RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Bush does the (wire)tap dance

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Senator Wants Court to Oversee Spy Program

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, breaking ranks with the president on domestic eavesdropping, says he wants a special court to oversee the program.

Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan., said he is concerned that the secret court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act could not issue warrants as quickly as the monitoring program requires. But he is optimistic that the problem could be worked out.

"You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit," Roberts was quoted as saying in Saturday's New York Times.

Roberts said he does not believe much support exists among lawmakers for exempting the program from the control of the FISA court. That is the approach Bush has favored and one that would be established under a bill proposed by Sen. Mike DeWine (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio.

Roberts has defended Bush's program, which was revealed by the Times in a story in December. Bush says the program to monitor electronic communication between the United States and international sites involving suspected al-Qaida operatives is vital to anti-terrorism efforts.

On Thursday, Roberts said he and the White House had agreed to give lawmakers more information on the nature of the program and that the administration had committed to making changes to the FISA law. At the same time, he delayed a Democratic effort to call for an investigation of the program.

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The Sept. 11 hijackers made dozens of telephone calls to Saudi Arabia and Syria in the months before the attacks, according to a classified report from the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

According to the report, 206 international telephone calls were known to have been made by the leaders of the hijacking plot after they arrived in the United States--including 29 to Germany, 32 to Saudi Arabia and 66 to Syria.

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Im Not Mister Mxypltk said:

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According to Senate sources, [Republican leader] Frist intends to let the Democrats put just about any kind of censure legislation they want up for a vote, knowing that Democrats have neither the votes nor the nerve to follow through, particularly in an election year. And it's already causing [Democrat leader] Reid some heartburn.

According to Democrat sources, Reid will attempt to bring his caucus to some kind of order as early as today, but is not hopeful about his chances. He has several fellow Democrats working to undercut his leadership: Sens. Dick Durbin, Christopher Dodd and Feingold, to name just three. Dodd has eyes on the leadership post down the road, Feingold has possible presidential credentials to burnish with the far left.

But none of them could get their colleagues to buy into a censure vote. Throughout the day as Feingold attempted to garner support, his Democrat colleagues went before the press and just shook their heads when asked about the censure vote.

Frist, for his part, is more than willing to let the Democrats devour their own, and is emboldened. Speaking about the Monday Democrat debacle, one Frist associate said, "[Frist] pushed them to the mat today, and they blinked. He dared them to vote and Democrat Leader Harry Reid looked like he was going to be sick as he said no.

Frist thinks it's time to call Democrats on their antics, and so he's going to continue to dare Democrats to vote on censuring the President. When it comes to intercepting phone calls from Tora Bora to Topeka, Frist thinks Senate Democrats have made a huge blunder, and he will lead the charge to make Democrats put up or shut up on censure."

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the G-man said:
Censurious Democrats

According to Senate sources, [Republican leader] Frist intends to let the Democrats put just about any kind of censure legislation they want up for a vote, knowing that Democrats have neither the votes nor the nerve to follow through, particularly in an election year. And it's already causing [Democrat leader] Reid some heartburn.

According to Democrat sources, Reid will attempt to bring his caucus to some kind of order as early as today, but is not hopeful about his chances. He has several fellow Democrats working to undercut his leadership: Sens. Dick Durbin, Christopher Dodd and Feingold, to name just three. Dodd has eyes on the leadership post down the road, Feingold has possible presidential credentials to burnish with the far left.

But none of them could get their colleagues to buy into a censure vote. Throughout the day as Feingold attempted to garner support, his Democrat colleagues went before the press and just shook their heads when asked about the censure vote.

Frist, for his part, is more than willing to let the Democrats devour their own, and is emboldened. Speaking about the Monday Democrat debacle, one Frist associate said, "[Frist] pushed them to the mat today, and they blinked. He dared them to vote and Democrat Leader Harry Reid looked like he was going to be sick as he said no.

Frist thinks it's time to call Democrats on their antics, and so he's going to continue to dare Democrats to vote on censuring the President. When it comes to intercepting phone calls from Tora Bora to Topeka, Frist thinks Senate Democrats have made a huge blunder, and he will lead the charge to make Democrats put up or shut up on censure."

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the G-man said:

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Im Not Mister Mxypltk said:

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This cartoon doesn't make any sense. To date, Bush has maintained, along with many commentators, that the wiretapping of suspected terrorists was legal.

