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NSA Was Spying of Americans Long Before 911

danarhea

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Contrary to Bush's assertion that he authorized syping on Americans after the 911 attacks, he approved of these activities as soon as he took office. Early in 2001, the NSA advised Bush that they were engaging in these activities, and Bush approved. The question here is whether this began with Bush or with Clinton. If Clinton also allowed this to happen, then he must also be held accountable. There should be an investigation into the following:

1) Bush's lie that this only began after 911.

2) NSA spying during Bush's tenure as president.

3) Whether or not Clinton also authorized NSA spying.

4) Whether any members of Congress were also aware of this, and gave their own tacit approval.

Bush should be called to the carpet for his actions, and if Clinton was also involved, he should be called to the carpet as well. Presidents, as well as legislators, are not elites. They are servants, who are given their jobs by the American people. The American people hire them, and the American people have the right to fire them.

Article is here.

PDF of NSA memo to Bush is here.
 
From another post on the NSA topic...

http://www.debatepolitics.com/showthread.php?t=6574&page=28

More on the Clinton admin monitoring:

Quote:
Even as the Times defended Echelon as “a necessity” in 1999, evidence already existed that electronic surveillance had previously been misused by the Clinton Administration for political purposes. Intelligence officials told Insight Magazine in 1997 that a 1993 conference of Asian and Pacific world leaders hosted by Clinton in Seattle had been spied on by U.S. intelligence agencies. Further, the magazine reported that information obtained by the spying had been passed on to big Democrat corporate donors to use against their competitors. The Insight story added that the mis-use of the surveillance for political reasons caused the intelligence sources to reveal the operation.

“The only reason it has come to light is because of concerns raised by high-level sources within federal law-enforcement and intelligence circles that the operation was compromised by politicians—includingmid- and senior-level White House aides—either on behalf of or in support of President Clinton and major donor-friends who helped him and the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, raise money.”

So, during the Clinton Administration, evidence existed (all of the information used in this article was available at the time) that:

-an invasive, extensive domestic eavesdropping program was aimed at every U.S. citizen;

-intelligence agencies were using allies to circumvent constitutional restrictions;

-and the administration was selling at least some secret intelligence for political donations.

These revelations were met by the New York Times and others in the mainstream media by the sound of one hand clapping. Now, reports that the Bush Administration approved electronic eavesdropping, strictly limited to international communications, of a relative handful of suspected terrorists have created a media frenzy in the Times and elsewhere.


http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5150.
 
Conclusion: Don't trust the government, no matter what party is in charge.
 
Binary_Digit said:
Conclusion: Don't trust the government, no matter what party is in charge.

Very good advice. It don't matter which party is in charge, government, by it's very nature, can't be trusted.
 
2) NSA spying during Bush's tenure as president.

3) Whether or not Clinton also authorized NSA spying.

4) Whether any members of Congress were also aware of this, and gave their own tacit approval.

The answers to these three questions are common knowledge so why ask them again??

The first question is not worthy of a response.
 
Geez you guys get so desperate to find something to assign guilt to Bush on. Yes every since Roosevelt has authorized this type of foriegn intelligence gather. Each one issued their own executive orders to do so, so each one can truthfully say that they authorized it. I have post here on this board the orders of Clinton and Carter as examples and yes the proper people in the congress are always aware of it.

Hey if you want to put up a candidate for President who pledges not to do this type of surveilence then do so, let em run on that platform. And watch him go down in flames. This is proper and appropriate surveilence.
 
Stinger said:
Geez you guys get so desperate to find something to assign guilt to Bush on. Yes every since Roosevelt has authorized this type of foriegn intelligence gather. Each one issued their own executive orders to do so, so each one can truthfully say that they authorized it. I have post here on this board the orders of Clinton and Carter as examples and yes the proper people in the congress are always aware of it.

Hey if you want to put up a candidate for President who pledges not to do this type of surveilence then do so, let em run on that platform. And watch him go down in flames. This is proper and appropriate surveilence.

This is an invasion of privacy, a violation of the Constitution's 4th amendment. But violating the law and then trying to twist the law around to try and make it look legal is not anything new. The politicans don't respect the constitution as much as they claim. What they respect and want is power and unjust control over others.
 
TimmyBoy said:
This is an invasion of privacy,

Anyone communicating with and Al qaeda or other terrorist group has no reasonable assumption of privacy. Or enemies in war have no privacy.

a violation of the Constitution's 4th amendment.

