comparing Bush to Nero and Napolean may not be too far off the mark.

No I didn't Arne you are correct...there could be various comparisons made with each man.....but not exclusively.......I was speaking about their Grandiose ambition...a sort of "divine calling "or mission......

Interesting article about the possibility of spying on American Journalists. It also occurs to me that they may be spying on Political Opponents! This would also explain why he does not want anymore revealed! He had the FISA retroactive 72 hour warrant provision so he is lying about the need for speed. If he IS lying, then IMO he is covering up criminal activity.

He will cover this up by declaring Executive Privilege, and National Security of course.

Many of the well known leaders in history felt they were called to some great destiny. Alexander, Julius Caeser, Jesus, and Churchill come to mind. Not all of them are bad people.

Correct.......it may be dependent on their intention and their state of mind.....

History judges Napoleon differently than Jesus

I think that some leaders weren't bad people, but started trains of events leading to immense damage because of flawed ideologies and misplaced confidence in their own abilities. One person who comes to mind is Lenin. As far as your examples go, I think that the legacies of the first two are a bit ambiguous (Alexander probably has the better case), the third was a religious leader who never aspired to political power (at least not as it is commonly understood), and the fourth basically did not dare transcend the political framework and traditions which had restrained poltical leaders in his country for centuries.

If the writtings in the New Testament are considered to be accurate, then Jesus had the ultimate God complex. It was his destiny to provide a means for all of mankind to save themselves from eternal damnation. I don't think Stalin, Hitler, Alexander or Napoleon ever aspired to accomplish that.

Good point Rou...in fact when Senator Feingold took the floor he stated " every Senator and all Americans should be concerned about this (in so many words)

But Alexander was killed, and Julius Caesar was assasinated, both for being over-ambitious. Jesus was of a humble stock. Churchill wrote (ah, he was a man who read Churchill absorbed the whole of Gibbon and Macaulay, and much of Darwin), and he was a man both charming, ebullient, and endearing, and as he had been quoted to say "live happily ever afterwards" about his happy married life.

I think I'd agree Desron.....first of all some scholars do consider Jesus a political figure but his was mostly a divine mission...and as to the others their ambition was for the most part a temporal or worldly ambition......although with Napoleon you may still have the "divine right of kings" that historically passed through the monarchies. Such as when he crowned himself emperor.

Alexander, Ceasar, Genghis Khan, Attila, and Napoleon (etc.) were all conquerers. Their self proclaimed Privilege (divine or otherwise) were likely nothing more than an attempt to veil their Lust for Power!

However, in ancient times, perhaps you either conquered your neighbors, or they conquered you. It has been said it was and is the "nature" of Man. However, if we go back far enough (to Mesopotamia) we find that it is written that the "Gods" determined Man's nature. If that is true, who then IS responsible for Man's violent history?

But His earthly mission wasn't meant to establish a political kingdom, as many expected of the Messiah. He spoke of coming back to establish such a kingdom.

Of course those of us who are Christians really do think He was God, that it wasn't just a complex. But however different people want to regard Jesus, I think that we should look at his mission and life in terms of what He actually said and did, and unlike the others who you mentioned, He did not become a political leader (at least not in any conventional sense).

Well it would depend on one's perspective. If you are more inclined to follow a religious tract then you'd either blame the "Gods" or concede that they are imperfect....(and forgive them)

If you are more inclined to follow a more scientific or natural tract..then you would recognize that the world of nature (including man) is both chaotic and harmonious.
and that violence exists in all species.

Yes, because of the "conquer or be conquered" reality we should not be too quick to condemn all conquerers equally, although we don't have to endorse conquest as a good thing, even for those times. And different conquests had different impacts, with different mixtures of the positive and negative.

All great men are conquerers of sorts. Some do it by force of arms. Others do it by persuasion or politcal dealings. Maybe all use every method to some extent or another. Hitler did not get control of Germany by conquering it in a military sense altough he did make liberal use of the brutal SA when he needed it and which he later destroyed in order to win the favor of the regular military high command.

I believe that the Greatest Conqueror is one who can conquer against Satan's temptations. The rest will only turn to dust when they die, like everyone else!

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/2003/crime.htm

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051219/license_to_spy.php

License To Spy
Aziz Huq
December 19, 2005


Aziz Huq is associate counsel in the Liberty and National Security project of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. He is co-writing with Fritz Schwarz a book on the separation of powers and national security to be published by the New Press in late 2006.

Mr. President, it is time to have checks and balances in this country.” So spoke Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, as he filibustered reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act’s surveillance provisions. It was The New York Times’ revelation that the National Security Agency, or NSA, was eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mails far beyond its long-standing watch on foreign entities that so provoked Sen. Leahy.

But the PATRIOT Act doesn’t address the NSA. To grapple with that agency, Congress needs a page of history and a lesson in law. For this is not the first time the NSA has been caught casting so wide a net. In 1976, a Senate inquiry into intelligence overreaching led by Sen. Frank Church exposed secret NSA spying on Americans and prompted Congress to impose new rules. But NSA’s domestic spying program today violates those rules, repeating the abuses and wasteful overreaching of the Cold War era. To respond to the most recent bout of domestic spying, Congress' first task should be to understand how and why laws were circumvented.

From the early 1960s until 1973, the Church Committee found, the NSA “compiled a list of individuals and organizations, including 1,200 American citizens and domestic groups, whose communications were segregated,” transcribed and the disseminated within the intelligence community. Among the missives the Church Committee found in Cold War NSA files were discussions about a peace concert, an anti-war activist’s request for a speaker in New York and a newspaper correspondent’s report from Southeast Asia to his magazine in New York. The NSA also examined vast numbers of telegrams. Despite the scale and intrusiveness of these efforts, the intercepts had “little intelligence value."’ Most were personal or private in nature.

The Church Committee’s disclosures, fiercely resisted by the Ford administration and Attorney General Edward Levi, prompted significant statutory reforms. In 1978, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the product of two years’ intense debate. Known as FISA, the act established a secretive foreign intelligence court, staffed by federal judges, to authorize intelligence-related warrants. The NSA today, however, bypassed even the FISA court, which imposes only a minimal check. But why?

The Church Committee highlighted the pivotal role of legal guidelines and opinions for sound intelligence operations. Noting that Congress hadn’t given the NSA a statutory charter, the committee argued that the NSA’s methods and goals passed without meaningful debate. Today, the NSA’s mandate is still embodied in an executive order, not a law. Moreover, the NSA’s domestic eavesdropping was authorized by secret presidential order. The president uses these secretive laws to order and implement many controversial intelligence programs, such as “extraordinary renditions,” whereby terrorism suspects are transferred to other nations’ custody for coercive interrogation and even torture.

