Posted on 07/10/2009 4:18:28 PM PDT by presidio9
The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program.
It's unclear how much valuable intelligence was yielded by the surveillance program started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, according to the unclassified summary of reports by five inspectors general. The reports mandated by Congress last year were delivered to lawmakers Friday.
President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program, the summary said. It describes the entire program as the "President's Surveillance Program."
The report describes the program as unprecedented and raises questions about the legal grounding used for its creation. It also says the intelligence agencies' continued retention and use of the information collected under the program should be carefully monitored.
Many senior intelligence officials believe the program filled a gap in intelligence. Others, including FBI, CIA and National Counterterrorism Center analysts, said intelligence gathered by traditional means was often more specific and timely, according to the report.
The Bush White House acknowledged in 2005 that it allowed the National Security Agency to intercept international communications that passed through U.S. cables without court orders.
The inspectors general interviewed more than 200 government officials and private sector personnel, including former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Five former Bush administration officials refused to be interviewed, including former CIA Director George Tenet and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The others: former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card; former top Cheney aide David Addington; and John Yoo,
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The scurreying for cover sounds like a stampede.
Blame it on Bush is a dwindling asset.
So much to know; so little time.
Put every Democrat in Congress to the lie detector. Off the chart on every read.
“the unprecedented anti-terrorism program”
Really? No precedent in Hoover’s FBI? Or Kennedy and Nixon’s justice departments? Or Wilson and FDR’s homefront war efforts?
Click on my name and then the picture.
The Obamacoms are still pissed that we were spying on their Islamofascist terrorist buddies.
Ha! That's a great line... have to remember that one.
“Crank-Whore?”
This and Bushies fiscal irresponsibility is what doomed the repubs in ‘08.
Exactly! The AP shouldn't be so obvious...
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When she asked another Gubmint Employee about the machines, she was told that they recorded all overseas phone conversations. This was during the late Bush 41 or early Clinton Administrations.
I only know what she told me, but she did know what the machines looked like and she described them to my Wife who worked for Racal at the time.
This whole Bush taking away your privacy thing is bunk meant to rile up the Useful Idiots. And guess what, it worked like a charm.
Can't wait for my Medical History to be Digitized so the ObamaCare Acorn Workers can make life and death decisions for me.
Hey, that’s not very nice.
Oh that's right, it only mattered that Michelle Malkin agreed with FDR and Ann Coulter said we should invade the Muslim Countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.
from over two and a half years ago:
Judge: NSA Not Required to Released Wiretapping Details
(Finally a judge with some sense)
Fox News | 11/20/2006 | AP
Posted on 11/20/2006 7:03:16 PM PST by tobyhill
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1741896/posts
How about all of the BS when “W” was seen with the volleyball gals?
They were going crazy about that one.
Some show trials of Bush Administration intelligence officials should work nicely....for a while. Then people will realize the only change is their standard of living disappearing.
I KNEW there was a reason I have felt violated for the past several years. And here I thought it was alien invaders who kidnapped me, and subjected me to a round of anal probes, the way they always do.
Now I know it was Bush’s secret surveillance....this kind of jive innuendo reportage is yet another classic expression of the Left accusing Bush of fulfilling the kind of programmatic prying that is their own heart’s desire. See, first they have to accuse Bush of doing it, so they can do it with impunity themselves, as a “corrective”, and out of motivations of nothing more than “self-defense”.
yep, the ACORN census ‘might want to know’ about firearms but that’s all it is for now, strictly a wish and they can just a wish all they want.
Asspress really has its fangs in this story. Ninny Nancy must have told them to write this garbage.
In that memo, Yoo concluded that the FISA law could not "restrict the president's ability to engage in warrantless searches that protect the national security" and that "unless Congress made a clear statement in FISA that it sought to restrict presidential authority to conduct warrantless searches in the national security area -- which it has not-- then the statute must be construed to avoid such a reading," according to the report.OK, let's see what the FISA Court of Appeals had to say on the subject of whether FISA could restrict the president's ability to engage in warrantless searches to protect national security:
The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. ... We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power.The president does have inherent constitutional authority under his Article II powers to conduct warrantless searches on matters of national security and this is at its zenith with regard to a foreign enemy that has already launched a mass casualty attack on civilians on US soil. FISA is a mere statute, and cannot constitutionally restrict the President's Constitutional authority. This is true no matter who is president.
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