Some rare sane opinion in Puget Sound print media today on electronic surveillance, from The King County Journal. The editorial is titled: "9/11 Changes Debate On Electronic Spying." It caught my attention because the KCJ showed common sense that our Bush-bashing dailies lack, and because Seattle and Puget Sound remain a prime target for terrorists. More e-surveillance is good; but Bush and his successor need to do more to lead a global initiative to recover unsecured enriched uranium, and plutonium that terrorists could use to destroy Seattle, or other U.S. cities. That's something to worry about.
The Journal, today:
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the president authorized the National Security Agency to search for potential terrorist activity, including eavesdropping on calls and e-mails without warrants. The constitutionality of such authorization now is being debated by law professors, members of Congress and those ultimate experts, talk-show hosts: Is it an infringement on civil liberties or is it the appropriate response by the government to stop another assault on this country? Once we may have joined in that debate. But that was before Sept. 11, when we were awakened to a reality we didn't see coming. If electronic spying could have stopped Mohammed Atta and his cohorts ... you should be able to finish that sentence yourself.
Given that Seattle's tallest building was orginally targeted for destruction on 9/11; and given the vulnerability of Washington State Ferries and Seattle's port to terrorist attacks; I am totally in support of increased electronic surveillance in the manner authorized by the President.
Of course this is only one aspect of domestic counter-terrorism.
As Harvard expert Graham Allison has pointed out in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle is especially vulnerable to nuclear terrorism: Bush and his successor need to do much more to ensure the U.S. spreads the gospel of "No Loose Nukes." Black market enriched uranium and plutonium are especially worrisome.
As opposed to overwrought "civil liberties" worries about post-9/11 surveillance of phone conversations and e-mail, there's something about which our state's two senators should be voicing concern, and pushing for solutions.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 20, 2005 06:01 PM | Email ThisDouble standards ! With that said, all of this crapola could have been avoided along with the seditious claptrap from the left if war would have been declared on Iraq or after 9/11. That mistake has come back to haunt the Bush Administration.
There is such a thing a checks and balances, but the partisan left abuses it - to the delight of Al Qaeda. The Patriot Act should be reauthorized - you idiots in Congress ! however, it should have sunset provisions added where needed and should be tweeked some - although, noone can specifically document an abuse of it after 4 years - hmmmm.....
Posted by: KS on December 20, 2005 07:56 PM
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/12/18/221452.shtml
Besides, we now know that Bill Clinton did this in the early ninties. Funny how the left only considers it a problem when someone OTHER than a democrat does it. Again, this is why you can't take them seriously in a discussion of what we should do to fight terrorists and root them out.
Posted by: Misty on December 20, 2005 08:21 PMIf you are plotting terrorism in the US I hope to God that they are listening (and then burn your a$$!)
Posted by: alphabet soup on December 20, 2005 08:35 PMSanity, how many calls have you made or received from Iraq, Iran or Afganistan? NSA monitored calls from international sources - which is legal. FISA was consulted when some of these calls were in the US.
There are three branches to our government, supposedly with none over the other, yet people like you seem to think that congress and especially the courts should have full control over the presidency, requiring the president to get congressional and judicial authorization before he can use the head.
Are you the same people that blamed Bush for not connecting the dots before 9/11?
Get real.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on December 20, 2005 09:12 PMGood on the King County Journal for plunking down on the side of common sense. I wish they'd buy the Olympian and fire all the editors. You wouldn't believe the awful Bush Derangement Syndrome editorial they put out the other day.
Posted by: starboardhelm on December 20, 2005 09:41 PMThere should be oversight, but did it happen when Clinton was in office ? don't think so - as we had the most corrupt Attorney General and Justice Department ever - the administration is not even close. They f***ed up our intelligence gathering capabilities which had alot to do with leading up to 9/11. That is water over the dam and there should be oversight when our freedoms are involved - we should not be left in the dark. Watch the MSM try to trump it up and twist and distort the facts and lie about this over the next month - they should be indicted for lieing and leaking classified information - would be good if they were. Last question; Why is it that noone can specifically document an abuse of the Patriot Act after 4 years - hmmmm..... ?