This legal vacuum had two important consequences. First, the Church Committee found that an agency without a legal mandate easily becomes an agency operating beyond the law. The NSA, concluded Church, had simply “not applied at all” the legal standards and procedures for electronic surveillance. Other agencies, including the FBI, simply failed to look into the legality of their actions.

Today, things are worse. Rather than ignoring the law, the Administration takes the view that the law doesn’t apply to it. According to The New York Times , the NSA’s domestic surveillance program is underwritten by analysis from the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice. OLC has concluded that constitutional rights do not count when the president deals with those he decides are “terrorists.” This weekend, the president defended this version of executive power as necessary. But this theory of untrammeled presidential authority has the perverse effect of turning constraints on executive action—such as the law that presidents must authorize covert operations—into licenses for mischief. And the same theory, invoked by the same lawyer, justified the unreasonably narrow definition of torture that led to public outrage and Sen. John McCain’s anti-abuse amendment.

Justifying the NSA’s spying as necessary, the Bush administration points to a need to “move quickly” in eavesdropping. But FISA already contains an exception for emergencies that allows the attorney general to authorize foreign intelligence surveillance for up to 72 hours without judicial approval. Also, it is unclear how news of the NSA’s program “alerts our enemies,” as president argued: FISA allows the same surveillance to be conducted under the rule of law.

The second consequence of the legal vacuum that Church identified is this: Absent clear statutory guidance, an agency’s mission expands through carelessness and excessive zeal. James Bamford recounts how one NSA fishing expedition, “Operation SHAMROCK,” was managed by one lower-level manager “without a great deal of attention from anyone.” Simply because a low-level functionary developed a program without oversight or management, millions of private communications thus were examined by the government.

Without clear boundaries, NSA’s Cold War mission crept beyond its intelligence mandate. In 1970, it began monitoring communications at the behest of narcotics enforcement agencies. Indeed, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs gave the NSA 450 names for its Watch List that year. Techniques dubious even in the intelligence context found application in the ordinary criminal context, where they were clearly unconstitutional. Recent revelations in The Washington Post about the military’s Counterintelligence Field Activity hint that today’s intelligence activities may have spilled over legitimate limits. And in a remarkable echo of the NSA’s Cold War spying, a recent bill proposed by Reps. Sensenbrenner and King would allow criminal gangs to be designated as illegal in the way terrorist organizations already are.

The words, “Just trust us,” do not appear in the United States Constitution. Congress should thus seize the opportunity of the pending Defense Authorization Bill to demand disclosure of the NSA’s legal justifications for its domestic spying. Demanding this disclosure is only the beginning of public debate on the proper functioning of our separation of powers in the realm of national security. Intelligence policymaking benefits from public debate—when officials must justify and explain their decisions.

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It does depend on ones perspective as to who or what is responsible for war. War, however, IS unique to Man, unless you would cite Army Ants. Animals can and do engage in violence, but as the mind of the creature becomes more complex, so do the reasons for any activity including violence. War (which is organized violence), engaged in by Mankind, is the result of as many and varied reasons as we can count, given our complexity.

However, given all that, I find it strange that Religions arose very early on that set people up to come into opposition with each other on the basis of Religion. There are of course many likely reasons for this, and it would make an interesting thread. But I will avoid it, as it's not on topic.

From Secrecy News: (posted in the National Security Thread and in National News)


UNAUTHORIZED DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE THREATENS RULE OF LAW

In an extraordinary move that undermines the legal foundation for
the conduct of intelligence activities, President Bush ordered the
National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance of U.S.
persons outside of the statutory framework that was established to
authorize such surveillance, the New York Times revealed last week.

Although the President insisted that his action was "consistent with
U.S. law and the Constitution," the surveillance operation was not
conducted in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act of 1978, the statute that permits domestic intelligence
surveillance with the approval of a specially designated federal
court.

"Domestic intelligence collection is governed by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA," explained Sen.
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a member of the Senate Intelligence and
Judiciary Committees. "FISA is the exclusive law in this area."

"We have changed aspects of that law at the request of the
administration in the USA PATRIOT Act to allow for a more
aggressive but still lawful defense against terror. So there have
been amendments," Sen. Feinstein noted.

But to conduct domestic intelligence surveillance outside of the
FISA framework "calls into question the integrity and credibility
of our Nation's commitment to the rule of law," she said December
16. See:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2005_cr/s121605.html

The FISA process is not unduly burdensome or time-consuming.
"Urgent requests that meet the criteria and requirements of FISA
are handled as emergency or expedited matters," said the Attorney
General in a written response to questions from the Senate
Judiciary Committee, transmitted October 20, 2005.

"The fact of the matter is, FISA can grant emergency approval for
wiretaps within hours and even minutes, if necessary," said Sen.
Feinstein.

In a 2000 statement describing oversight of NSA activities, then-NSA
Director Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden said "The American people must
be confident that the power they have entrusted to us is not being,
and will not be, abused."

NSA "operates within detailed, constitutionally-based, substantive,
and procedural limits under the watchful eyes of Congress, numerous
institutions within the Executive Branch, and -- through the FISA
-- the judiciary."

"The privacy framework is technology neutral and does not require
amendment to accommodate new communications technologies," he said.

"The regulatory and oversight structure, in place now for nearly a
quarter of a century, has ensured that the imperatives of national
security are balanced with democratic values," Gen. Hayden said then.
See:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2000_hr/hayden.html

Under mounting pressure, the Bush Administration has groped for some
legal justification for its departure from statutory requirements.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales proposed today that the 2001
congressional resolution authorizing the use of "all necessary and
appropriate force" against terrorists encompassed the right to
conduct domestic wiretapping.

But that resolution plainly pertains to the use of military force,
not intelligence collection.

Nor do the President's inherent authorities as commander in chief
extend without limitation to warrantless surveillance of Americans.

"A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it
comes to the rights of the nation's citizens," wrote Justice Sandra
Day O'Connor in a ruling last year on the legal rights of
detainees.