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the G-man said:
Censurious Democrats

According to Senate sources, [Republican leader] Frist intends to let the Democrats put just about any kind of censure legislation they want up for a vote, knowing that Democrats have neither the votes nor the nerve to follow through,

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the G-man said:
Frist is not the only one convinced the Democrats don't have the votes. Minority leader Harry Reid, also a Democrat, is also convinced. That's why he's so worried.

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wannabuyamonkey said:
Yup everyone's talking about the Shaivo case!

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In a one-hour morning press conference that covered Iraq, Iran and domestic issues, Mr. Bush dared Democrats to oppose him on terrorist wiretapping.

"If people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it," he said of Democrats critical of his decision to allow the National Security Agency to monitor U.S.-international calls that intelligence officers think involve terrorists.

"They ought to take their message to the people, and say, 'Vote for me. I promise we're not going to have terrorist surveillance program,'" Mr. Bush said.

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wannabuyamonkey said:
He also startede by saying for all the complaining about the program he has yet to hear any of it's opponants acctually say it should end.

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Matter-eater Man said:

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wannabuyamonkey said:
He also startede by saying for all the complaining about the program he has yet to hear any of it's opponants acctually say it should end.

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The President is just creating a false argument. It's one thing recognizing the need for the program, another for how it was done. This was a case of the White House deciding it didn't have to follow a law. Now his poll numbers are low so he's pulling the partisan bit to pump up his base.

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Now his poll numbers are low so he's pulling the partisan bit to pump up his base.

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Specter to Shepherd Bills Through Senate

WASHINGTON - A vocal Republican critic of the Bush administration's eavesdropping program will preside over Senate efforts to write the program into law, but he was pessimistic Wednesday that the White House wanted to listen.

"They want to do just as they please, for as long as they can get away with it," Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think what is going on now without congressional intervention or judicial intervention is just plain wrong."

Specter was one of the first Republicans to publicly question the National Security Agency's authority to monitor international calls — when one party is inside the United States — without first getting court approval. Under the program first disclosed last year, the NSA has been conducting the surveillance when calls and e-mails are thought to involve al-Qaida.

Earlier this month, Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., expressed interest in handling NSA legislation.

But Specter will stay in the spotlight.

The Senate Parliamentarian last week gave Specter jurisdiction over two different bills that would provide more checks on the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program.

One bill, written by Specter, would require a secretive federal intelligence court to conduct regular reviews of the program's constitutionality. A rival approach — drafted by Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine (news, bio, voting record) and three other Republicans — would allow the government to conduct warrantless surveillance for up to 45 days before seeking court or congressional approval.

Specter said the House and Senate intelligence committees could have had authority over the program under the 1947 National Security Act, which lays out when the spy agencies must tell Congress about intelligence activities.

But, Specter said, the committees haven't gotten full briefings on the program, instead choosing to create small subcommittees for the work.

"The intelligence committees ought to exercise their statutory authority on oversight, but they aren't," Specter said. "The Judiciary Committee has acted. We brought in the attorney general. We had a second hearing with a series of experts, and we are deeply involved in it."...

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[A] DOJ source said that in the past year, counter-terrorism officials have noted a marked downturn in the use of cell phone and landline communications [by terrorists]. There are a number of reasons for this, but they readily point to the N.Y. Times story on NSA overseas terror-call monitoring as one reason.

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Gonzales: Bush Blocked Eavesdropping Probe
President Bush personally blocked an internal investigation into the role played by Justice Department lawyers in approving a controversial warrantless eavesdropping program on calls between the United States and overseas, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified today.

During an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales was questioned by the panel's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), on why staffers in the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility were not allowed security clearances necessary to conduct an investigation into the eavesdropping program.

"It was highly classified, very important and many other lawyers had access," Specter asked. "Why not OPR?"

"The president of the United States makes the decision," Gonzales answered.
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"The president decided that protecting the secrecy and security of the program requires that a strict limit be placed on the number of persons granted access to information about the program for non-operational reasons," Gonzales wrote. "Every additional security clearance that is granted for the TSP increases the risk that national security might be compromised."

But in a series of memos to Gonzales's deputy also released today, OPR chief H. Marshall Jarrett noted that "a large team of attorneys and agents" assigned to a criminal investigation of the disclosure of the NSA program were promptly granted the same clearances. He also noted that numerous other investigators and officials--including the members of a civil-liberties board--had been granted access to or briefed on the program.