Posted by: KS on December 20, 2005 09:51 PM"When are today's liberals going to realize their actions are going to get the rest of us killed?"
No need to look up that quote. It's an original. Care to answer it fool?
Posted by: jimg on December 20, 2005 10:03 PMOn a seperate note, I will have to give great credit to many of the Dem's for keeping their mouths shut on this one for so long - years I think. I hear that quite a number of D's have known about this since it began and gave thier approval. They have managed to keep it secret as they clearly should have. It's also admirable (and very out of character) that the New York Times sat on it for over a year. Unfortunately, though they lose all points gained for publishing it at all.
Finally, there's a sliminess in DC that is second only to the leak itself. These are the politicians who are attempting to make political hay over the wire tapping rather calling for the head of the leaker. The leak is the real crime. And a heinous crime it is. It put each and every one of us, our families and our children at greater risk for nothing more than a politically motivated headline. How dare they try to capitalize on it. They should be trying to prevent it from happening again.
Posted by: mykela on December 20, 2005 10:35 PMBesides, they were ONLY targeting people who had known ties to terror suspects in other countries. They couldn't care LESS about you and what you were doing, BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T CONNECTED TO TERROR (I'm assuming). They were NOT wholesale listening in on everyone's phone conversations, even though Dems and their accomplices in the press are stretching it to desparately try and make it SOUND like that's what they were doing. And you fell for it.
It makes a ton of sense to authorize use of the same tactics for people who want to blow you and your family up for being 'infidels'. What did you want the President to do?? Sit there and hope that terror cells would just willing come to the police and let them in on their plans??? Terrorism is a REAL problem--not some beach ball to be tossed around in fun and games. This is REAL. Thank God we have a president who takes our safety seriously instead of idly sitting there turning down Osama bin Laden's head on a silver platter while having a whitehouse intern attached to him in places she shouldn't be!
Posted by: Michele on December 20, 2005 10:48 PMsanity, please tell me you were out there protesting those 900+ FBI files. If you were, I MIGHT take you seriously
Posted by: Michele on December 20, 2005 10:53 PMHere is the bolded text from the quote by Mr. Tenet on the website Ronsch posted. "We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department."
OK, let's deconstruct this. They don't target someone's converstations unless that person is an agent of a foreign power. What is meant by "target their conversations for collection in the United States?" That doesn't mean that they don't listen to the conversations, and then get a warrant if necessary to "collect" the next conversation.
So, if you take Mr. Tenet at his word, it's OK to listen to a conversation if you're "listening" and targeting the foreign agent, which could be a US citizen talking to someone overseas, and taking direction from them. And it seems that it's OK to
"collect" those conversations, as long as you do it overseas, which means using the NSA facilities in another country.
Hmmmm, seems to be what President Bush is doing. And never mind Assistant AG Gorelick said that the president has the authority to authorize wiretaps without a warrant.
BTW, if one believes everything on Daily Kos, that person is beyond hope.
Posted by: Joseph Cantu on December 20, 2005 11:58 PMThe reason there hasn't been a serious attack since 9/11/01 is because the terrorists know that Dubya has a giant pair and will probably nuke their home jihadi "nations".
Posted by: Manco_Dollars on December 21, 2005 12:29 AMI have not heard her talk one time about spending one cent on protecting the citizens of Washington from a terriorist attack.
Talk about not having a clue!
Who the hell does that third-world crackpot dictator Vincente Fox think he is, telling us we don't have the sovereignty to build a wall to defend ourselves against his Mexican invaders?!!