For background on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, see:

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/index.html

Bush defends program as essential antiterror tool, and asks nation to have patience on Iraq.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1219/dailyUpdate.html

Bush Vows Domestic Surveillance to Continue By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent


President Bush, brushing aside bipartisan criticism in Congress, said Monday he approved spying on suspected terrorists without court orders because it was "a necessary part of my job to protect" Americans from attack.

The president said he would continue the program "for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens," and added it included safeguards to protect civil liberties.

Bush bristled at a year-end news conference when asked whether there are any limits on presidential power in wartime.

"I just described limits on this particular program, and that's what's important for the American people to understand," Bush said.

Raising his voice, Bush challenged Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Democratic 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 go home and 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," Bush said.

Reid fired back quickly. "The president and the Republican leadership should stop playing politics with the Patriot Act," he said in a statement that added he and other Democrats favor a three-month extension of the expiring law to allow time for a long-term compromise.

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.

On another issue, Bush acknowledged that a pre-war failure of American intelligence — claiming that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction — has complicated the United States' ability to confront other potential emerging threats such as Iran.

"Where it is going to be most difficult to make the case is in the public arena," Bush said. "People will say, if we're trying to make the case on Iran, `Well, if the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we trust the intelligence on Iran?'"

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.

In opening news conference remarks, Bush said the warrantless spying, conducted by the National Security Agency, was an essential element in the war on terror.

"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.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats rejected Bush's rationale and said he had abused his authority.

"Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?" said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich.

Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., said, "We will not tolerate a president who believes that he is the sole decision-maker when it comes to the policies that this country should have in the war against terror and the policies we should have to protect the rights of completely innocent Americans."

"He is the president, not a king," Feingold said.

The existence of the program was disclosed last week, triggering 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 involved monitoring phone calls and e-mails of individuals in this country believed to be plotting with terrorists overseas.

Normally, no wiretapping is permitted in the United States without a court warrant. But 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," he added.

Domestic issues were scarcely mentioned during the news conference.

But at one point, Bush responded to criticism of his record on racial issues, exacerbated by the images of thousands of blacks stranded in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"One of the most hurtful things I can hear is, you know, Bush doesn't care about African-Americans," he said. "First of all, it's not true. And secondly, I am — I believe that — obviously, I've got to do a better job of communicating, I guess, to certain folks." He urged Congress to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and promised to sign it.

The session was dominated by national security issues — principally the newly disclosed spying program by the NSA.

Bush emphasized that only international calls were monitored without court order — those placed from within the United States and going overseas, or those placed from other countries to individuals living in this country.

He 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.



Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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I could cite recent studies on chimpanzees....but that's neither here nor there....I agree that humans as a specie are more complex and their brains more subject to emotional response as opposed to a more primitive defense mechanism used for survival.

Yes, that would make an interesting topic.

Excellent article Snuff.......again it raises the question "but Why?" did they not get legal authorization....one can only assume that the purpose of avoiding that authorization is that there was no good purpose for their spying.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 19, 2005
Bush Says U.S. Spy Program Is Legal and Essential
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - President Bush offered a vigorous and detailed defense of his previously secret electronic-surveillance program today, calling it a legal and essential tool in the battle against terrorism and saying that whoever disclosed it had committed a "shameful act."

Mr. Bush said the surveillance would continue, that it was being conducted under appropriate safeguards and that Congress had been kept informed about it. He rejected any suggestion that the surveillance program was symptomatic of unchecked power in the presidency.

The president also called on the Senate to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, whose government-surveillance powers Mr. Bush said were vital in keeping up with terrorist plots. Some of the very same lawmakers who criticized American intelligence agencies for failing to "connect the dots" before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are now blocking renewal of the Patriot Act, Mr. Bush said.

Surveillance dominated Mr. Bush's hourlong news conference at the White House, and Mr. Bush said he fully understood the concerns of some lawmakers that civil liberties might be infringed upon. But those concerns are simply not justified, the president said.

"Leaders in the United States Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this program," Mr. Bush said. "And it has been effective in disrupting the enemy while safeguarding our personal liberties. This program has targeted those with known links to Al Qaeda."

The program, which Mr. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to carry out, is consistent both with the Constitution and the laws of the United States, he said, and is reviewed every 45 days or so to prevent abuses. He said he assumed that the Justice Department would try to find out who had leaked details of the program.

"My personal opinion is, it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war," Mr. Bush said. "The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales also defended the program today. "Our position is that the authorization to use military force, which was passed by the Congress after Sept. 11, constitutes that authority," he said.

The surveillance of telephone calls and e-mail messages caused a furor when it was disclosed last week by The New York Times, because it has been conducted without warrants. But Mr. Bush noted that it has been used only to monitor communications between someone in the United States and someone else in another country - not to intercept calls between, say, Houston and Los Angeles.

But Mr. Bush said his administration would not hesitate to intercept purely domestic messages, under warrants obtainable from a special court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, whenever necessary to combat an enemy who is quick, clever and lethal.

The president held the news conference the morning after the speech in which he defended his policy on Iraq and urged patience on behalf of the American people. Three Democratic senators, Carl Levin of Michigan, Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, scheduled a midday news conference at the Capitol to rebut Mr. Bush on Iraq and other issues.

Mr. Bush interrupted a questioner to swat down any suggestion that, as he himself put it, he was trying to assume "dictatorial powers" in the campaign against terrorism. And with some heat in his voice he criticized those senators who have so far blocked renewal of the USA 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. Several Democratic senators, Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader; Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer, both of New York; and Barbara Boxer of California, were among those who helped to block the legislation in the Senate last week.

"In a war on terror we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment," Mr. Bush said.



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perhaps we need a law to protect US from you.

To get back on topic. Bush is using an emotional, even visceral, approach to the Presidency. He has this appeal to fear. There is nothing more basic to our nature as human beings. He is claiming the mantle of the "Strict Father" mindframe cited by Lakoff in his book; "Don't think of an Elephant". Bush is appealing to those who want a "Father Protector", and they are prone to allow him to do anything, as long as they believe his assertion that he is protecting us.

This is very dangerous. If we are so frightened that we shred the Constitution in order to be safe, then we are no longer the land of the Free and the Brave at all. Rather we become the land of Servile, and the Cowardly.

We do have to choose who we will be. Bush appeals to the most base within us, and it leads us away from who we always said we were.

And that is IF, he is even telling the truth to begin with.

Couldn't agree more Rou

I can't remember the specific article or statement recently made because there have been so many on this issue, but I do recall someone in congress, I believe, stating that very thing......that security took primacy over the Constitution ......if anyone remembers where this was stated please post. But this is a very dangerous notion especially in light of an illegal invasion, the vague sanctioning of torture and detainment, and the most recent revelation of NSA activity.