"In contrast, our repeated requests for access to classified information about the NSA program have not been granted," Jarrett wrote on March 21. "As a result, this Office, which is charged with monitoring the integrity of the Department's attorneys and with ensuring that the highest standards of professional ethics are maintained, has been precluded from performing its duties."

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Americans went to work yesterday to news of another astonishing terror plot against U.S. airlines, only this time the response was grateful relief. British authorities had busted the "very sophisticated" plan "to commit mass murder" and arrested 20-plus British-Pakistani suspects.

...the diabolical scheme was to smuggle innocent-looking liquid explosive components and detonators onto planes. They could then be assembled onboard and exploded, perhaps over cities for maximum horror. Multiply the passenger load of a 747 by, say, 10 airliners, and this attack could have killed more people than 9/11. We don't yet know how the plot was foiled, but surely part of the explanation was crack surveillance work by British authorities.

British antiterrorism chief Peter Clarke said at a news conference that the plot was foiled because "a large number of people" had been under surveillance, with police monitoring "spending, travel and communications."

Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs.

Democrats and their media allies screamed bloody murder last year when it was leaked that the government was monitoring some communications outside the context of a law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

This year the attempt to paint Bush Administration policies as a clear and present danger to civil liberties continued when USA Today hyped a story on how some U.S. phone companies were keeping call logs.

And then there was the recent brouhaha when the New York Times decided news of a secret, successful and entirely legal program to monitor bank transfers between bad guys was somehow in the "public interest" to expose.

For that matter, we don't recall most advocates of a narrowly "focused" war on terror having many kind words for the Patriot Act, which broke down what in the 1990s was a crippling "wall" of separation between our own intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.

There is also continued angst about the detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, even as Senators and self-styled civil libertarians fight Bush Administration attempts to process them through military tribunals that won't compromise sources and methods.

The real lesson of yesterday's antiterror success in Britain is that the threat remains potent, and that the U.S. government needs to be using every legal tool to defeat it. At home, that includes intelligence and surveillance and data-mining, and abroad it means all of those as well as an aggressive military plan to disrupt and kill terrorists where they live so they are constantly on defense rather than plotting to blow up U.S.-bound airliners.

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wannabuyamonkey said:
I think it's clear that the left really doesn't care. The only enemy they see in teh world is Bush or them Jews who keep getting all uppidy in the middle east.

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r3x29yz4a said:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/08/17/national/a090059D26.DTL


A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly listening to conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.

The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.

The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration already had publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule.

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Even if Taylor harpoons the spying program, experts said, the decision likely would be overturned by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Given the composition of the 6th Circuit and its previous rulings in related areas, it seems more likely to favor national security over civil liberties if that issue is squarely presented," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia. "And that's what this case is all about."

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...The Republicans also dropped the additional wire-tap authority the Clinton administration wanted. U.S. Attorney general Janet Reno had asked for "multi-point" tapping of suspected terrorists, who may be using advanced technology to outpace authorities.

Rep. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said technology is giving criminals an advantage.

"What the terrorists do is they take one cellular phone, use the number for a few days, throw it out and use a different phone with a different number," he said. "All we are saying is tap the person, not the phone number." (282K AIFF sound or 282K WAV sound)

Still, Schumer said the bill is "better than nothing" and should get some Democratic votes.

President Clinton asked Congress to give him the anti- terrorism bill by the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19. And he'll get it. While it might not be all the president wants, administration officials indicate it's a bill he can sign.

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The Republicans also dropped the additional wire-tap authority the Clinton administration wanted

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Hatch blasts 'phony' issues

Republican leaders earlier met with White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta for about an hour in response to the president's call for "the very best ideas" for fighting terrorism.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, emerged from the meeting and said, "These are very controversial provisions that the White House wants. Some they're not going to get."

Hatch called Clinton's proposed study of taggants -- chemical markers in explosives that could help track terrorists -- "a phony issue."

"If they want to, they can study the thing" already, Hatch asserted. He also said he had some problems with the president's proposals to expand wiretapping.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said it is a mistake if Congress leaves town without addressing anti-terrorism legislation. Daschle is expected to hold a special meeting on the matter Wednesday with Congressional leaders.

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Matter-eater Man said:
It doesn't sound like a matter of compromise as you put it G-man.