And every court that has ruled has ruled otherwise.

But violating the law and then trying to twist the law around to try and make it look legal is not anything new. The politicans don't respect the constitution as much as they claim. What they respect and want is power and unjust control over others.
No what they want is to stop any of our enemies from attacking us again, this has nothing to do with the hysterical claims that Bush is just an evil man who wants to control you.

And as I said I hope and hope and hope that the left runs a candidate the promises NOT to do foriegn surveilance as every previous president has, I hope that the left runs on a platform that the enemies who are trying to kill have constitutional rights to privacy.

BTW if you think this is an invasion of privacy what do you call having to report all your private financial and even your private medical information to the government every year else be thrown in jail? Is that an invasion of privacy?
 
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Stinger said:
Anyone communicating with and Al qaeda or other terrorist group has no reasonable assumption of privacy. Or enemies in war have no privacy.



And every court that has ruled has ruled otherwise.


No what they want is to stop any of our enemies from attacking us again, this has nothing to do with the hysterical claims that Bush is just an evil man who wants to control you.

And as I said I hope and hope and hope that the left runs a candidate the promises NOT to do foriegn surveilance as every previous president has, I hope that the left runs on a platform that the enemies who are trying to kill have constitutional rights to privacy.

BTW if you think this is an invasion of privacy what do you call having to report all your private financial and even your private medical information to the government every year else be thrown in jail? Is that an invasion of privacy?

Besides filing income tax, didn't know I had to give my private medical and financial information to the government. I am sure, they know my medical and financial information though. A prosecutor would argue that anybody communicating with Al-queda has no reasonable expectation of privacy. However, one of Bush's declared "enemy combatants" had many of his charges reduced, even though the government knew he was planning terrorist attacks, because they had no legal authority to be present when they gathered the evidence, because they were violating the 4th amendment and subjecting him to an unreasonable search and seizure. So the evidence that could have been used to charge him with high crimes was thrown out (probably thrown out in a suppression hearing) and he could not be charged otherwise, rather they charged him with lesser crimes based on evidence that did not violate the suspect's 4th amendment rights, he was an american citizen and was transferred from military to civilian custody and wanted to charge with higher crimes, because the method in which the evidence was gathered (probably through the NSA) violated the suspect's 4th amendment rights. They'll still put him away for a long time though for giving aid and recieving training from Al-queda, but they couldn't charge him on his plans to launch terrorist attacks because that evidence was inadmissable in court.
 
Stinger said:
Anyone communicating with and Al qaeda or other terrorist group has no reasonable assumption of privacy. Or enemies in war have no privacy.



And every court that has ruled has ruled otherwise.


No what they want is to stop any of our enemies from attacking us again, this has nothing to do with the hysterical claims that Bush is just an evil man who wants to control you.

And as I said I hope and hope and hope that the left runs a candidate the promises NOT to do foriegn surveilance as every previous president has, I hope that the left runs on a platform that the enemies who are trying to kill have constitutional rights to privacy.

BTW if you think this is an invasion of privacy what do you call having to report all your private financial and even your private medical information to the government every year else be thrown in jail? Is that an invasion of privacy?

Here is the individual whom I was referring to in my last post. If he was not a US citizen, then he would have never been turned over to civilian custody. He was not charged with planning terrorist attacks or insurrection, because the evidence used to establish probable cause was illegally obtained by violating the suspect's 4th amendment rights. So they chose to charge him with a different charge with evidence that was legally obtained. But the reason why they didn't charge him for planning to launch a dirty bomb attack was because the way they obtained that evidence was illegal:

Profile: Jose Padilla

Jose Padilla is likely to be moved to a civilian jail
Jose Padilla, a US citizen held for more than three years as an "enemy combatant", has finally been charged.
Following his arrest at Chicago's O'Hare airport in May 2002 he was held in military detention, but his case will now be transferred to civilian jurisdiction.

Mr Padilla, arrested as he stepped off a flight from Pakistan, was initially held on suspicion of planning a so-called "dirty bomb" attack inside the US.

However the November 2005 indictment makes no mention of that allegation.

Instead Mr Padilla, 35, is charged with aiding terrorists and conspiracy to murder US nationals overseas.

US authorities he say travelled overseas to train as a terrorist and aimed to carry out "violent jihad".