They are saying that it is more important to be alive than free. That your "rights" don't matter if you are dead. Feingold responded that an early patriot proclaimed; "Give me Liberty or give me Death!" No one is saying we don't have to protect ourselves. But we should protect America as a Nation of Laws, as well as our people's lives.

We must choose who we are. This man Bush MAY be sincere. However, the evidence seems to point to lie after lie. I have NO trust in this man. If as Al Sharpton said; "If he doesn't even KNOW, that he is lying? That we are then into some strange psychological problem!" We are in even deeper trouble.

I'm not sure which would be worse. But, I don't think this can be sustained for another three years.

Is bush claiming his executive power derives from the Joint Resolution of Congress?
I'll post the resolution next......



NSA's surveillance of citizens echoes 1970s controversy

By John Diamond, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the head of the National Security Agency met his workforce at the nation's eavesdropping and code-breaking headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., near Washington, for a pep talk.

"I told them that free people always had to decide where to draw the line between their liberty and their security," Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden told lawmakers a year later. "I noted that the attacks would almost certainly push us as a nation more toward security."

Within weeks of Hayden's talk, Bush did just that, directing the NSA to use its immense eavesdropping power on targets within the USA without the warrants required by a 1978 law. Bush used his Saturday radio address to confirm his actions, which were first reported last week in The New York Times. (Related story: Security agency, related laws at a glance)

"This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists," Bush said, adding that it was legal and constitutional.

Lawmakers of both parties have disputed that last point. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has promised hearings; House Democratic leaders want Speaker Dennis Hastert, D-Ill., to name a bipartisan panel to look into the program.

The surveillance program has sparked concerns about civil liberties not only because of the lack of warrants, but also because of the NSA's extraordinary information-collecting power.

Based in a heavily guarded modern complex, the NSA is the "ear" of the nation's intelligence system. It uses a system of satellites and other means to listen in on friend and foe alike, decoding and translating communications and reporting the results to key recipients in government, such as the president and Pentagon. In his book Body of Secrets, James Bamford calls the NSA's information storage capacity "near bottomless," capable of holding the equivalent of 5 trillion pages of text, or a stack of paper 150 miles high.


For the NSA, Bush's executive order authorizing the interception of electronic communication without warrants, signed in late 2001, represents a dramatic shift from restrictions on domestic spying imposed after exposure in the mid-1970s of NSA operations against U.S. citizens.

The White House says the president has legal authority granted by a congressional joint resolution passed Sept. 14, 2001, that allows the president to use whatever force he deems necessary to stop acts of terrorism. A 2002 Justice Department legal brief argued the president can authorize wiretaps without a warrant in cases of national security.

Opponents, such as Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, note that the Constitution's Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures" and requires a show of probable cause before warrants are issued. Also, the Communications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Criminal Code have provisions limiting or banning the interception of electronic communications.

The Supreme Court has never precisely determined the line between presidential powers in wartime and legal protections, said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, dean of the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law and a former general counsel for the NSA. She called Bush's order "a serious mistake" on political and practical rather than legal grounds. "Whether or not his theory is correct, the thing that is most important ... is that you must go forward in a way that ensures you have public confidence and trust," Parker said.

Pepperdine University law Professor Douglas Kmiec said Bush's use of the congressional authorization "is plausible" and his power to respond to an emergency shouldn't be superseded by laws limiting intelligence gathering.

Secret federal court bypassed

Before Bush's secret order, the NSA operated under strict limits on domestic intelligence collection. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 set up a secret federal court that must approve requests for the NSA to conduct surveillance against anyone in the USA suspected of being an "agent of a foreign power," such as a terrorist group.

In 2000, Hayden made the first appearance by an NSA chief in decades before a congressional committee, presenting briefing charts declaring the agency "operates under the rule of law" and conducts surveillance on U.S. targets only with a warrant. At that time, the NSA faced public accusations that new technology enabled it to sift through huge quantities of electronic communications looking for terrorists, drug dealers or other potential threats.

After the 9/11 attacks, critics came from the opposite direction, as the NSA was accused of failing to collect and translate intercepts aggressively enough to catch the 9/11 plotters.

Hayden, who is now the deputy director of national intelligence, declined requests for comment on the surveillance.

Revelations in 1975 of CIA misdeeds led to an investigation by a committee headed by then-senator Frank Church. The committee published a report in 1976 that uncovered three cases of NSA spying on Americans.

"Here we are, 30 years later, revisiting the whole issue," said Matthew Aid, a historian who has written about the NSA.

Bamford, author of two books about the NSA, wondered why Bush sought the warrantless searches, since the FISA court rarely rejects search requests. "The FISA court is as big a rubber stamp as you can possibly get within the federal judiciary," he said.

Indeed, brief annual reports of the activities of the secret court show that from 1979 through 2004 it granted 18,761 warrants and rejected five. Fewer than 100 had to be modified.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...8-nsa-70s_x.htm

By passage of the Patriot Act, Gonzales contents that the Act itself gave Shrub the powers to do anything to cambat terrorist. Folks, these are dangerous minds!

FREEP article

SJ 23 ES

107th CONGRESS

1st Session

S. J. RES. 23


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


JOINT RESOLUTION
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.

Whereas, on September 11, 2001, acts of treacherous violence were committed against the United States and its citizens; and

Whereas, such acts render it both necessary and appropriate that the United States exercise its rights to self-defense and to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad; and

Whereas, in light of the threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by these grave acts of violence; and

Whereas, such acts continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States; and

Whereas, the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States: Now, therefore, be it


Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force'.

SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

[B] War Powers Resolution Requirements-

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5[B] of the War Powers Resolution.

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.
Passed the Senate September 14, 2001.

Attest:

Secretary.


107th CONGRESS

1st Session

S. J. RES. 23

JOINT RESOLUTION
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/te...ution_9-14.html


War Powers Resolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right (3x)

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can

But when you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait / Don't you know...

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow / Don't you know...
All right, all right...

Excerpt from an article written in 2004...prior to the election
The Security of Checks and Balances
By Bruce Schneier
Sydney Morning Herald
October 26, 2004







http://www.schneier.com/essay-066.html

Here is the transcript from the Gonzales/General Hayden press briefing.