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Charles Schumer (D-NY): Mr. Speaker, if we want to know why people are sick and fed up with Congress, look at this debate. On Sunday the President asked and all the law enforcement people asked for two things, the top two things they needed to fight terrorism. One, taggants. Identifiers in explosives, particularly black power and smokeless; and two, multipoint wiretaps. Neither are in this bill.
Neither are in this bill because the NRA did not want it. Neither are in this bill because forces on the extreme dictated what the Republican Party was going to put forward.
This bill is a sham. It does a few good things, but it does not give law enforcement what they want, plain and simple. We all know that.
All the other provisions are an elaborate smokescreen to hide what everyone in this Chamber knows: that the majority party is not doing what the FBI, the ATF and all the other law enforcement experts have asked for. Mr. Kallstrom, long before this conference, the FBI man in the lead at TWA, said please give us multipoint wiretaps. The majority says no.
Mr. Freeh, the head of the FBI, says please give us taggants so we can trace the kind of pipe bomb that blew up at the Olympics. The majority says no.
And last night, when we had agreement from the President, the Republican leaders of the Senate, the Democratic leaders of the Senate and the Democratic side of the House, only the Republican majority in the House refused to go along.
Members, this bill is what should make us ashamed of our inability to pull together and fight terrorism.

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the G-man said:...for most the thread, MEM has been trying to tell us that Bush's wiretapping was unconstitutional and wrong. Now he's trying to tell us that its all the Republicans fault it isn't legal because they wouldn't let Clinton do it.

If it was unconstitutional under Bush (a point I don't concede), it would have been unconstitutional under Clinton (also a point I don't concede). A statute can't override the Constitution.

In addition, if MEM believes, as he's tried to tell us in the past, that wiretapping would be wrong then it should be just as wrong under a democrat as under a republican.

The implication, however, is that MEM (once again) only thinks something wrong if a Republican does it.

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the G-man said:
What you cited is nothing more than Chuck Schumer's opinion, given during a speech.

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the G-man said:Furthermore, as noted above:

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the G-man said:...for most the thread, MEM has been trying to tell us that Bush's wiretapping was unconstitutional and wrong. Now he's trying to tell us that its all the Republicans fault it isn't legal because they wouldn't let Clinton do it.

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If it was unconstitutional under Bush (a point I don't concede), it would have been unconstitutional under Clinton (also a point I don't concede). A statute can't override the Constitution.

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the G-man said:In addition, if MEM believes, as he's tried to tell us in the past, that wiretapping would be wrong then it should be just as wrong under a democrat as under a republican.
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Matter-eater Man said:
I don't think anyone here is making the arguement that wiretapping suspected terrorist isn't a bad thing or trying to prevent that WBAM. But up till last week I thought the President required a judge to at least retroactively OK it. And I've yet to hear any reason why to cut the judge out of the loop. Checks & balances folks.

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Matter-eater Man said:
... And BTW, nobody has said the wiretapping has to stop just that judge at some point afterwards retroactively OKs it.

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Matter-eater Man said:... And here I thought I was just asking Congress to do it's job & check out that the President is truly operating within the bounds of the Constitution. The wiretapping can continue while that is being done. So no government hinderment. So what is your problem with that?

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Matter-eater Man said:
Not sure what your basing that on G-man. I could understand if there was a chorus of Democrats saying that the wiretapping must stop but as I understand it, that is not the case. There is a call to investigate the wiretapping that some Republicans in congress have joined with many Democrats. ...

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Matter-eater Man said:
G-man, you & the other boys are lacking merit in your argument. Where are all the Dem Congressmen that are saying the wiretaps must be stopped? It appears to be zero, leaving you with just an empty partisan accusation.

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The Bush administration can continue its warrantless surveillance program while it appeals a judge's ruling that the program is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday.

The unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ...said that they balanced the likelihood an appeal would succeed, the potential damage to both sides, and the public interest.

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the G-man said:
This would indicate that the appeals court found that continuation of the program would cause less harm than stopping it.

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So what the hell was all the fuss about then?

Rep. Jim McDermott had no right to disclose the contents of an illegally taped telephone call involving House Republican leaders a decade ago, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

In a 5-4 opinion, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that McDermott, a Washington Democrat, should not have given reporters access to the taped telephone call.

McDermott's offense was especially egregious since he was a senior member of the House ethics committee, the panel ruled.

When he became a member of the ethics panel, McDermott "voluntarily accepted a duty of confidentiality that covered his receipt and handling of the ... illegal recording. He therefore had no First Amendment right to disclose the tape to the media," Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote on behalf of the court. Four judges agreed with him.

The ruling upholds a previous decision ordering McDermott to pay House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, more than $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and more than $600,000 in legal costs.