The illegal Mexicans have become this century's American slaves just so we can have immorally cheap labor, and lazy fat-assed teenagers. The big difference is these slaves have access to automatic weapons. They are a Trojan Horse we must immediately expell or face national extinction. There is no middle ground -- fight them, or fight us.
Posted by: The Pirate on December 21, 2005 06:12 AMRadiation, can kill people and it can injure people. However, when it comes to released nuclear material, society has a fear of fallout and contamination that goes way beyond the physical health realities.
A dirty nuclear device exploided in a major city would create problems, and depending upon how crazy we want to be as a society the results could range from removing all material and burying it somewhere "safe," to just washing things down and giving them a fresh coat of paint.
It would depend upon how society reacts as to whether a dirty bomb would economically destroy a city or if it would be a couple weeks of hassel (i.e. where fire trucks hosed down everything into local rivers (oh the environment!) and then hotspots were painted over or selected material removed.)
I have experience with radiation, decontamination of equipment and it isn't the killer-end-of-the-world-issue that it has been made out to be by those against nuclear energy or those against nuclear weapons.
There was a large effort on the part of many activists to distort the facts and those distorted facts have been reported often enough that many don't have a clear understanding of what the real impacts are.
Posted by: Bob on December 21, 2005 07:10 AMPosted by Winston Smith at December 21, 2005 05:56 AM"
That is a good one Winston, from someone that thinks the KCE is doing just fine. Talk about giving up a birth right.....
Posted by: fred on December 21, 2005 08:39 AMhttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/blog_12_29_04_0945.html
http://www.lucianne.com/threads2.asp?artnum=251925
Posted by: Marc on December 21, 2005 08:58 AMYou're desperate. I'm not. I'm a fighter and a survivor. Try me.
Posted by: Winston Smith on December 21, 2005 09:04 AMDROPPING NAILS ON THE ROADWAYS...PLEASE...THATS YOUR PROBLEM, YOU THINK TO SMALL. IF YOU WERE THE LEED SEATTLE TERRORIST, THE BEST THAT YOU COULD COME UP WITH WOULD BE TO BLOW-UP A BUS...AND WE ALL KNOW YOU WOULD JUST BURN YOUR LIPS.
POTTAGE... DONT YOU MEAN "POT"-TAGE!
Posted by: TACOMA PHLASH on December 21, 2005 09:08 AMA thought about illegal immigration from Mexican. If any administration (and I'm thinking here of Reagan who was always railing against it but, of course, did nothing) wants to stop or really curtail it, they could. But it would put their big-daddy corporate friends in the hole (if not at work, then in their kitchens and nurseries at home). No administration would ever do what could be done against illegals simply because they don't want to.
The administration could wiretap anytime they want...all they have to do is file the paperwork with the court (either before or AFTER the event, no waiting). What this administration wants to do is have carte blanche to do whatever it wants in the name of national security. Remember our pal Nixon and his "enemies" list? That was fun. But really, let's allow the President his "powers" (he makes it sound like he's Harry Potter). But what goes around, comes around and someday there will be another Democratic president and Congress and don't be surprise at what they want to do then.
Posted by: westello on December 21, 2005 10:10 AMNow you're talking, Winston. Get out from behind your keyboard and light the fuse, oh brave Internet warrior. I am so sick and tired of hearing crap from people like you.
You don't get it. Chimpy's not the enemy. The eeeevil Rethuglikkkan neocons are not the enemy. Fundamental Islamic terrorists are. But you don't get it.
You want a war here you 5th column POS? What's stopping you?
Posted by: 5thColumnCure on December 21, 2005 10:44 AMGET YOUR FACTS RIGHT FIRST, EVERY PRESIDENT SCINCE FDR HAS DONE THIS, EVEN YOU LEFTIES MOST BELOVED CARTER AND CLINTON. HAVE YOU FORGOTEN THE ALL THE PHOTO OP'S THAT THE DEM'S LEADERSHIP HAD WITH THE PREZ, WHEN THE PATRIOT ACT WAS SIGNED TO SHOW HOW TOUGH THEY WERE ON TERRORISTS AND NOW THEY CRY-UP A RIVER AND BOW DOWN TO THEIR COMRADES BECAUSE ITS AN ELECTION YEAR.