The indictment avoids a Supreme Court battle over how long the US government could hold one of its citizens without charge.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2037444.stm
 
And I don't want anybody to get me wrong, I don't have much sympathy for this dirt bag for planning to launch a dirty bomb attack on civilians. But I think people misunderstand the law and how some of the amendments in the Bill of Rights protects citizens from government intrusion, even though Big Brother did intrude, Big Brother also knew that he couldn't use evidence that was gathered through NSA spying on an American citizen because it was an unreasonable search and seizure, so they had to charge him with something else, and even though he is being charged with something lesser, the real reason why he is sitting in jail is because the NSA probably figuired out he was fixing to launch a terrorist attack. But they couldn't charge him for planning terrorist attacks inside the US, so they had to settle for something different. They also couldn't hold him indefinately in military custody because he was an American citizen. He's a real piece of crap and a traitor, hiding behind his American citizenship to launch a dirty bomb attack on Americans.
 
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In this case, the NSA stopped a "Dirty Bomb" attack on American soil, but because this guy was an American citizen, they couldn't charge him for attempting to launch the dirty bomb attack, because the proof and evidence was gathered illegally by violating this terrorist's 4th amendment rights. They couldn't keep him in military custody because he was an American citizen, so they had to transfer him over to the civilian courts where he was charged on lesser charges with evidence that was not obtained by violating this terrorist's 4th amendment rights. I feel almost 100% certain the NSA stopped a dirty bomb attack here though. Crazy situation.
 
danarhea said:
There should be an investigation into the following:

1) Bush's lie that this only began after 911.

2) NSA spying during Bush's tenure as president.

3) Whether or not Clinton also authorized NSA spying.

4) Whether any members of Congress were also aware of this, and gave their own tacit approval.

Great. Why don't you start the investigation.
 
Stinger said:
Yes every since Roosevelt has authorized this type of foriegn intelligence gather.
If you're in America and you are an American, where does the foreign part come in?
Perhaps you're conflating some things.
Stinger said:
Hey if you want to put up a candidate for President who pledges not to do this type of surveilence then do so, let em run on that platform. And watch him go down in flames. This is proper and appropriate surveilence.
Since when have wiretaps on Americans w/o a warrant been appropriate? When did this come to be? Can you cite a date, etc?
 
Stinger said:
Anyone communicating with and Al qaeda or other terrorist group has no reasonable assumption of privacy. Or enemies in war have no privacy.
If someone's communicating w/ aQ, it is very, very, very easy to get a warrant to wiretap their phone. It can even be done retroactively. So why skip the "niceties" of the US Constitution etc?

Stinger said:
And every court that has ruled has ruled otherwise.
If this is so, it should be a piece of cake for you to provide a citation of a court ruling to the effect that no warrant is necesary to tap the phones of Americans. I ask that you perform this ostensibly easy task, please.

Stinger said:
No what they want is to stop any of our enemies from attacking us again ...
Given the ease of obtaining such warrants and the ability to obtain one after the fact, what benefit is conveyed by bypassing the warrant process?

Stinger said:
And as I said I hope and hope and hope that the left runs a candidate the promises NOT to do foriegn surveilance as every previous president has, I hope that the left runs on a platform that the enemies who are trying to kill have constitutional rights to privacy.
AFAICT, the hubub is not about monitoring foreigner, but US citizens. I think a candidate that ran on a platform of following the law and seeking warrants to conduct wiretaps on Americans would be fine, just fine.
 
Stinger said:
Geez you guys get so desperate to find something to assign guilt to Bush on. Yes every since Roosevelt has authorized this type of foriegn intelligence gather. Each one issued their own executive orders to do so, so each one can truthfully say that they authorized it. I have post here on this board the orders of Clinton and Carter as examples and yes the proper people in the congress are always aware of it.

Hey if you want to put up a candidate for President who pledges not to do this type of surveilence then do so, let em run on that platform. And watch him go down in flames. This is proper and appropriate surveilence.

Geez, I think that if Josef Stalin or Adolph Hitler were president, you would support him to your last breath, if and only if he were a Republican. This isnt about Republican or Democrat, but about felony violations of the FISA law by NSA, by Bush, probably by Clinton, and by members of Congess.

