Posted on 12/20/2005 5:02:17 AM PST by angkor
Ya gotta love the lefties - bringing spin to a gun fight. They're only got about 40 years of catching up to do in the firearms department.
And if the NSA ends up spying on a U.S. citizen? The "U.S. person" definition "does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power," according to the same law. An "agent of a foreign power" is anyone, citizen or otherwise, who "knowingly engages in sabotage or international terrorism, or activities that are in preparation therefor, for or on behalf of a foreign power." Which means that people who do not help al-Qaeda or other terrorists are safe from surveillance. Anyone who does, however, forfeits his rights and can be targeted for eavesdropping.
And maybe the AG did get those warrants after the facts, which the law makes a provision for.
Maybe, but then the President Bush's executive order would be superfluous. It was my understanding that the surveillance authorized completely obviated the requirement of judicial review. I might have completely misunderstood.
GWB has repeatedly mentioned over the last couple days that FISC is being used.
My favorite Victoria quote:
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you both about the motivation of prosecutors, all right?
If you‘re up against, whatever case it is, as complicated as this is, this leak case and it has to do with the war and the argument for the war somebody challenged the argument...
(CROSSTALK)
TOENSING: It doesn‘t.
It has to do with whether somebody violated the criminal law and gave a name of an undercover agent as defined by the law and whether that person knew that she was undercover.
MATTHEWS: And what would be the motive for doing that?
TOENSING: Look, go back in time and just think about this a little bit.
When Bob Novak wrote his column it could just have easily been framed as he, Bob Novak was exposing nepotism. But it didn‘t happen that way because the press didn‘t like President Bush and framed it all for poor Joe Wilson. If a wife gets a husband an assignment and he doesn‘t have any experience in WMD and he doesn‘t have any kind of senior experience in the country, Novak thought he was exposing nepotism.
MATTHEWS: Yes?
TOENSING: So why would every good reporter in town...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Because the dispute between the people who have been called back before this grand jury, Karl Rove, the chief of staff to the vice president—I‘m sorry, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove have been called back, because the issue is about Joe Wilson‘s statement in the press, which started this whole thing that case for the war in Iraq was groundless.
TOENSING: Chris, you know what was happening with reporters at that time. And you weren‘t one of them because I‘m not—that‘s not what you do, but the written press was going around saying, why Wilson? Why Wilson? And they were calling all over. There were probably a dozen reporters around here saying, why would they pick that idiot because he wasn‘t well thought of, and we all know that, and if it wasn‘t for ...
MATTHEWS: Well, right, but that was a good way to discourage the trip, and fairly so. A fair criticism of the fact he was picked by his wife for a trip.
TOENSING: So when somebody says his wife picked him, that would be fair game to get out. Nobody—Novak never ...
MATTHEWS: But the fact is the White House subsequent to this disclosure by Joe Wilson redacted, rather, they withdraw their claim of the 16 words in the president‘s state of the union. Ari Fleischer did that, Stephen Hadley took the hit for it.
So whatever you say about the reason he was picked for the trip, the result of his trip back from Africa was to basically discount the argument that there was a deal between Saddam Hussein and the government of Niger. And that was a fact of life.
And it‘s—by the way, it is to do with the war because that‘s what the result of the trip was. Later on we have this legal case. But the trip was to prove there was not—prove one way or another whether there was case for war or not.
TOENSING: But can‘t you see the vice president—being in the vice president‘s office, and call over to the CIA why did you pick this idiot, as they learned that he was?
MATTHEWS: Right.
TOENSING: Oh, we don‘t know. George Tenet says I didn‘t do it. Oh my gosh, his wife did.
Would you trust John Kerry to run this program? Hillary? I don't have a problem with the program, just that there appears to be no indeoendent review of it. There's no check against abuse of power.
The determination of who's eligible to be spied on is 100% in the hands of the executive. Bush could decide that you're linked to AQ and listen in on your calls and there's nothing that can be done about it. Do you feel the comfortable giving a President that power?
With Bush, I tend to think he's a decent guy and isn't using this for nefarious purposes. But who knows? Look at what Nixon did. If we say this is ok for Bush, then it's ok for the next dem president. Are you ok with Kerry or Hillary ordering secret, nonreviewable, warrantless surveillance on whoever they feel like?
Cheers,
CSG
Nah, I think they just get a large percentage of loons over on the Rat line.
Brian Lamb discussed that with Laura Ingraham when she interviewed him last month. He believes that there were more conservatives calling C-SPAN in its earlier days. Now with the proliferation of talk radio and the success of some of the more conservative shows, these people have more places to go than the lefties. (My words for his comments.)
Yes, that's the impression I've gotten from the comments on the thread, regarding his political leanings. While I'd heard of The Puzzle Palace, I hadn't read it, so wasn't familiar with his take on things.
Cheers,
CSG
C-SPAN also gets a lot of RAT calls on the Republican line...those who claim to be Republican, but go off on a leftist rant, or they claim to be Republican, but they have "questions" about "what this administration is doing".
Now that CSPIN is screened and scripted it's clear to see which way Brian Lamb prances.
Replaying again now, 1:25am CT.
Toensing rocks!
The Democrat Party and the MSM help Al Qaeda on a daily basis. Hopefully they are under surveillance.
Was reading about Turley and his view that Bush has done something illegal...I assume what ayou have is lawyers who still dont think this is a war.
I think that's completely and utterly false.
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