Press Briefing by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and General Michael Hayden, Principal Deputy Director for National Intelligence
James S. Brady Briefing Room



8:30 A.M. EST

MR. McCLELLAN: Good morning, everybody. I've got with me the Attorney General and General Hayden here this morning to brief you on the legal issues surrounding the NSA authorization and take whatever questions you have for them on that. The Attorney General will open with some comments and then they'll be glad to take your questions.

And with that, I'll turn it over to General Gonzales.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Thanks, Scott.

The President confirmed the existence of a highly classified program on Saturday. The program remains highly classified; there are many operational aspects of the program that have still not been disclosed and we want to protect that because those aspects of the program are very, very important to protect the national security of this country. So I'm only going to be talking about the legal underpinnings for what has been disclosed by the President.

The President has authorized a program to engage in electronic surveillance of a particular kind, and this would be the intercepts of contents of communications where one of the -- one party to the communication is outside the United States. And this is a very important point -- people are running around saying that the United States is somehow spying on American citizens calling their neighbors. Very, very important to understand that one party to the communication has to be outside the United States.

Another very important point to remember is that we have to have a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda. We view these authorities as authorities to confront the enemy in which the United States is at war with -- and that is al Qaeda and those who are supporting or affiliated with al Qaeda.

What we're trying to do is learn of communications, back and forth, from within the United States to overseas with members of al Qaeda. And that's what this program is about.

Now, in terms of legal authorities, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides -- requires a court order before engaging in this kind of surveillance that I've just discussed and the President announced on Saturday, unless there is somehow -- there is -- unless otherwise authorized by statute or by Congress. That's what the law requires. Our position is, is that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals intelligence.

Now, that -- one might argue, now, wait a minute, there's nothing in the authorization to use force that specifically mentions electronic surveillance. Let me take you back to a case that the Supreme Court reviewed this past -- in 2004, the Hamdi decision. As you remember, in that case, Mr. Hamdi was a U.S. citizen who was contesting his detention by the United States government. What he said was that there is a statute, he said, that specifically prohibits the detention of American citizens without permission, an act by Congress -- and he's right, 18 USC 4001a requires that the United States government cannot detain an American citizen except by an act of Congress.

We took the position -- the United States government took the position that Congress had authorized that detention in the authorization to use force, even though the authorization to use force never mentions the word "detention." And the Supreme Court, a plurality written by Justice O'Connor agreed. She said, it was clear and unmistakable that the Congress had authorized the detention of an American citizen captured on the battlefield as an enemy combatant for the remainder -- the duration of the hostilities. So even though the authorization to use force did not mention the word, "detention," she felt that detention of enemy soldiers captured on the battlefield was a fundamental incident of waging war, and therefore, had been authorized by Congress when they used the words, "authorize the President to use all necessary and appropriate force."

For the same reason, we believe signals intelligence is even more a fundamental incident of war, and we believe has been authorized by the Congress. And even though signals intelligence is not mentioned in the authorization to use force, we believe that the Court would apply the same reasoning to recognize the authorization by Congress to engage in this kind of electronic surveillance.

I might also add that we also believe the President has the inherent authority under the Constitution, as Commander-in-Chief, to engage in this kind of activity. Signals intelligence has been a fundamental aspect of waging war since the Civil War, where we intercepted telegraphs, obviously, during the world wars, as we intercepted telegrams in and out of the United States. Signals intelligence is very important for the United States government to know what the enemy is doing, to know what the enemy is about to do. It is a fundamental incident of war, as Justice O'Connor talked about in the Hamdi decision. We believe that -- and those two authorities exist to allow, permit the United States government to engage in this kind of surveillance.

The President, of course, is very concerned about the protection of civil liberties, and that's why we've got strict parameters, strict guidelines in place out at NSA to ensure that the program is operating in a way that is consistent with the President's directives. And, again, the authorization by the President is only to engage in surveillance of communications where one party is outside the United States, and where we have a reasonable basis to conclude that one of the parties of the communication is either a member of al Qaeda or affiliated with al Qaeda.

Mike, do you want to -- have anything to add?

GENERAL HAYDEN: I'd just add, in terms of what we do globally with regard to signals intelligence, which is a critical part of defending the nation, there are probably no communications more important to what it is we're trying to do to defend the nation; no communication is more important for that purpose than those communications that involve al Qaeda, and one end of which is inside the homeland, one end of which is inside the United States. Our purpose here is to detect and prevent attacks. And the program in this regard has been successful.

Q General, are you able to say how many Americans were caught in this surveillance?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: I'm not -- I can't get into the specific numbers because that information remains classified. Again, this is not a situation where -- of domestic spying. To the extent that there is a moderate and heavy communication involving an American citizen, it would be a communication where the other end of the call is outside the United States and where we believe that either the American citizen or the person outside the United States is somehow affiliated with al Qaeda.

Q General, can you tell us why you don't choose to go to the FISA court?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, we continue to go to the FISA court and obtain orders. It is a very important tool that we continue to utilize. Our position is that we are not legally required to do, in this particular case, because the law requires that we -- FISA requires that we get a court order, unless authorized by a statute, and we believe that authorization has occurred.

The operators out at NSA tell me that we don't have the speed and the agility that we need, in all circumstances, to deal with this new kind of enemy. You have to remember that FISA was passed by the Congress in 1978. There have been tremendous advances in technology --

Q But it's been kind of retroactively, hasn't it?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: -- since then. Pardon me?

Q It's been done retroactively before, hasn't it?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: What do you mean, "retroactively"?

Q You just go ahead and then you apply for the FISA clearance, because it's damn near automatic.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: If we -- but there are standards that have to be met, obviously, and you're right, there is a procedure where we -- an emergency procedure that allows us to make a decision to authorize -- to utilize FISA, and then we go to the court and get confirmation of that authority.

But, again, FISA is very important in the war on terror, but it doesn't provide the speed and the agility that we need in all circumstances to deal with this new kind of threat.

Q But what -- go ahead.

GENERAL HAYDEN: Let me just add to the response to the last question. As the Attorney General says, FISA is very important, we make full use of FISA. But if you picture what FISA was designed to do, FISA is designed to handle the needs in the nation in two broad categories: there's a law enforcement aspect of it; and the other aspect is the continued collection of foreign intelligence. I don't think anyone could claim that FISA was envisaged as a tool to cover armed enemy combatants in preparation for attacks inside the United States. And that's what this authorization under the President is designed to help us do.

Q Have you identified armed enemy combatants, through this program, in the United States?