While you are so eager to support your own lawbreaker, you accuse me of posting this just to single him out, Of course, you omit the fact that I have included the Democratic president too. Such blatant partisanship is dangerous for America, not to mention the American values which founded this nation. While you continually hint that others here are anti American, you wear your own anti American values on your sleeve like a medal. Such hyporcrisy. Yes, Clinton was a bad president, and was totally without honor. However, Clinton is not the one who holds power today.

No president, Republican or Democrat, no legislator, Republican or Democrat, and no person, Republican or Democrat, is above the laws of the United States of America, above the Constitution of the United States of America, or above America herself. Our leaders are not Gods. They are people, and contain all the inherent faults which people have. This is a good reason to hold them to a standard, to limit their power, and to hold them accountable when they break the law.
 
danarhea said:
Geez, I think that if Josef Stalin or Adolph Hitler were president, you would support him to your last breath, if and only if he were a Republican. This isnt about Republican or Democrat, but about felony violations of the FISA law by NSA, by Bush, probably by Clinton, and by members of Congess.

While you are so eager to support your own lawbreaker, you accuse me of posting this just to single him out, Of course, you omit the fact that I have included the Democratic president too. Such blatant partisanship is dangerous for America, not to mention the American values which founded this nation. While you continually hint that others here are anti American, you wear your own anti American values on your sleeve like a medal. Such hyporcrisy. Yes, Clinton was a bad president, and was totally without honor. However, Clinton is not the one who holds power today.

No president, Republican or Democrat, no legislator, Republican or Democrat, and no person, Republican or Democrat, is above the laws of the United States of America, above the Constitution of the United States of America, or above America herself. Our leaders are not Gods. They are people, and contain all the inherent faults which people have. This is a good reason to hold them to a standard, to limit their power, and to hold them accountable when they break the law.

Great post. Loved every word of it.
 
TimmyBoy said:
Besides filing income tax, didn't know I had to give my private medical and financial information to the government.

"Besides"? Once you give it up you don't have the privacy anymore do you. So if we have a right to privacy why do we have to report our private financial and medical (my wife had surgery last year and we will have to fully report all the doctors and all the proceedures especially if we get audited, without a court order and without a warrant) So if you believe in a right to privacy how can you support the current income tax system and it's requirements we give up our privacy?

I am sure, they know my medical and financial information though.

So what about your right to privacy?

A prosecutor would argue that anybody communicating with Al-queda has no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Yep that's one of the supporting arguements.
However, one of Bush's declared "enemy combatants" ..........

I'm sorry but if you are going to use a specific case to support your arguement you are going to have state which specific case it is and what specifically in the case supports your contentio else I have not way of responding.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
If someone's communicating w/ aQ, it is very, very, very easy to get a warrant to wiretap their phone. It can even be done retroactively. So why skip the "niceties" of the US Constitution etc?

And very very very unnecessary especialy if the call is originating outside the US.

If this is so, it should be a piece of cake for you to provide a citation of a court ruling to the effect that no warrant is necesary to tap the phones of Americans. I ask that you perform this ostensibly easy task, please.

That's not what I said is it. "that no warrant is necesary to tap the phones of Americans." where did I specifically say that?

Given the ease of obtaining such warrants and the ability to obtain one after the fact, what benefit is conveyed by bypassing the warrant process?

It's not necesarry.

AFAICT, the hubub is not about monitoring foreigner, but US citizens. I think a candidate that ran on a platform of following the law and seeking warrants to conduct wiretaps on Americans would be fine, just fine.

What is the hubub if a US Citizen is communicating with Al Qaeda? The constuitution allows the president just as it did Carter and Clinton and Reagan et al to do exactly what Bush is doing.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
If you're in America and you are an American, where does the foreign part come in?

If you are working in concert with, on behalf of, being paid or just plain assisting a foreign government of terrorist criminal group you become an agent of the foreign power or group. Then the conversations is no longer a domestic matter. You can drill down throught the FISA and Foreign intelligence laws to the definitions of what makes you an agent for a foreign power or group and see that just about any contact with such a group subjects you to the NSA wiretaps every president has authorized.

Perhaps you're conflating some things.


Perhaps not.

Since when have wiretaps on Americans w/o a warrant been appropriate? When did this come to be? Can you cite a date, etc?

I have cited well enough without seeing any rebuttle. There has been ample reporting of the court cases and rulings of the AG's and IG's without rebuttle.

