Bush: Eavesdropping Helps Save U.S. Lives

AP ^ | 12/17/05 | JENNIFER LOVEN

[frankjr]

Facing angry criticism and challenges to his authority in Congress, President Bush on Saturday unapologetically defended his administration's right to conduct secret post-Sept. 11 spying in the United States as "critical to saving American lives."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she had been told on several occasions that Bush had authorized unspecified activities by the National Security Agency, the nation's largest spy agency. She said she had expressed strong concerns at the time, and that Bush's statement Saturday "raises serious questions as to what the activities were and whether the activities were lawful."

"The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time," Bush said. "And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad."

"I didn't hear him specify any legal right, except his right as president, which in a democracy doesn't make much sense," Bamford said in an interview. "Today, what Bush said is he went around the law, which is a violation of the law — which is illegal."

Bush said leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., told House Republicans that those informed were the top Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and of each chamber's intelligence committees. "They've been through the whole thing," Hoekstra said.

The president had harsh words for those who revealed the program to the media, saying they acted improperly and illegally. The surveillance was first disclosed in Friday's New York Times.

"As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have," Bush said. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."

[saganite]

According to everything I've read warrants were obtained. What say you now?

[sgtyork]

--- And I didn't see the part in the New York Times article where US citizens were targeted at all. Unless you can quote that, I continue to believe that terrorist identities overseas and their connections to PERSONS here in the states (remember sleeper cellls?) were listened to.

It was very clever of the Times to obfuscate on this critical point. Here's paragraph 16 of the article (from Michelle Malkins site)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, the officials said.
In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said.

Read the definitions again. If a connection is shown to in international terrorist organization, the communication is considered foreign intelligence.

What would you propose be done if a laptop is siezed from a terrorist in Afghanistan and it has phone numbers in the United States listed?

Again, if you have documentation that says that US citizens were targeted, please provide it.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

From post #24:
"EAVESDROPPING INS AND OUTS [Mark R. Levin]
Some brief background: The Foreign Intelligence Security Act permits the government to monitor foreign communications, even if they are with U.S. citizens -- 50 USC 1801, et seq. A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications are wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.

The reason the President probably had to sign an executive order is that the Justice Department office that processes FISA requests, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), can take over 6 months to get a standard FISA request approved. It can become extremely bureaucratic, depending on who is handling the request. His executive order is not contrary to FISA if he believed, as he clearly did, that he needed to act quickly. The president has constitutional powers, too.

It's also clear from the Times piece that Rockefeller knew about the government's eavesdropping, as did the FISA court.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_12_11_corner-archive.asp#084896

[TKDietz]

I don't have a major problem with this under the circumstances, but I also don't have a problem with people being concerned about it. We have to be careful about how far we let our government go. The war on terror will probably never end. Law enforcement and government officials will use it as an excuse for all sorts of things that don't have anything to do with terrorism. People mindful of the Constitution and concerned about our rights are not always in power. We just need to be careful about how far we let them go, that's all.

[TKDietz]

Why does it take the feds so long to get warrants? In state courts at least where I live it only takes long enough to bring an affidavit by the judge's office, or home, along with a copy of a warrant form that police or prosecutors have already put the relevant info in. The judge glances at the paperwork, signs the thing, and it's done, all in a matter of minutes. I have a hard time believing it takes so long for the feds to get a warrant. I suspect the real problem is that they have no probable cause required by the Constitution for warrants.

[oceanview]

so only the ACLU, the Times, and liberal federal judges can provide the "oversight" needed to make something "legal" in your mind? that's basically what you are saying.

[oceanview]

there is no such thing as "independent oversight". everyone has an agenda; senators, federal judges. certainly we have learned that by now.

even a "24x7" panel of judges isn't going to help you when a phone call or an email can cross a switch with a duration of perhaps seconds or minutes, and you have to monitor it.

if you think the President broke the law here, speak up and call for his impeachment - as that would be the only legal remedy.

[oceanview]

yeah, let's instead put our faith in the ACLU and the 9th circuit to protect us.

[tomahawk]

The masks are off. The Democrats are now clear defenders of Al Qaeda and their agents in the United States.

[Wolfhound777]

so only the ACLU, the Times, and liberal federal judges can provide the "oversight" needed to make something "legal" in your mind? that's basically what you are saying.

I don't remember ever referring to these entities. My only concern is for oversight by somone other than the ones that want the eavesdropping. Nothing you or anybody else say will convince me that we should "just trust" them. If there are procedures in place, they need to be followed. If the procedures aren't working, then refine them or come up with procedures that will work.

[oceanview]

but you seem to be willing to "trust" the other entities in this - the judiciary, the FISA court, the intel committees headed up by people like Jay Rockefeller.

all laws are arbitrary. one day, you wake up and the constitution no longer protects private property rights. the FISA laws can be read to allow for these actions, the administration felt they were acting in the best interests of the country in setting up monitoring for the phone numbers collected from various AQ laptops, the congressional committees were informed and the decisions were reviewed every 45 days. to whom should they have been forced to seek agreement before implementing the plan?

[Wolfhound777]

Ok...let's just not have any oversight. That will be perfect if the Rats are ever back in power. We wouldn't want to trust anyone but them, right?

[Enchante]

Flashback, Jennifer Loven is a Biased DNC Whore Alert!!

In light of today's WH smack-down of the insufferable Jennifer Loven by both President Karzai and President Bush, I went looking for some of her past glories. So many of her article really do read like DNC press releases, it's hard to believe she is allowed to play reporter for the AP.... but then considering how badly journalism has been degraded at places like the AP, I guess it's not a surprise at all.

