He and others, haven't gotten the message yet!
Posted on 02/17/2006 4:13:38 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
WASHINGTON (AP) -
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee wants the panel to look into whether the National Security Agency was eavesdropping without proper authority in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks.
It was one of the questions outlined by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., in writing this week in a proposal to investigate.
The Bush administration has repeatedly said intelligence officials acted lawfully.
As a leader on the intelligence committee, Rockefeller is one of a select group of lawmakers who has been briefed more fully on the program, but he and others still have a number of questions they want answered.
Rockefeller wants the full committee to understand the NSA's activities - "including any warrantless surveillance" - that took place between the suicide hijackings in 2001 and the initiation of President Bush's controversial surveillance program.
Rockefeller also wants the panel to investigate how that may have supplemented intelligence collected and analyzed before the attacks. That line of inquiry is the first of 13 questions Rockefeller circulated to committee members as part of his motion to investigate.
More members of Congress are also expressing interest in weighing in on the program. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., told reporters that he's had conversations with members of the "Gang of 14" - centrist senators who defused a showdown over judicial filibusters last year - about whether they should consider reviewing laws relating to the president's program. But, he said, they haven't reached a decision.
Warner also would not say whether he personally believes Bush acted within his authority.
"All I know, there's considerable doubt out there," said Warner, who as Senate Armed Services Committee chairman can attend intelligence panel meetings.
Rockefeller asked his committee to vote on his investigative proposal Thursday, but Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and other Republicans instead voted to adjourn a closed-door session without considering the investigation.
Roberts said the committee needed more time to work with the White House on further briefings for Congress and possible legislative fixes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. If the negotiations fail, Roberts said the panel could consider Rockefeller's motion at a meeting next month.
Rockefeller also wants the committee to study how intelligence collected as part of the NSA program is retained, the program's operational procedures, concerns raised by federal judges, and technology used in the operations.
NSA spokesman Don Weber said he had no information to provide.
The precise details of the presidential authorization, including the date, have not been made public. In the weeks after Sept. 11, Bush has said he authorized surveillance - without warrants - of Americans whose international calls and e-mails may be linked to al-Qaida.
In a press conference last month, Gen. Michael Hayden, the No. 2 U.S. intelligence official and former NSA director, said he introduced the new surveillance authority to key employees in October 2001.
"I told them that we were going to carry out this program and not go one step further," Hayden said.
Bush has seen Republican congressional support for his eavesdropping program erode in the last two months, but Republican leaders have managed - for now - to stave off full-scale investigations.
White House officials originally said congressional debate could damage national security, and the bar for any legislative changes would be high. But a day after striking the agreement with Roberts to work on legislation and more briefings for his committee, the White House appeared more open to congressional debate.
"The president believes that he has the authority necessary," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Friday. "But we're willing to work with the Congress if they feel that further codification of that is needed."
The House Intelligence Committee has also been working on a list of questions that it plans to have answered in writing or in hearings in the coming weeks.
House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and other committee members have agreed to look at whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act needs modernizing, his spokesman Jamal Ware said Friday.
Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., who chairs a subcommittee that oversees the NSA, said she does not expect a committee vote to open an inquiry, but members were conducting a "workmanlike" review as part of their regular oversight.
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Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti contributed to this report.
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The investigation, which appears to cover the case from 2004, when the newspaper began reporting the story, is being closely coordinated with criminal prosecutors at the Justice Department, the officials said. People who have been interviewed and others in the government who have been briefed on the interviews said the investigation seemed to lay the groundwork for a grand jury inquiry that could lead to criminal charges.
More Here
This site also discusses Rockefeller being looked at as a snitch in the Middle East prior to the war.
NSA - The danger of a Rogue Main Stream Media
Friday, February 17, 2006
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The Media Mourns...
"WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — The Senate Intelligence Committee decided today not to investigate President Bush's domestic surveillance program, at least for the time being.
"I believe that such an investigation is currently unwarranted and would be detrimental to this highly classified program," Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas and chairman of the panel, said this afternoon following a closed session.
While Mr. Roberts's announcement signaled that the administration's eavesdropping program would not be subject to Senate scrutiny, at least for the time being, there was no guarantee that the House would not go ahead with an inquiry of its own.
Mr. Roberts said "an agreement in principle" had been reached with the administration whereby lawmakers would be given more information on the surveillance operation run by the National Security Agency.