GENERAL HAYDEN: This program has been successful in detecting and preventing attacks inside the United States.

Q General Hayden, I know you're not going to talk about specifics about that, and you say it's been successful. But would it have been as successful -- can you unequivocally say that something has been stopped or there was an imminent attack or you got information through this that you could not have gotten through going to the court?

GENERAL HAYDEN: I can say unequivocally, all right, that we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available.

Q Through the court? Because of the speed that you got it?

GENERAL HAYDEN: Yes, because of the speed, because of the procedures, because of the processes and requirements set up in the FISA process, I can say unequivocally that we have used this program in lieu of that and this program has been successful.

Q But one of the things that concerns people is the slippery slope. If you said you absolutely need this program, you have to do it quickly -- then if you have someone you suspect being a member of al Qaeda, and they're in the United States, and there is a phone call between two people in the United States, why not use that, then, if it's so important? Why not go that route? Why not go further?

GENERAL HAYDEN: Across the board, there is a judgment that we all have to make -- and I made this speech a day or two after 9/11 to the NSA workforce -- I said, free peoples always have to judge where they want to be on that spectrum between security and liberty; that there will be great pressures on us after those attacks to move our national banner down in the direction of security. What I said to the NSA workforce is, our job is to keep Americans free by making Americans feel safe again. That's been the mission of the National Security Agency since the day after the attack, is when I talked -- two days after the attack is when I said that to the workforce.

There's always a balancing between security and liberty. We understand that this is a more -- I'll use the word "aggressive" program than would be traditionally available under FISA. It is also less intrusive. It deals only with international calls. It is generally for far shorter periods of time. And it is not designed to collect reams of intelligence, but to detect and warn and prevent about attacks. And, therefore, that's where we've decided to draw that balance between security and liberty.

Q Gentlemen, can you say when Congress was first briefed, who was included in that, and will there be a leaks investigation?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well of course, we're not going to -- we don't talk about -- we try not to talk about investigations. As to whether or not there will be a leak investigation, as the President indicated, this is really hurting national security, this has really hurt our country, and we are concerned that a very valuable tool has been compromised. As to whether or not there will be a leak investigation, we'll just have to wait and see.

And your first question was?

Q When was Congress first briefed --

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: I'm not going to -- I'm not going to talk about -- I'll let others talk about when Congress was first briefed. What I can say is, as the President indicated on Saturday, there have been numerous briefings with certain key members of Congress. Obviously, some members have come out since the revelations on Saturday, saying that they hadn't been briefed. This is a very classified program. It is probably the most classified program that exists in the United States government, because the tools are so valuable, and therefore, decisions were made to brief only key members of Congress. We have begun the process now of reaching out to other members of Congress. I met last night, for example, with Chairman Specter and other members of Congress to talk about the legal aspects of this program.

And so we are engaged in a dialogue now to talk with Congress, but also -- but we're still mindful of the fact that still -- this is still a very highly classified program, and there are still limits about what we can say today, even to certain members of Congress.

Q General, what's really compromised by the public knowledge of this program? Don't you assume that the other side thinks we're listening to them? I mean, come on.

GENERAL HAYDEN: The fact that this program has been successful is proof to me that what you claim to be an assumption is certainly not universal. The more we discuss it, the more we put it in the face of those who would do us harm, the more they will respond to this and protect their communications and make it more difficult for us to defend the nation.

Q Mr. Attorney General --

Q -- became public, have you seen any evidence in a change in the tactics or --

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: We're not going to comment on that kind of operational aspect.

Q You say this has really hurt the American people. Is that based only on your feeling about it, or is there some empirical evidence to back that up, even if you can't --

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: I think the existence of this program, the confirmation of the -- I mean, the fact that this program exists, in my judgment, has compromised national security, as the President indicated on Saturday.

Q I'd like to ask you, what are the constitutional limits on this power that you see laid out in the statute and in your inherent constitutional war power? And what's to prevent you from just listening to everyone's conversation and trying to find the word "bomb," or something like that?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, that's a good question. This was a question that was raised in some of my discussions last night with members of Congress. The President has not authorized -- has not authorized blanket surveillance of communications here in the United States. He's been very clear about the kind of surveillance that we're going to engage in. And that surveillance is tied with our conflict with al Qaeda.

You know, we feel comfortable that this surveillance is consistent with requirements of the 4th Amendment. The touchstone of the 4th Amendment is reasonableness, and the Supreme Court has long held that there are exceptions to the warrant requirement in -- when special needs outside the law enforcement arena. And we think that that standard has been met here. When you're talking about communications involving al Qaeda, when you -- obviously there are significant privacy interests implicated here, but we think that those privacy interests have been addressed; when you think about the fact that this is an authorization that's ongoing, it's not a permanent authorization, it has to be reevaluated from time to time. There are additional safeguards that have been in place -- that have been imposed out at NSA, and we believe that it is a reasonable application of these authorities.

Q Mr. Attorney General, haven't you stretched --

Q -- adequate because of technological advances? Wouldn't you do the country a better service to address that issue and fix it, instead of doing a backdoor approach --

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: This is not a backdoor approach. We believe Congress has authorized this kind of surveillance. We have had discussions with Congress in the past -- certain members of 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.

Q If this is not backdoor, is this at least a judgment call? Can you see why other people would look at it and say, well, no, we don't see it that way?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: I think some of the concern is because people had not been briefed; they don't understand the specifics of the program, they don't understand the strict safeguards within the program. And I haven't had a discussion -- an opportunity to have a discussion with them about our legal analysis. So, obviously, we're in that process now. Part of the reason for this press brief today is to have you help us educate the American people and the American Congress about what we're doing and the legal basis for what we're doing.

Q Al, you talk about the successes and the critical intercepts of the program. Have there also been cases in which after listening in or intercepting, you realize you had the wrong guy and you listened to what you shouldn't have?

GENERAL HAYDEN: That's why I mentioned earlier that the program is less intrusive. It deals only with international calls. The time period in which we would conduct our work is much shorter, in general, overall, than it would be under FISA. And one of the true purposes of this is to be very agile, as you described.

If this particular line of logic, this reasoning that took us to this place proves to be inaccurate, we move off of it right away.

Q Are there cases in which --

GENERAL HAYDEN: Yes, of course.

Q Can you give us some idea of percentage, or how often you get it right and how often you get it wrong?

GENERAL HAYDEN: No, it would be very -- no, I cannot, without getting into the operational details. I'm sorry.