DO DEMS HAVE SHORTER MEMORIES THAN THIER #@*%&'S
CALM DOWN...DO SOME YOGA...SAY A FEW NEW AGE CHANTS...SMOKE ONE MORE JOINT...THERE DO YOU FEEL BETTER. NOW SHUT UP!!!
Posted by: TACOMA PHLASH on December 21, 2005 10:56 AMThen you will not have to toss and turn at night worrying about the Police State spying on you..... unless you are a terrorist.
Posted by: Gary on December 21, 2005 11:06 AMBen Franklin
FOREST GUMP
Posted by: TACOMA PHLASH on December 21, 2005 11:39 AM—President Bush, at a Q and A in Buffalo, N.Y., April 20, 2004.
Q: Why did you skip the basic safeguards of asking courts for permission for the intercepts?
A: First of all, I—right after September the 11th, I knew we were fighting a different kind of war. And so I asked people in my administration to analyze how best for me and our government to do the job people expect us to do, which is to detect and prevent a possible attack. That's what the American people want. We looked at the possible scenarios. And the people responsible for helping us protect and defend came forth with the current program, because it enables us to move faster and quicker. And that's important. We've got to be fast on our feet, quick to detect and prevent.
We use [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] still—you're referring to the FISA court in your question—of course, we use FISAs. But FISA is for long-term monitoring. What is needed in order to protect the American people is the ability to move quickly to detect.
—President Bush, at a press conference Dec. 19, 2005, after the New York Times reported that Bush had directed the National Security Agency to wiretap "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of phone conversations inside the United States without seeking court orders.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0512210142dec21,0,3553632.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed
Prepare your high minded anti-bush speeches now for the time when your children are attacked (as happened in Chechnya) with non-existent WMD's.
You'll be the first ones bawling about why didn't bush do more.
Better yet, let's see how many freedoms in this country the religion of peace allows you after you've kow-towed to their demands.
Typical liberal B.S. - deflect, marginalize, minimize. Unless Bush does it.
Blinded by hatred and stupidity.
Posted by: dan on December 21, 2005 12:15 PMUBL gets a US phone number on an international phone (most wireless services provide this). UBL now freely calls anyone he wants without the US being able to listen in. Get a new number every week (or what ever the timeframe is to get a court ordered tap). The US cannot track UBL.
These taps are not being used to collect evidence, a significant difference.
Posted by: fred on December 21, 2005 12:16 PMThis is just exactly like the media huff the Democrats tried to make about Delay and lobbyists when THEY were the biggest offenders! Our own Norm Dicks has an agregious records of lobbyist sponsored largesse.
Posted by: pbj on December 21, 2005 12:42 PMWow. If you think our biggest threat is people throwing out nails on the freeway, then you reveal that you have absolutely NO clue.
Posted by: pbj on December 21, 2005 12:47 PM"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. --Ben Franklin"
Interesting. I did not realize that making phone calls to known terrorists (or the cell phones they own) in foreign countries was an 'essential liberty'. That's pretty much the liberal mindset in a nutshell, is it not?
And I have no idea how hunting for Bin Laden and the next terrorist attack qualifies as 'temporary' safety?
Dinesh, would you have liked 'temporary safety' from 9/11? Exactly what is that? What does it look like?
The idiots and trolls exhibit once again why the American people do not trust them with our national security.
Posted by: Larry on December 21, 2005 01:39 PMCivil liberties should be a priority for all of us, it certainly was to our Founders. We pride ourselves on being a free people, and civil liberties are a major component of what it means to be free. At a minimum, the burden of proof should always be in their favor.