Found a different version of her hit-piece on the Bush WH from last December (see below). Looks like it came out before she had lined up the deranged quotes from Nancy Pelosi that lead off the new Yahoo version in this thread (above). Notice how in this version she has a slightly different litany of leftist complaints, with almost no counter-balancing at all.... yeah, she's a real "objective" journalist for a DNC hack.....

---

Bush: Eavesdropping Helps Save U.S. Lives
JENNIFER LOVEN / AP 17dec2005

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Bush-Eavesdropping-Helps17dec05.htm


Bush: Eavesdropping Helps Save U.S. Lives JENNIFER LOVEN / AP 17dec2005



WASHINGTON — Facing angry criticism and challenges to his authority in Congress, President Bush on Saturday unapologetically defended his administration's right to conduct secret post-Sept. 11 spying in the United States as "critical to saving American lives."

One Democrat said Bush was acting more like a king than a democratically elected leader. But Bush said congressional leaders had been briefed on the operation more than a dozen times. That included Democrats as well as Republicans in the House and Senate, a GOP lawmaker said.

Often appearing angry in an eight-minute address, the president made clear he has no intention of halting his authorizations of the monitoring activities and said public disclosure of the program by the news media had endangered Americans.

Bush's willingness to publicly acknowledge a highly classified spying program was a stunning development for a president known to dislike disclosure of even the most mundane inner workings of his White House. Just a day earlier he had refused to talk about it.

Since October 2001, the super-secret National Security Agency has eavesdropped on the international phone calls and e-mails of people inside the United States without court-approved warrants. Bush said steps like these would help fight terrorists like those who involved in the Sept. 11 plot.

"The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time," Bush said. "And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad."

News of the program came at a particularly damaging and delicate time.

Already, the administration was under fire for allegedly operating secret prisons in Eastern Europe and shipping suspected terrorists to other countries for harsh interrogations.

The NSA program's existence surfaced as Bush was fighting to save the expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the domestic anti-terrorism law enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Democrats and a few Republicans who say the law gives so much latitude to law enforcement officials that it threatens Americans' constitutional liberties succeeded Friday in stalling its renewal.

So Bush scrapped the version of his weekly radio address that he had already taped — on the recent elections in Iraq — and delivered a live speech from the Roosevelt Room in which he lashed out at the senators blocking the Patriot Act as irresponsible and confirmed the NSA program.

Bush said his authority to approve what he called a "vital tool in our war against the terrorists" came from his constitutional powers as commander in chief. He said that he has personally signed off on reauthorizations more than 30 times.

"The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties," Bush said. "And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I'm the president of the United States."

James Bamford, author of two books on the NSA, said the program could be problematic because it bypasses a special court set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize eavesdropping on suspected terrorists.

"I didn't hear him specify any legal right, except his right as president, which in a democracy doesn't make much sense," Bamford said in an interview. "Today, what Bush said is he went around the law, which is a violation of the law — which is illegal."

Retired Adm. Bobby Inman, who led the NSA from 1977 to 1981, said Bush's authorization of the eavesdropping would have been justified in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks "because at that point you couldn't get a court warrant unless you could show probable cause."

"Once the Patriot Act was in place, I am puzzled what was the need to continue outside the court," Inman added. But he said, "If the fact is valid that Congress was notified, there will be no consequences."

Susan Low Bloch, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center, said Bush was "taking a hugely expansive interpretation of the Constitution and the president's powers under the Constitution.

That view was echoed by congressional Democrats.

"I tell you, he's President George Bush, not King George Bush. This is not the system of government we have and that we fought for," Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press.

Added Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt.: "The Bush administration seems to believe it is above the law."

Bush defended the program as narrowly designed and used "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution." He said it is employed only to intercept the international communications of people inside the U.S. who have been determined to have "a clear link" to al-Qaida or related terrorist organizations.

Government officials have refused to provide details, including defining the standards used to establish such a link or saying how many people are being monitored.

The program is reviewed every 45 days, using fresh threat assessments, legal reviews, and information from previous activities under the program, the president said. Intelligence officials involved in the monitoring receive extensive training in civil liberties, he said.

Bush said leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., told House Republicans that those informed were the top Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and of each chamber's intelligence committees. "They've been through the whole thing," Hoekstra said.

The president had harsh words for those who revealed the program to the media, saying they acted improperly and illegally. The surveillance was first disclosed in Friday's New York Times.

"As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have," Bush said. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."

Bush has more to worry about on Capitol Hill than his difficulties with the Patriot Act. Lawmakers have begun challenging Bush on his Iraq policy, reflecting polling that shows half of the country is not behind him on the war.

On Sunday, the president was continuing his effort to reverse that by giving his fifth major speech in less than three weeks on Iraq.

One bright spot for the White House was a new poll showing that a strong majority of Americans oppose, as does Bush and most lawmakers, an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The APsIpsos poll found 57 percent of those surveyed said the U.S. military should stay until Iraq is stabilized.

Associated Press Special Correspondent David Espo and writers Andrew Bridges and Will Lester contributed to this report.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051217/ap—on—go—pr—wh/bush 17dec2005

[nopardons]

Oh my goodness...look at what you found! Great scut work, dear; keep up the good work; we all appreciate it a lot.

[nopardons]

bttt

[Marine_Uncle]

One things for certain. The demorats shall continue in their ignorance by design keep the lame brained main stream media hopped up on things that should not even be an issue due to the new requirements to seek and capture Islamofacist goon balls the world wide. Guys like Leahay should be kicked out of the hill and signs posted on their backs indicating they should be avoided at all costs.