Q But there are cases where you wind up listening in where you realize you shouldn't have?

GENERAL HAYDEN: There are cases like we do with regard to the global SIGIN system -- you have reasons to go after particular activities, particular communications. There's a logic; there is a standard as to why you would go after that, not just in a legal sense, which is very powerful, but in a practical sense. We can't waste resources on targets that simply don't provide valuable information. And when we decide that is the case -- and in this program, the standards, in terms of re-evaluating whether or not this coverage is worthwhile at all, are measured in days and weeks.

Q Would someone in a case in which you got it wrong have a cause of action against the government?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: That is something I'm not going to answer, Ken.

Q I wanted to ask you a question. Do you think the government has the right to break the law?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Absolutely not. I don't believe anyone is above the law.

Q You have stretched this resolution for war into giving you carte blanche to do anything you want to do.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, one might make that same argument in connection with detention of American citizens, which is far more intrusive than listening into a conversation. There may be some members of Congress who might say, we never --

Q That's your interpretation. That isn't Congress' interpretation.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, I'm just giving you the analysis --

Q You're never supposed to spy on Americans.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: I'm just giving the analysis used by Justice O'Connor -- and she said clearly and unmistakenly the Congress authorized the President of the United States to detain an American citizen, even though the authorization to use force never mentions the word "detention" --

Q -- into wiretapping everybody and listening in on --

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: This is not about wiretapping everyone. This is a very concentrated, very limited program focused at gaining information about our enemy.

Q Now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, do you expect your legal analysis to be tested in the courts?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: I'm not going to, you know, try to guess as to what's going to happen about that. We're going to continue to try to educate the American people and the American Congress about what we're doing and the basis -- why we believe that the President has the authority to engage in this kind of conduct.

Q Because there are some very smart legal minds who clearly think a law has been broken here.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, I think that they may be making or offering up those opinions or assumptions based on very limited information. They don't have all the information about the program. I think they probably don't have the information about our legal analysis.

Q Judge Gonzales, will you release then, for the reasons you're saying now, the declassified versions of the legal rationale for this from OLC? And if not, why not? To assure the American public that this was done with the legal authority that you state.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: We're engaged now in a process of educating the American people, again, and educating the Congress. We'll make the appropriate evaluation at the appropriate time as to whether or not additional information needs to be provided to the Congress or the American people.

Q You declassified OLC opinions before, after the torture -- why not do that here to show, yes, we went through a process?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: I'm not confirming the existence of opinions or the non-existence of opinions. I've offered up today our legal analysis of the authorities of this President.

Q Sir, can you explain, please, the specific inadequacies in FISA that have prevented you from sort of going through the normal channels?

GENERAL HAYDEN: One, the whole key here is agility. And let me re-trace some grounds I tried to suggest earlier. FISA was built for persistence. FISA was built for long-term coverage against known agents of an enemy power. And the purpose involved in each of those -- in those cases was either for a long-term law enforcement purpose or a long-term intelligence purpose.

This program isn't for that. This is to detect and prevent. And here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger. It's a subtly softer trigger. And the intrusion into privacy -- the intrusion into privacy is significantly less. It's only international calls. The period of time in which we do this is, in most cases, far less than that which would be gained by getting a court order. And our purpose here, our sole purpose is to detect and prevent.

Again, I make the point, what we are talking about here are communications we have every reason to believe are al Qaeda communications, one end of which is in the United States. And I don't think any of us would want any inefficiencies in our coverage of those kinds of communications, above all. And that's what this program allows us to do -- it allows us to be as agile as operationally required to cover these targets.

Q But how does FISA --

GENERAL HAYDEN: FISA involves the process -- FISA involves marshaling arguments; FISA involves looping paperwork around, even in the case of emergency authorizations from the Attorney General. And beyond that, it's a little -- it's difficult for me to get into further discussions as to why this is more optimized under this process without, frankly, revealing too much about what it is we do and why and how we do it.

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.

Q And who determined that these targets were al Qaeda? Did you wiretap them?

GENERAL HAYDEN: The judgment is made by the operational work force at the National Security Agency using the information available to them at the time, and the standard that they apply -- and it's a two-person standard that must be signed off by a shift supervisor, and carefully recorded as to what created the operational imperative to cover any target, but particularly with regard to those inside the United States.

Q So a shift supervisor is now making decisions that a FISA judge would normally make? I just want to make sure I understand. Is that what you're saying?

GENERAL HAYDEN: What we're trying to do is to use the approach we have used globally against al Qaeda, the operational necessity to cover targets. And the reason I emphasize that this is done at the operational level is to remove any question in your mind that this is in any way politically influenced. This is done to chase those who would do harm to the United States.

Q Building on that, during --

Q Thank you, General. Roughly when did those conversations occur with members of Congress?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: I'm not going to get into the specifics of when those conversations occurred, but they have occurred.

Q May I just ask you if they were recently or if they were when you began making these exceptions?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: They weren't recently.

MR. McCLELLAN: The President indicated that those -- the weeks after September 11th.

Q What was the date, though, of the first executive order? Can you give us that?

GENERAL HAYDEN: If I could just, before you ask that question, just add -- these actions that I described taking place at the operational level -- and I believe that a very important point to be made -- have intense oversight by the NSA Inspector General, by the NSA General Counsel, and by officials of the Justice Department who routinely look into this process and verify that the standards set out by the President are being followed.

Q Can you absolutely assure us that all of the communications intercepted --

Q Have you said that you -- (inaudible) -- anything about this program with your international partners -- with the partners probably in the territories of which you intercept those communications?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: I'm not aware of discussions with other countries, but that doesn't mean that they haven't occurred. I simply have no personal knowledge of that.

Q Also, is it only al Qaeda, or maybe some other terrorist groups?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: Again, with respect to what the President discussed on Saturday, this program -- it is tied to communications where we believe one of the parties is affiliated with al Qaeda or part of an organization or group that is supportive of al Qaeda.

Q Sir, during his confirmation hearings, it came out that now-Ambassador Bolton had sought and obtained NSA intercepts of conversations between American citizens and others. Who gets the information from this program; how do you guarantee that it doesn't get too widely spread inside the government, and used for other purposes?

Q And is it destroyed afterwards?

GENERAL HAYDEN: We report this information the way we report any other information collected by the National Security Agency. And the phrase you're talking about is called minimization of U.S. identities. The same minimalizationist standards apply across the board, including for this program. To make this very clear -- U.S. identities are minimized in all of NSA's activities, unless, of course, the U.S. identity is essential to understand the inherent intelligence value of the intelligence report. And that's the standard that's used.

