NYT: NSA Spying Broader Than Bush Admitted 32 minutes ago
NEW YORK - The National Security Agency has conducted much broader surveillance of e-mails and phone calls — without court orders — than the Bush administration has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on its Web site.
The NSA, with help from American telecommunications companies, obtained access to streams of domestic and international communications, said the Times in the report late Friday, citing unidentified current and former government officials.
The story did not name the companies.
Since the Times disclosed the domestic spying program last week, President Bush has stressed that his executive order allowing the eavesdropping was limited to people with known links to al-Qaida.
But the Times said that NSA technicians have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might lead to terrorists.
The volume of information harvested from telecommunications data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the paper said, quoting an unnamed official.
hipsterdufus said:"Oh, gee, whoops, it looks like we were accidently monitoring Kerry's phone. We regret the mistake."
KCConservative said:This is a lie and you know it, hipster. It is a wonder anyone takes you seriously.
I don't believe Clinton, Bush sr. or Reagan did exactly what Bush jr. did. If Clinton had done the exact same thing you know the Republican controlled congress would have had his balls for it. Even if they had done what Bush did it doesn't give Bush a free pass to break the law.tecoyah said:Of course they are...as did Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan.....and pretty much everyone who could before them.....W has simply been caught at it. Unfortunately, though the practce of spying on the population is generally understood to happen, it was always under the Radar in the past. Bush placed himself in the position to get caught, by projecting the image of dishonesty (whether real or not), and thus opening himself and his administration up to investigation, by alot of pissed off people.
The question now is very simple. Are there any checks and balances left to do anything about it. In my opinion there are not.....I mean, if half the stuff this administration has managed to get away with were done ten years ago......Impeachment would have been the least of Clintons worries....heh.
scottyz said:I don't believe Clinton, Bush sr. or Reagan did exactly what Bush jr. did. If Clinton had done the exact same thing you know the Republican controlled congress would have had his balls for it. Even if they had done what Bush did it doesn't give Bush a free pass to break the law.
hipsterdufus said:The only hope left is SCOTUS and I'm not putting much faith in them. They did rule against Truman seizing the Steel Mills during war, but that was an entirely different court.
Bush, Stalin, Saddam all agree: "Trust me. All I'm trying to do is protect you."
This is the rhetoric of dictators. All of them.
Does anyone doubt that where this thing is heading is the revelation that Bush spied on his political enemies?
"Oh, gee, whoops, it looks like we were accidently monitoring Kerry's phone. We regret the mistake."
Why avoid FISA unless you're spying on someone the court won't give you a warrant for?
Bush has already been caught in a lie. He claims they were only spying on people with known links to Al Qaeda. We know that to be untrue already. They were fishing through all international calls.
hipsterdufus said:Does anyone doubt that where this thing is heading is the revelation that Bush spied on his political enemies?
aps said:If the Constitution provided the president this unquestionable right, tell me why we even have the Patriot Act. If the president can basically do anything he wants in the name of national security, why did we have to create the Patriot Act? Why did we create the NISA court in the first place? These rules were created for reasons. If the president didn't need a court order at all, why is there a rule that allows the president to obtain a court order 15 days after the wiretapping? It doesn't make sense.
hipsterdufus said:The only hope left is SCOTUS and I'm not putting much faith in them. They did rule against Truman seizing the Steel Mills during war, but that was an entirely different court.
Bush, Stalin, Saddam all agree: "Trust me. All I'm trying to do is protect you."
This is the rhetoric of dictators. All of them.
Does anyone doubt that where this thing is heading is the revelation that Bush spied on his political enemies?
"Oh, gee, whoops, it looks like we were accidently monitoring Kerry's phone. We regret the mistake."
Why avoid FISA unless you're spying on someone the court won't give you a warrant for?
Bush has already been caught in a lie. He claims they were only spying on people with known links to Al Qaeda. We know that to be untrue already. They were fishing through all international calls.
aps said:Hiya hipster. Well, the only way the Supreme Court will get this issue before them is if someone whose rights were violated brings an action against the Dept. of Justice. Otherwise, the only thing we can hope is that Congress will hold hearings and do the right thing.
Last night on Hardball, Norah O'Donnell was hosting, and they had a professor who is an expert on NISA (he was Matthew Cooper's lawyer) and an expert on the National Security Agency, whose name escapes me. Anyway, both said that Bush's reasons for saying he had the authority to wiretap without a court order are on shaky grounds.
I know many of you are saying that other presidents wiretapped without obtaining a court order, but please provide me proof. I have yet to see actual proof that Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan, or Carter committed the very same act.
If the Constitution provided the president this unquestionable right, tell me why we even have the Patriot Act. If the president can basically do anything he wants in the name of national security, why did we have to create the Patriot Act? Why did we create the NISA court in the first place? These rules were created for reasons. If the president didn't need a court order at all, why is there a rule that allows the president to obtain a court order 15 days after the wiretapping? It doesn't make sense. It looks to me like Bush violated the law, and I hope he suffers greatly because of it.
oldreliable67 said:Yes, I do. I doubt it very much.
..why we even have the Patriot Act: because some of the preventive measures to the events of 9/11 and terrorist targeting of the US were unforeseen and indeed, unknowable, by the framers of the constitution. There are a number of provisions of the Patriot Act and they have absolutely nothing to do with the NSA surveillance program at the heart of the current controversy.