That being said if you are going on record as claiming that under no circumstance can an American ever be subject to a wiretap or other sureveilance without a court order then say so outright.
 
Stinger said:
And very very very unnecessary especialy if the call is originating outside the US.



That's not what I said is it. "that no warrant is necesary to tap the phones of Americans." where did I specifically say that?



It's not necesarry.



What is the hubub if a US Citizen is communicating with Al Qaeda? The constuitution allows the president just as it did Carter and Clinton and Reagan et al to do exactly what Bush is doing.

If Bush didn't bypass the court system and got a warrant to do the monitoring of this suspect, then this suspect could be facing far more serious charges of trying set off a dirty bomb in the US rather than the lighter charges he is currently facing. Now, of course, they would have to demonstrate to a judge that their is enough probable cause to get that warrant and they may or may not have had a enough probable cause to get the warrant, they might have been able to demonstrate to a judge they have enough probable cause, they could have at least tried. And if the judge did grant that warrant, this terrorist would be facing much more serious charges than what he is facing right now.
 
Stinger said:
And very very very unnecessary especialy if the call is originating outside the US.
Cite, please.

Stinger said:
That's not what I said is it. "that no warrant is necesary to tap the phones of Americans." where did I specifically say that?
Right above here. you said it was "very very very unnecessary."

Stinger said:
It's not necesarry.
Again, please offer a citation that shows it's unecessary to have a warrant to tap the phones of Americans.

Stinger said:
What is the hubub if a US Citizen is communicating with Al Qaeda?
Well it would be that an American citizen is communicating w/ aQ. I'm not sure how explain the significance of this if it's not immediately apparent. That's something to make a deal about.
The hubub about the warrantless taps is that were conducted on Americans.

Stinger said:
The constuitution allows the president just as it did Carter and Clinton and Reagan et al to do exactly what Bush is doing.
Cite, please. Where in the Constitution does it say that our fourth Amendments Rights can be secretly abrogated by the PotUS w/o due process?
 
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Stinger said:
If you are working in concert with, on behalf of, being paid or just plain assisting a foreign government of terrorist criminal group you become an agent of the foreign power or group. Then the conversations is no longer a domestic matter. You can drill down throught the FISA and Foreign intelligence laws to the definitions of what makes you an agent for a foreign power or group and see that just about any contact with such a group subjects you to the NSA wiretaps every president has authorized.
And the FISA warrants for tapping an American's phone ... ?

Stinger said:
I have cited well enough without seeing any rebuttle.
Where and when in this thread?

Stinger said:
That being said if you are going on record as claiming that under no circumstance can an American ever be subject to a wiretap or other sureveilance without a court order then say so outright.
That's just plain silly.
Anyone can be under survailance w/o a warrant. It's not illegal for cops et al to watch someone while they're out in public or even in their own livingroom if they leave the blinds up.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stinger
If you are working in concert with, on behalf of, being paid or just plain assisting a foreign government of terrorist criminal group you become an agent of the foreign power or group. Then the conversations is no longer a domestic matter. You can drill down throught the FISA and Foreign intelligence laws to the definitions of what makes you an agent for a foreign power or group and see that just about any contact with such a group subjects you to the NSA wiretaps every president has authorized.


Simon W. Moon said:
And the FISA warrants for tapping an American's phone ... ?

I'm osrry you'll have to elaborate a little more.

Where and when in this thread?

Through out this and another which I'm sure you have read.


Moon Quote:
Since when have wiretaps on Americans w/o a warrant been appropriate? When did this come to be? Can you cite a date, etc?


Originally Posted by Stinger
That being said if you are going on record as claiming that under no circumstance can an American ever be subject to a wiretap or other sureveilance without a court order then say so outright.


That's just plain silly.
Anyone can be under survailance w/o a warrant.[/QUOTE]

So then I guess you can answer your own question from above. Or are yout trying to dodge now?

It's not illegal for cops et al to watch someone while they're out in public or even in their own livingroom if they leave the blinds up.

How typical of you when cornered, to try an bring is speciousness.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
Cite, please.

Already have.

Me>>
Originally Posted by Stinger
That's not what I said is it. "that no warrant is necesary to tap the phones of Americans." where did I specifically say that?

Right above here. you said it was "very very very unnecessary."

No that is not what I specifically said, you knowingly left out the context.

Get back to me when you can get it right.
 
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