Posted on 01/08/2006 8:49:15 AM PST by Chi-townChief
How would you like the odds of winning to be about 5,000 to 1 in your favor at one of the local riverboat casinos?
Most people would jump at the chance to take that bet and would do it every hour on the hour each day of the week. To say it is a good bet is an understatement.
With odds like those one would need a dump truck to haul away your winnings.
The Bush administration for some reason does not like those odds. Those odds happen to be the odds of rejection for requests for domestic spying by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, court. Out of nearly 20,000 requests for permission only four were denied.
Keep in mind these requests could be made after the spying was under way. All the government had to do was approach the FISA court. Approval was denied once out of every 5,000 requests since the court was created in 1978.
Apparently the president and his minions did not like those odds and decided to bypass the court and spy on those who "received calls from al-Qaida" — to use the president's words — and countless other Americans.
Friends and foes of the president recognize the actions of his administration as being a violation of FISA. Some observers claim it is an impeachable offense.
Why would the White House choose to avoid a process that was bound to grant your wish whether you approached the FISA court before or after you took action?
It is comparable to some one going up to a betting window of a casino and threatening a teller with a gun and demanding money when all one has to do is place a bet and be assured of winning 4,999 times out of 5,000.
It does not make sense.
Prior to the creation of the FISA court the FBI spied on Martin Luther King and other civil rights organizations and sought to undermine them. FBI agents infiltrated labor unions, college campus organizations and anti-war groups under the auspices of a Counter Intelligence Program, better known as COINTELPRO.
A U.S. Senate investigation found that between 1960 and 1974, the FBI conducted a half million investigations of so-called subversives without a single conviction. That agency maintained files on well over 1 million Americans.
The FBI tapped phones, opened mail, planted bugs and burglarized homes and offices. At least 26,000 individuals were at one point cataloged on an FBI list of persons to be rounded up in the event of a "national emergency," according a Village Voice article this past week.
Are we witnessing a replay of the abuses of the 1960s, '70s and '80s by this administration?
Russell Tice, who was recently terminated by the National Security Agency after he spoke out as a whistleblower, described the FISA court this way during an interview on Democracy Now, an independent radio and television news program:
" I kind of liken the FISA court to a monkey with a rubber stamp. The monkey sees a name, the monkey sees a word justification with a block of information. It can't read the block, but it just stamps 'affirmed' on the block and a banana chip rolls out, and then the next paper rolls in front of the monkey. When you have like 20,000 requests and only, I think, four were turned down, you can't look at the FISA court as anything different."
Did the Bush administration bypass the rubber stamp FISA court because most of the domestic spying was for domestic political purposes and not the war on terrorism?
Is the heat being gradually turned up on American civil liberties in the same way the heat is turned up on a lobster? Will the use of fear and the threat of attack cause the American public to relax their protection of civil liberties while the balance of power in the government is eroded and before the people realize it their democracy has been cooked?
Tice described himself and most of the employees of the National Security Agency as Republicans. He said the NSA is choked with fear and most workers are afraid to speak out.
He stated that he voted for Bush in both elections and even donated to his campaigns. He is proud of the fact that he's received a Christmas card from the president.
But he said he swore an oath to protect the Constitution.
And that is why he has asked to testify before Congress — and why he came forward as a whistleblower.
David Johnson's "Subject to Change" appears every other week in The Star. Johnson is a professor at South Suburban College in South Holland and a former mayor of Harvey. He may be reached at djohnson@southsuburbancollege.edu.
try to get that tune out of your head now...
As I try to remind the libs at work. We have to be correct 100% of the time. A terrorist only has to be right once out of a billion times. They will be the first to blame Bush if an attack happens. Oddly, they will fight him tooth and nail the entire way preventing him from using the tools proven to work.
The democrat leadership does more harm to the country than our enemies ever could.
If this is the way dims "think", it's no wonder why they can't be trusted with the defense of this nation anymore!
And thus begins the moonbat speculation-- Is George Bush monitoring MY phone? Is George Bush beaming microwaves at my head so I will die of cancer? Is George Bush a minion of Cthulhu?