..Why did we create the FISA court in the first place? Like the NSA surveillance program, FISA was created long before the need to provide 'roving' wiretaps became evident, before cell phones existed, in fact. In the context of the times in which FISA was created, it was thought that tapping the main 'land-line' phones used by suspected drug dealers and/or organized crime figures would be sufficient. Technology advances rendered that point of view moot.
...why is there a rule that allows the president to obtain a court order after the wiretapping? Quite simple, actually. As technology advanced, so did the need for investigative procedures to respond faster. The FISA provisions allow for the initiation of domestic wire-taps under certain circumstances and with various approvals, including the approval of the AG and others in a supervisory position. In other words, even though the wiretaps can begin before a court order is obtained, there must still be demonstrated a need for such using specified criteria and such must be approved by those in supervisory positions before the wiretap can begin. These procedures and gaining of approvals still take time, just not as long as FISA court approval. "Immediate" is not really immediate or instantaneous in this context, but it is faster than FISA court approval.
...It doesn't make sense. It makes considerably more sense when you learn more of the details behind the programs and the reasons for their existence. As they have become available, increased knowledge of the details of the programs makes way more sense than the scare headlines and the sophomoric ranting of those seeking partisan advantage.
I say again: The AG has put forth his (and thereby, the Administration's) legal foundation for the NSA surveillance program. It refers to several legal precedents for such. However, if these precedents are found wanting when subjected to congressional review, then so be it. There may well be enough doubt to warrant a SC review, and in the larger scheme, that might be a good thing, in that it would go a long way toward resolving some of these issues that have arisen because of advances in technology coupled with historically unforeseeable, unknowable events and a President willing to push the limits of historical precedents.
aps said:Let's not forget his speech in April 2004.
aps said:Why do you think it allows for surveillance prior to obtaining a court order?
aps said:I really don't care what the AG says--he is the president's puppet. The AG said that we didn't have the follow the Geneva conventions either.
oldreliable67 said:Lefty: The FISA court is set up to approve wiretappings within minutes if need be.
Thats absolutely right. Its not the time the process takes after you get to the court, but the time it takes to get to the court. The court must be approached with certain docs in hand. In order to approach the court with your request, you are required to have the approvals of several levels of 'supervisors', up to and including the AG (or his designate). One of the specific problems that I have read about with this process has been the initiation of the sequence leading to a request on a battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan, in which the initial discovery is by military folks. Then the intelligence and subsequent requests have to proceed thru the military to the civilian chain of command (from the Pentagon to the DoJ for approvals). This process can take many hours or even a day or two. By which time, the value of the intelligence can be diminished greatly or totally. It just ain't that easy. Or fast.
FISA envisioned mainly US civilian agencies (FBI, local police and other law enforcement agencies) with the occasional participation of the civilian police of other cooperating countries. Quite a differenct environment.
Lefty said:Ahhh, the time it takes to get to court. Well I personally think that's really reaching for an argument here. You're argument seems to be that the US government needs to be able to initiate a wiretap as soon as they get any hint of terrorist activity since it already takes "many hours or even a day or two" for this information to travel through... who knows how many people. Well that's possible with the FISA system because you can go to the court 72 hours after the fact. This leaves enough time for the government to fill out any nessecary paperwork to get court approval. There are no excuses for bypassing this court. If Bush saw a problem with the system in place, why didn't he go to Congress and tell them that something needed to be done? He had years to do something about FISA if it was flawed.
Lefty said:needs to be able to initiate a wiretap as soon as they get any hint of terrorist activity since it already takes "many hours or even a day or two" for this information to travel through...
Lefty said:...you can go to the court 72 hours after the fact...
aps said:I highly doubt that the actual people who do the surveillance or set up the wiretapping are the same people people who seek the court order. So seeking a court order really isn't about time...now, is it?
TimmyBoy said:Hmm, I wonder if the NSA has been eavesdropping on internal domestic emails and telephone calls?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051224/ap_on_go_pr_wh/domestic_spying
Stu Ghatze said:I hope the NSA is doing just that, ..& Bush IS acting responsibly. They can listen to ALL of my calls, & intercept all of my E-mail because I have done nothing wrong, & have nothing to fear.
Stu Ghatze said:I hope the NSA is doing just that, ..& Bush IS acting responsibly. They can listen to ALL of my calls, & intercept all of my E-mail because I have done nothing wrong, & have nothing to fear.
Stu Ghatze said:Unfortunately, ...there are NO civil rights for American citizens AFTER they are already dead first by successful terror plot.
Stu Ghatze said:Actually, ...the majority of Americans support Bush on this issue in spite of what the phoney media, & liberal pollsters might tell you!
What do you have to hide? What are you worried that a spy would find out?hipsterdufus said:Comrade, this is the same rationale that they used to spy on citizens in the former Soviet Union.
If Americans are so quick to give up all of their freedoms because of 9/11 then the terrorists have already won! Our independence is based on a love of freedom, I'm not so quick to flush it down the toilet.
If our current legislation is not sufficient to deal with the terrorist threat then by all means change it! Especially now that the cat is out of the bag with the NSA. But assuming dictitorial powers, all in the name of protecting us, as Bush has done, is beyond reproach.
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