Now I'll readily grant that in a time of war or national crisis, we might need temporarily to rein in those liberties, at least where the case is made that their free exercise threatens their continued existence, as when they aid the enemy in war.
What I don't understand is why Pres Bush choose to violate the civil liberties of some citizens in an unlawful manner when he could have done so lawfully. FISA courts not only rubber stamp nearly all requests for wiretaps, but that law allows wiretaps to be used without warrents for 72 hours. Now if 72 hours isn't long enough to get a warrent, why not change the law. The same congress that passed the Patriot Act in the wake of 9-11 would surely have amended FISA if the administration had made the case that it needed more time and/or flexibility.
While it appears that the administration did ask about changing FISA, they never pursued it. They decided to circumvent it instead.
So my question is: why didn't the Administration seek first to work within the law, and if that didn't work, to change the law. Why did it choose to break the law WHEN IT DIDN'T HAVE TO?
The fact that other Presidents did the same thing in time of war isn't relevant (and it is also my understanding that Clinton's wiretaps, ala echelon, were within FISA limits).
Again, we should all be concerned about protecting civil liberties. They are in good part what make us free. If you're going to violate them, you need to make a better case than "trust me."
This isn't a party issue, it is a power issue. And checks and balances lie at the heart of the institutional scheme that the Founders set up to check the inevitable abuse of power and to protect our freedoms. We are a government of law for good reason; we shouldn't be so quick to abuse that law, or to defend that abuse.
And so again, if you would, please explain why Bush felt he had to break the law, rather than change it, and the more so as the law appears to give him the very power that he sought.
And why I'm on the point: why does a supposedly conservative blog put the burden of proof on the use of personal liberties, rather than on the unchecked extension of the powers of big government.
Posted by: MJ on December 21, 2005 04:11 PMI see your Clinton DOJ guy (and I have read it), and raise you two conservatives.
First, an old Reagan DOJ hand and now a columnist for the Washington Times Bruce Fein (See his pro-Alito columns if you doubt his credentials):
"President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law. He cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses."
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/bfein.htm
Or we can look at an American Enterprise Institute Scholar, Norm Ornstein, who stated:
"I think if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed."
PBJ:
You need to stop getting your information from Drudge, he is not terribly accurate. For instance, that executive order you are siting:
What Clinton actually signed:
Section 1. Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) [50 U.S.C. 1822(a)] of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance] Act, the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section.
That section requires the Attorney General to certify is the search will not involve "the premises, information, material, or property of a United States person."? That means U.S. citizens or anyone inside of the United States.
So, not quite the same as Snoopgate, is it?
Posted by: JDB on December 21, 2005 05:25 PM1. If a foreign national picks up a phone in Seattle, Washington and dials a number in Afghanistan, how can you tell if a US citizen made the call? Call records are recorded by phone number (and associated hardware, routing, trunk, and channel information), not by who made the phone call. I know this because I'm a switch technician and I've done call traces.
2. If the National Security Agency picks up an unencrypted satellite transmission from a listening station overseas, is that domestic spying?
3. If the numbers potentially targeted for surveillance were retrieved from a laptop purchased in Afghanistan, is that widespread loss of civil liberties?
4. Isn't it a bad idea for investigative journalism to be based on unsubstantiated reports from "unnamed sources"? Has anyone at the NYT seen the Executive Order authorizing this or been party to any of the meetings or been present during any of these intercept missions? Can they prove or disprove the assertation that US Citizens were party to any of the calls? Does the NYT believe that use of US telephonic facilities constitutes or confers "US Citizenship" status on calls originating or terminating at overseas exchanges?
5. Were any of these calls encrypted?
6. Why is the NYT not calling for a leak investigation on itself for exposing an active intelligence gathering program, as opposed to "outing" an agent who was busy undercover in Langley, Va?
Posted by: Aaron on December 21, 2005 09:27 PM"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has the inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," said Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general under President Clinton, in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14th, 1994.
"It's important to understand that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities," she said.