"The details of this agreement will take some time to work out," Mr. Roberts said.But the committee's ranking Democrat, John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, was clearly unhappy after the meeting and said it made no sense to pursue legislation when the full details of the surveillance program were not known. Mr. Roberts said Mr. Rockefeller's proposal for an investigation would be reconsidered when the committee reconvenes on March 7."
You know, Al Qaeda operatives world wide have to be laughing their asses off at the US these days. While their brethren rioting world-wide over fake cartoons - killing at this point more than twenty people in the process. While China is preparing for war (believe it), and Russian is once again feeling their oates. While we have a hundred and one things - very dangerous things taking place in the world around us, the American MSM is stuck on Pellet-Gate, and making a MOUNTAIN of SIN over a hill of beans in the NSA issue.
Again, the NSA is NOT spying on Americans. In fact to this date there hasn't been ONE documented occurance of someone's so-called right to privacy. I say so-called because whether or not you have that right is questionable. You have NO right to privacy if you're talking with your terrorist slug buddies and planning to kill Americans. Like it or not or believe it or not, the program and all the other programs the Administration is using has kept us from getting re-attacked. Quite frankly the MSM I believe would rather have it the other way around. You know, "If it bleeds it leads". Pretty much the MSM would just as well enjoy another 9/11 just so they can stand there and beat their collective chests and say, "See? We told you so!"
Told us what? That you would turn away and ignore tyranny just to keep an office open? That you would sell out your own Country just to make a buck?
Basically the only thing the MSM has told us - and our enemies as well - lately is our secrets. Devulging our classified war plans "book sales", and "Breaking Stories".
We live in a dangerous time of delusion. No, not from the Bush Administration, but from the MSM themselves. They are the Orwellian spector, creating the world as THEY see it. This last week they signaled the final nails in their coffin of relevance. Simply put they showed their collective asses and the American public will not forgive or forget it.
I still think Rockefeller has told more USA secret information to our "friends(enemies) " than any other traitor that we know about.
I don't trust him as far as I can throw Lambeau Field.
Amen
Why Soldiers Have to Buy Advertising Time to Explain the War
February 17, 2006
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Reader Sara Kennedy writes:
I just wanted to let you know that I had a very interesting conversation last night with Patricia Macintosh. She is a flight attendant with Omni Airlines International which handles some of the transporting of soldiers from the US to Iraq. She is older, from Birmingham England (she has lived in the US for 30 years) and decided to take these flights after she retired.I was curious about her experience and I asked her about the flights. She immediately expressed her anger and frustration with what Americans did not know. She explained there were schools and sewer systems being built and soldiers going back tour after tour. She said she would do anything to get the word out because Americans just "don't have a clue." I explained that some of us do. She was obviously emotional over the media circus surrounding the war and it was clear this was discussed with the soldiers on these very long flights. She is very supportive and has been given letters and medals from some of the soldiers she has met. It was a captivating conversation. Even though I know the situation in Iraq is much better than I'm being told, it was still very emotional to hear first hand what has been going on in Iraq and with the soldiers. She is in Edina until March 1st when she leaves to go back to Iraq. She said she would be there now if she wasn't having minor health problems.
She also saved a young mother and her baby from drowning in our apartment complex pool. She is nearly 70, probably doesn't weigh more than 110 lbs. What a lady!
She'd better be careful, though, about expressing those "un-American" views, or the Democratic Party will start demanding that she shut up.
Rockefeller is a pathetic piece of ....
Ummm .. is Warner trying to that the Gang of 14 run the Senate and the other 86 don't?
And interesting that Rockerfeller .. the senator who has admitted to having talks with and visited with the enemy is all worried about who was caught up in the wiretapping
Rockefeller is a real piece of work.I hope I live to see him in orange jumpsuit.
Bring it on!
John Warner. What a lowlife sleazeball!
I don't like Democrats because they're gonna get us KILLED!
These a$$holes don't give a damn what happens to America, as long as it provides an opportunity to badmouth this administration.
He and others, haven't gotten the message yet!
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This is only a play to lessen the Powers of the President. Secret Intelligence is necessary in war and obviously "leaks" are helpful to the enemy. God help those Dems in congress who are aiding the enemy. They are a disgrace to our nation.
Rockefeller's "treasonous" memo continues to be the answer to all the questions surrounding this affair.
What are Rockefeller's poll numbers? I cannot believe that
West Virginians would vote him in again after these last 4 years.
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