Defiant Bush admits breaking law

[Texsox]

Once again APU is whining about his rights being violated.

The government doesn't give a flying f*** about Joe Sixpack,

 

Would they have gave a flying f*** about Ted Kaczynski, Terry Nichols, Tim McVeigh, etc.? Or are they Joe Soxpacks?

 

Once the government decides who is guilty until proven innocent, then we open up on nasty can of civil right violations. Y'all can give back rights and freedoms, I'd like to keep mine.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Interesting and troubling to find that the FISSA courts publicly rebuked the GWB administration, Ashcroft and the FBI back in 2002 for providing misinformation to them at least 75 times in their requests for wiretaps. For the secret court to issue such a public statement shows they were pretty pissed at the way the administration was acting in trying to obtain warrants.

 

Here's an archive of the WaPo story that ran at the time:

 

http://foi.missouri.edu/secretcourts/seccrtrebuffs.html

 

The rebuke specifically left open the that the FISA policies can be reviewed and changed by act of Congress if they were truly an impediment to lawful intelligence gathering, and members of Congress sympathetic to BushCo would have been willing to explore that but said Ashcroft was reluctant to do so.

 

So, obviously relations between the administration and the FISA courts were very strained. Is this one of the reasons GWB decided to have NSA circumvent the established process?

 

excerpts:

 

The secretive federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States has refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers, saying the government had misused the law and misled the court dozens of times, according to an extraordinary legal ruling released yesterday.

A May 17 opinion by the court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) alleges that Justice Department and FBI officials supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.

 

Authorities also improperly shared intelligence information with agents and prosecutors handling criminal cases in New York on at least four occasions, the judges said.

 

The opinion itself -- and the court's unprecedented decision to release it -- suggest that relations between the court and officials at the Justice Department and the FBI have frayed badly.

[kapkomet]

Here is the letter that Sen. Rockefeller wrote in 2003 to the White House expressing his concern over the program.  He says he is worried about the program, and he's even more worried about the fact that he can't consult with his staff or anyone else in Congress about it.

 

Edit:  Statement by the Senator:

Ohhh, so these f***ers DID hear about the program, and never came forward, until the times broke it? Which is it? "We didn't know".... or ... "We kept our mouth shut until it becomes a political football and now we're punting that f***er as hard as we can?..."

 

Interesting.

[Rex Kickass]

Oh please, if he said something to the press then you'd be all over his s*** for revealing confidential information for political advantage.

 

It looks to me that he did what he could. Protesting to specific channels about a confidential matter. But I'm sure he didn't do that for any other reason than political gain and decided to wait a whole year after it could have been used to get the President out of office and 11 months from the nearest election for the best possible effect?

 

Yeah that sounds like somebody waiting to use it for political opportunity.

[Cknolls]

Sorry the "well, the other party did it too so it must be OK" argument is like a pregnant woman -- they both can't hold their water.  There is a major difference between a private company and the US where the government cannot fly in the face of the 4th Amendment.  They could have easily got the wiretaps LEGALLY (well, even with the questionable legality of the Patriot Act which FISA had said may not meet 4th Amendment must but "almost certainly comes close")

 

I just smash Bush for his anti-4th amendment crap because he's said he wants to limit the scope of government while taking every goddamn opportunity to give he and his cronies more power. But I'm sure COINTELPRO type activities are perfectly fine in America.

 

Halliburton got the contract I hear

[FlaSoxxJim]

Let's take another stroll down memory lane, to again examine whether we should believe anything GWB says.

 

Here's an appearance in April 2004 in Buffalo, NY, where GWB was pimping the Patriot Act.

 

http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.ph...hrase=&contain=

 

He makes it very clear that court orders are legally required for any wiretaps to be authorized. Of course, we now know that by 2004 he had already had the NSA perform many wiretaps without seeking the court orders that by his own admission (for what that's worth) were legally required.

 

Even though this appearance has some wonderfully ironic nuggets about how "when the President says something, he'd better mean it," and the like, here is the relevant point for the current fiasco:

 

Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires-a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

 

They may value the Constitution. They just don't like to have to adhere to it.

[Rex Kickass]

Jonathan Alter alleges that Bush met with NYT executive editors two weeks ago to attempt to suppress the story.

 

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

 

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.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Jonathan Alter alleges that Bush met with NYT executive editors two weeks ago to attempt to suppress the story.

 

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

 

Try to keep up. hmmm?

 

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...ndpost&p=994395

[Balta1701]

With all the jerk-offs in the administration and in the GOP congress the Kleenex people are already rolling in dough.  :headshake

Ok...air pollution...triggers my allergies more...thus forcing me to use more Kleenex and Claritin.

 

Eureka! It's a gigantic conspiracy!

[Balta1701]

Interesting and troubling to find that the FISSA courts publicly rebuked the GWB administration, Ashcroft and the FBI back in 2002 for providing misinformation to them at least 75 times in their requests for wiretaps.  For the secret court to issue such a public statement shows they were pretty pissed at the way the administration was acting in trying to obtain warrants.

 

Here's an archive of the WaPo story that ran at the time:

 

http://foi.missouri.edu/secretcourts/seccrtrebuffs.html

 

The rebuke specifically left open the that the FISA policies can be reviewed and changed by act of Congress if they were truly an impediment to lawful intelligence gathering, and members of Congress sympathetic to BushCo would have been willing to explore that but said Ashcroft was reluctant to do so.