These peple have been filled with paranoia since Bush WON the 2000 election-- when he leaves office there is going to be such vaccuums formed in their heads that there are going to be mass explosions racing throughout the liberal strongholds like sonic booms.
Johnson is a jackass. Doesn't want to acknowledge the presidents #1 duty is the national security AND nothing in the constitution gives congress or some freaking FISA court veto power over this responsibility.
Interesting. The "abuses of the 1960s, '70s and '80s" were by "the FBI." But the present "abuses" are specifically by GW Bush. He's apparently trotting around out there physically recording calls.
Anybody else see the hypocrisy in this way of wording it?
What are the odds that some partisan klintonite in the FISA court tips prospective tapee's ...
you know, to protect their civil liberties ?
AT THIS TIME, everything points to Hillary as the benefactor.
This is from the TCU (Texas Christian University) site as is an exerpt from one of the lawyers (Hillary Clinton) employed by the Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee during the Nixon Watergate era.
The attorney, Hillary Clinton wrote: Impeachment was "one of the tools used by the English" to make their government "more reponsive and responsible". As such, it could be triggered by wrong-doing that was "not necessarily limited to common law or statutory...crimes". Instead, when impeachment had been used in American History, there had been "little emphasis on criminal conduct" but rather simply a need to remove public officials who had "seriously undermined public confidence" through their "course of conduct. "Impeachment", wrote twenty-eight year old Hillary Clinton in 1974, "is the first step in remedial process" to correct "serious offenses" that "undermine the integrity of the office."
As far as I can see, the polls are not working out for the Dems but they are working at it. I'd look for the words "integrity, serious, public confidence" in the polls.
Someplace, a long time ago...maybe about the time that Rathergate came out, I found an article about stating that what Hillary proposed to the Judiciary Committee to take Nixon down was both illegal and unconstitional...but I have not been able to locate it since.
It would only take one good shot/flight/bomb to bring down the Sears Tower. Is this idiot for real? We can't risk the one shot. AQ hit us hard once on US soil and we aren't going to stand for it again.
The author, the MSM and most members of congress do not know whether any, all or none of the foreign intercepts to were cleared with the FISA Courts since these requests are secret.
It was not a matter of clearance but the timeliness of the intercept. When Hakim goes off hook in The Sudan and dials someone in the US there is no time to get a warrant.
"and countless other Americans"
And so the LIR is perpetuated! What a jackass!!
I agree with the President. If you life in the United States and you are receiving calls from a KNOWN TERRORIST organization - YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR CALLS MONITORED.
Well, there's the problem. Some people are more trustworthy than others. I don't have a problem with Bush & Co doing illegal spying, never mind the legal kind. We have to get information, and we don't know how long trustworthy people will be in the White House. If we're stupid enough to elect the wrong people next time, well, at least we got a head start. Your biggest concerns then will be much bigger than who uses what judge for what.
I believe we've moved beyond the issue of American freedom. Our very survival is at stake now. If you think our founding fathers would hesitate to spy on Americans, well, that's just crazy. They would've locked up a whole pile of muSlums living here as well, guilty or not.
You are correct.
Specifically, the DEMS and the MSM are being directed to attack BUSH on the things that are being revealed about the Clinton Admin, and other DEM administrations.
No one is perfect. No one is an angel (yet). I am sure President Bush has made some mistakes, which I am just as sure he would acknowledge.
Oral sex in the Oval office is not just a mistake.
Beating women to get your jollies. Interesting that both Bill Clinton and Saddam had the same personal hobbies.
The technique of the guilty is to attack others first for the crimes they committed.
That way when this Administration tries to have Justice take up the case, the public will be led to see it as "just wantin to get even".
You see, the Clintons, backed by the Dixie Mafia, backed by Worldwide Organized Crime (soros), have infiltrated the US government, bought out everyone they could, including the MSM and Hollywood (they couldn't hide all the money the Reds gave them)(which is why Hollywood is turning out crap, the producers aren't throwing away their own money) in a bid to take over the United States for fun and profit.
We are fighting for our right to exist as the United States of America, not in Iraq, but right here.
It's not at full pitch yet, but it is coming on strong.
I want NSA to keep doing this work. I do not worry about what I say or who I speak to. The oath of office is to protect this nation against all enemies both foreign and domestic.
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