Govenor Dean on General Hayden's Nomination [NSA's domestic spying program disqualifies him....]

As the director of the National Security Agency, Michael Hayden oversaw the creation of the massive domestic spying program revealed last week. Now George Bush wants him to run the CIA.

After yesterday's hearings, it's obvious that Hayden's involvement in the NSA's domestic spying program disqualifies him from heading the CIA. His answers to questions from Congress and from the press have been evasive at best and downright false at worst. The Bush administration's chronic pattern of misleading the American people about the full extent of its domestic spying activities was on full display yesterday, and the American people deserve better.

We can't be fooled by the rhetoric from the Republicans: domestic spying is not a partisan issue. Democrats will do what it takes to keep America safe, and support tracking down al-Qaeda and preventing future attacks, but we want the President to follow the law. Domestic spying is one more Bush-imposed chink in the constitutional armor that shields Americans' fundamental rights from over-reaching by the government.

When the Senators meet to decide on Hayden's confirmation, they must hear the voices of their constituents. We want to deliver the voices of 100,000 Americans who oppose this nomination. Will you add your name?

Some Republicans will try to pretend that this is just another political fight. But Americans of every political viewpoint are rightfully disturbed by the misleading answers they've heard in response to questions about Hayden's activity at the NSA.

Republicans in the Senate and the House have already expressed concern about this nomination. The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee called Hayden "the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time" and one Senate Intelligence Committee member, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, called the Hayden nomination "a major problem".

Please add your name and circulate this message to your friends. It's up to every one of us to stand up and demand answers:

We need a CIA chief committed to protecting Americans without misleading them. Hayden, through his involvement in the domestic spying program, has shown that he cannot.

Just a little warning to all Rat $inators who voted to approve the following bill, and if you vote against General Hayden, you will be shown to be a true jackass.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1635045/posts

Pat "Leaky" Leahy Aided NSA Phone Taps
newsmax.com ^ | May 19 2006

Posted on 05/19/2006 10:11:40 AM PDT by Dog

In 1994 Sen. Pat "Leaky" Leahy co-wrote a law that forced telecommunications carriers to build convenient wiretap features into their networks enabling the kind of telephone records collection now at the heart of the controversy over the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance operation.

In recent days Leahy has called the NSA's actions troubling and potentially illegal - saying they show that the Bush administration is treating Americans like terrorists.

"'The secret collection of phone call records of tens of millions of Americans?" he exclaimed after USA Today blew the lid off the program last week. "Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaeda?"

But according to the Rutland Herald, Leahy was singing a different tune 12 years ago, when he was pushing the Senate to pass his bill, the Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act [CALEA].

Civil libertarians are also troubled by Leahy's law. "The secret search and wiretap provisions could lead to an age of Big Brother-like surveillance," the American Civil Liberties Union complained in the same Law Journal report. "Americans who oppose U.S. policies and who are believed to have ties to foreign powers could find their homes broken into and their telephones tapped."

"I suggest to senators if anybody does want to hold [CALEA] up, I hope that at this time next year, neither they nor their constituents, nor anybody they know, is a kidnap victim or victim of a terrorist, and have somebody ask why nothing can be done, and be told because a law that had probably 99 percent support in the House and the Senate did not pass." Contacted by the Herald earlier this week, Leahy said there was an important difference between what his law authorized and the actions taken by the Bush administration.

"That law talks of the technology of the interception and what technology can be used to intercept and it assumes very clearly that it can only be done with a warrant," the Vermont Democrat insisted.

Some legal experts say, however, said that assumption is not as clear as Leahy claims. Analyzing CALEA in 2003, the Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal explained:

"CALEA requires a telecommunications provider to make 'its equipment, facilities, or services ... capable of ... enabling the government ... [without a warrant] to intercept ... all wire and electronic communications carried by the carrier.'"

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