Ok, now I find that interesting not in the way you do, in that it suggests a motive, but in that until 2002, the FISA courts said no to a wiretap request exactly 0 times.

 

In other words, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, and Clinton each got the FISA court to agree to thousands of wiretaps without ever having a problem obtainning a warrant.

 

What the Hell was Bush telling them?

[Rex Kickass]

By the way previous to 2001, the FISSA courts had rejected a grand total of 4 wiretap requests.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Ok, now I find that interesting not in the way you do, in that it suggests a motive, but in that until 2002, the FISA courts said no to a wiretap request exactly 0 times.

 

In other words, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, and Clinton each got the FISA court to agree to thousands of wiretaps without ever having a problem obtainning a warrant.

 

What the Hell was Bush telling them?

The text of the rebuke suggests they were:

 

1) making serial ommissions of information the FISA court would need to correctly determine the legitimacy of the requests, and

 

2) not sharing the information obtained from the wiretaps with appropriate agencies. On that note, all the pap about Patriot Act 'tearing down barriers' to interagency intel sharing seems to be a lot of hooey.

[Rex Kickass]

So who is being spied on?

 

Quakers apparently.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/print...splaymode/1098/

 

A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

 

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

 

“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.

 

“This is incredible,” adds group member Rich Hersh. “It's an example of paranoia by our government,” he says. “We're not doing anything illegal.”

 

And the gays. From Sirius Radio News

 

Only eight pages from the four-hundred page document have been released so far. But on those eight pages, Sirius OutQ News discovered that the Defense Department has been keeping tabs NOT just on anti-war protests, but also on seemingly non-threatening protests against the military's ban on gay servicemembers. According to those first eight pages, Pentagon investigators kept tabs on April protests at UC-Santa Cruz, State University of New York at Albany, and William Patterson College in New Jersey. A February protest at NYU was also listed, along with the law school's gay advocacy group "OUTlaw," and was classified as "possibly violent."

...

The database indicates that the Pentagon has been collecting information about protesters and their vehicles, looking for what they call a "significant connection" between incidents. Of the four "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" protests listed, only one - U-C Santa Cruz, where students staged a "gay kissing" demonstration - is classified as a "credible" threat.

[FlaSoxxJim]

So who is being spied on?

 

Quakers apparently.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/print...splaymode/1098/

And the gays. From Sirius Radio News

 

But my assumption when I saw these stories a week or so ago was that these surveilances were pursued with legal warrants. I still assume that is the case.

[Rex Kickass]

I don't know that warrants are necessary to "keep tabs" on. Doesn't mean that they are being wiretapped (needs a warrant) or being searched (ditto.)

 

The secret wiretaps - I have a hunch are aimed at reporters who may be reporting on Al-Qaeda. Something that I think a FISA court WOULD throw out.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Well, just so long as we're keeping the Gay Quakers on the run, I say they should do what they gotsta do.

[FlaSoxxJim]

In the wake of John Dean chiming in and opining that GWB has comitted an impeachable offense, Sen. Boxer is soliciting expert opinions about the appropriateness of impeachment.

 

In a release issued this evening, Boxer said she's asked "four presidential scholars" for their opinion on impeachment after former White Housel counsel John Dean -- made famous by his role in revealing the Watergate tapes -- asserted that President Bush had 'admitted' to an 'impeachable offense.'

[Rex Kickass]

Too bad she can't introduce articles of impeachment. She'd have to find a Congressperson capable of doing that in the House.

 

By the way there were Wingnut Congressmen (two of them I believe) that had tried to introduce articles of impeachment against Clinton as early as 1994 or 95.

[YASNY]

Maybe this impeachment query will determine this in a definitive way. Did he break the law or not. We will see.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Maybe this impeachment query will determine this in a definitive way.  Did he break the law or not.  We will see.

 

It won't be absolutely definitive because the WH will be able to find at least one expert willing to accept the broad war powers interpretation they are pushing. But the more recognized experts who line up to side against that interpretation, the harder it's going to be for the WH to stifle a full investigation.

[southsider2k5]

It won't be absolutely definitive because the WH will be able to find at least one expert willing to accept the broad war powers interpretation they are pushing.  But the more recognized experts who line up to side against that interpretation, the harder it's going to be for the WH to stifle a full investigation.

 

To be honest this needs to go to the Supreme Court to establish the consititutionality of all of this. Forget the regular courts, this needs to have a definative answer.

[YASNY]

To be honest this needs to go to the Supreme Court to establish the consititutionality of all of this.  Forget the regular courts, this needs to have a definative answer.

 

I wonder if a difinitive answer would be accepted ... or ridiculed.

[Rex Kickass]

One side would accept it. The other would ridicule it. Regardless of outcome.

[southsider2k5]

One side would accept it. The other would ridicule it. Regardless of outcome.

 

^^^

[Balta1701]

Those who keep bringing up the "Echelon" program...here's a response for you. From CAP.

 

The right-wing outlet NewsMax sums up the basic argument:

 

    During the 1990’s under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon…all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.

 

That’s flatly false. The Clinton administration program, code-named Echelon, complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained. CIA director George Tenet testified to this before Congress on 4/12/00:

 

    I’m here today to discuss specific issues about and allegations regarding Signals Intelligence activities and the so-called Echelon Program of the National Security Agency…

 

    There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the FBI scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of U.S. persons are involved, whether directly or indirectly. We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department.

If Tenet's testimony is believable, then this is fundamentally and totally different from what Echelon was doing.