Q General, when you discussed the emergency powers, you said, agility is critical here. And in the case of the emergency powers, as I understand it, you can go in, do whatever you need to do, and within 72 hours just report it after the fact. And as you say, these may not even last very long at all. What would be the difficulty in setting up a paperwork system in which the logs that you say you have the shift supervisors record are simply sent to a judge after the fact? If the judge says that this is not legitimate, by that time probably your intercept is over, wouldn't that be correct?

GENERAL HAYDEN: What you're talking about now are efficiencies. What you're asking me is, can we do this program as efficiently using the one avenue provided to us by the FISA Act, as opposed to the avenue provided to us by subsequent legislation and the President's authorization.

Our operational judgment, given the threat to the nation that the difference in the operational efficiencies between those two sets of authorities are such that we can provide greater protection for the nation operating under this authorization.

Q But while you're getting an additional efficiency, you're also operating outside of an existing law. If the law would allow you to stay within the law and be slightly less efficient, would that be --

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: I guess I disagree with that characterization. I think that this electronic surveillance is within the law, has been authorized. I mean, that is our position. We're only required to achieve a court order through FISA if we don't have authorization otherwise by the Congress, and we think that that has occurred in this particular case.

Q Can you just give us one assurance before you go, General?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALEZ: It depends on what it is. (Laughter.)

Q Can you assure us that all of these intercepts had an international component and that at no time were any of the intercepts purely domestic?

GENERAL HAYDEN: The authorization given to NSA by the President requires that one end of these communications has to be outside the United States. I can assure you, by the physics of the intercept, by how we actually conduct our activities, that one end of these communications are always outside the United States of America.

END 9:02 A.M. EST




http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20051219-1.html

I called Senator McConnell's office this morning and made a complaint that Congress was abdicating it's oversight responsibilities. I said that we talked all weekend about the NSA spying and that we want Congress to rein in this president. I told them that it was getting very scary watching this president violate our laws. I mentioned the flimsy legal reasoning about torture and the NSA. This president is not above the law and it time that Congress told him so. I also told them that I was calling because I thought the situation was so urgent that I couldn't wait to send an email.

I hope everyone will contact their representatives. We need to make them nervous enough that they will do their jobs.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/18/graham-no-reference

Their claims to need "agility", and concerns about "efficiencies" means to me (if true) that they are "fishing". They want the ability to pick suspected targets to eavesdrop on based on essentially guesswork. The only safeguard we have as Americans under this program is that they have a limited amount of resources to "waste" on non-germain targets. They essentially have carte blanche to spy on anyone they choose to. I don't believe that one party has to be outside the U.S.. I think they mentioned that only to cover up the fact that they spy anywhere on anyone they choose.

This "tool" will be justified by frightening everyone. And the cowards among us will ok it. They will say; "Do whatever you want to, just keep me safe"! Aside from this dangerous precident, there is no safeguard that I trust that would prevent this from being used politically. This WH has demonstrated a willingness to lie and break the law too many times for me to trust them.

That is what they are saying. Never mind the legalities, never mind our track record, "just trust us"!

Snuffy has posted the entire text of Chimp's news conference on another thread. The lame excuses he uses for this spying is beyond reprehensible. Check it out...

Something is very wrong here if Gonzales is saying this was "the most classified program that exists in the United States government."




Bush Vigorously Defends Domestic Spying By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
20 minutes ago



Accused of acting above the law, President Bush forcefully defended a domestic spying program on Monday as an effective tool in disrupting terrorists and insisted it was not an abuse of Americans' civil liberties.

Bush said it was "a shameful act" for someone to have leaked details to the media. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said it was "probably the most classified program that exists in the United States government" — involving electronic intercepts of telephone calls and e-mails in the U.S. of people with known ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

At a news conference, 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. "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 (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., said Bush's interpretation of the Constitution was "incorrect and dangerous."

Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), 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.

The spying uproar was the latest controversy about Bush's handling of the war on terror, after questions about secret prisons in Eastern Europe, secrecy-cloaked government directives, torture allegations and a death toll of more than 2,150 Americans in Iraq. As a result, Bush's approval rating has slumped as has Americans' confidence in his leadership.

Appealing for support, Bush used the word "understand" 25 times in a nearly hour-long news conference. "I hope the American people understand — there is still an enemy that would like to strike the United States of America, and they're very dangerous," he said. Similarly, he said he hoped that blacks who doubt his intentions "understand that I care about them."

Bush challenged Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. — without naming them — to allow a final vote on legislation renewing the anti-terror Patriot Act, saying it was inexcusable to let it expire. "I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to go home and explain why these cities are safer" without the extension, he said.

Reid and Clinton both helped block passage of the legislation in the Senate last week.

Bush noted that U.S. intelligence agencies have been faulted for failing to "connect the dots" about threats to the nation's security. He said the Patriot Act and the spying program help take care of that problem.

Reid fired back: "The president and the Republican leadership should stop playing politics with the Patriot Act," he said in a statement that added he and other Democrats favor a three-month extension of the expiring law to allow time for a long-term compromise.

The legislation has cleared the House but Senate Democrats have blocked final passage and its prospects are uncertain in the congressional session's final days. Scolded by Bush, key lawmakers reopened talks by setting out the rough parameters of a deal: Extending the act for one to four years.

Bush said the electronic eavesdropping program, conducted by the National Security Agency, lets the government move faster than the standard practice of seeking a court-authorized warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "We've got to be fast on our feet, quick to detect and prevent," the president said.

The president said the authority to bypass the court derived from the Constitution and Congress' vote authorizing the use of military force after the 2001 terror attacks.

"I can fully understand why members of Congress are expressing concerns about civil liberties," the president said. "I want to make sure the American people understand, however, that we have an obligation to protect you, and we're doing that, and at the same time, protecting your civil liberties."

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said he was briefed by the White House between 2002 and 2004 but was not told key details about the scope of the program. "Even with some of the more troublesome — and potentially illegal — details omitted, I still raised significant concern about these actions," Daschle said.

Daschle's successor as Democratic leader, Reid, said he received a single briefing earlier this year and that important details were withheld. "We need to investigate this program and the president's legal authority to carry it out," Reid said.

Bush was cool toward investigations, saying, "An open debate would say to the enemy, `Here is what we