The hard part with things like this is that the GOP just lies, and you have to play follow up with the truth. For instance, they now claim that Clinton did the same thing…, he didn’t.
Rush Limbaugh, Rich Lowery and other wingnuts have “claimed that the Clinton administration had asserted “exactly the same authority” that President Bush has cited in defense of his controversial decision to allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance. [They have reffered] to then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick’s July 14, 1994, testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, in which she stated that the executive branch has “inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches.”
But “physical searches” are not the same as electronic surveillance and, as Gorelick’s testimony made clear, were not restricted at that time by the Foreign Intelligence Authorization Act (FISA), which has since been amended to include them. The foreign intelligence activity that the Bush administration has argued it can conduct without warrants – domestic wiretapping – has for 27 years been governed by FISA, which specifically requires court orders. On the other hand, the foreign intelligence activity to which Gorelick was referring – “physical searches” – was not covered by FISA when she said that Clinton had the “inherent authority to conduct” them. Further, Gorelick testified that she supported legislation requiring FISA warrants for physical searches. Following the passage of such legislation in 1995, the Clinton administration no longer asserted that it had the authority to conduct warrantless physical searches.
. . .
But at the time Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that Clinton could order physical searches within the United States without a court order, FISA did not address such searches, as the weblog Think Progress noted in response to York’s piece. In her testimony, Gorelick clearly stated that electronic surveillance, such as the wiretapping Bush authorized, was governed by FISA at the time:
GORELICK: In FISA, the privacy interests of individuals are protected not by mandatory notice but through in-depth oversight of foreign intelligence electronic surveillance by all three branches of government and by expanded minimization procedures.”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200512210012
Posted by: JDB on December 22, 2005 10:18 AMI can't wait for you to split hairs on this one.
*warning* More Wingnut lies.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051215/ap_on_re_us/spy_satellite
I've stated before and I'll state it here again - you people would be the first ones to wail the POTUS didn't do enough to stop the next terrorist attack. You did it after 9-11, and you'll do it again. That's what happens when you put partisan politics above national security.
I'd say shame on you all, but you have no shame.
Posted by: jimg on December 22, 2005 11:59 AMhttp://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=20498
Posted by: Henry on December 22, 2005 03:20 PMWow, your source is the McCurtain Daily Gazette. Hell, they are famous for their investigative reporting.
But even if true, it would not be illegal. The Goverment can do whatever a private person can do. I can fly over your house and look down on it, so can the government. A satelite is just a variation on this (Go to Google Maps). Not the same as a wiretap, eh?
Henry:
Wow, Worldnetdaily. Yep, not nearly as good or accurate as the the McCurtain Daily Gazette, but heck, since there is nothing truthful that backs up what Bush did, might as well site that article. It is all you have.
However, some may be intersted in the truth:
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/20/the-echelon-myth/
"The right-wing outlet NewsMax sums up the basic argument:
During the 1990’s under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon…all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.
That’s flatly false. The Clinton administration program, code-named Echelon, complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained. CIA director George Tenet testified to this before Congress on 4/12/00:"
Posted by: JDB on December 23, 2005 01:22 AMNo. It's not. In my opinion, the government moving satellites into position to spy on its citizens is far, far worse than listening in (not a wire tap, Just Deflect Baby) on overseas calls to terrorist organizations.
On occasion, you can make some decent points. I don't agree with them, but can understand where you're coming from. You're way off on this one.
Posted by: jimg on December 23, 2005 01:14 PMthen he proves his liberal partisan bias (belying the high-minded tones of his previous statement) by comparing extremist kos (who make up their "news" as they go along) with the right leaning drudge (who links to established media news stories). Hardly "propaganda".
And I paraphrase: Let it be said that all men should be judged by the content of their words, not the color of their party ID cards ;'}
Get off your high horse AS
Posted by: alphabet soup on December 27, 2005 08:23 AM