Patriot Act vs liberty?

[Mavdog]

These 2 stories speak volumes about the pitfalls of enacting legislation such as what is contained in the patriot act.
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Patriot Act's Future in Doubt in Senate
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
The Senate scrapped a Democratic-led effort to renew the USA Patriot Act for just three months, increasing prospects that provisions the administration considers indispensable to the war on terrorism may soon expire.

"The House of Representatives opposes such an extension and the president will not sign such an extension," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told his colleagues in a floor showdown Friday as lawmakers scurried to finish business for the year. From the White House, Bush's spokesman echoed Frist as they sought to give a boost to efforts to renew provisions of the law that are set to expire Dec. 31.

The Senate was still weighing a proposed accord with the House to extend the expiring 16 provisions of the law enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. But that compromise appeared to lack the necessary votes to succeed.

"Should we take a step forward in making America safer or should we go back to the pre-9/11 days when terrorists slip through the cracks?" said Frist, R-Tenn. "A nation in fear cannot be a nation that's free."

But even with that stark choice, senators were deeply split over whether to extend the law, which passed four years ago 99-1.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid proposed an alternative bill to extend the expiring provisions by three months to allow Congress time to add protections for civil liberties.

"Mr. President, liberty and security are not contradictory," the Nevada Democrat said on the floor.

The exchange came after a brief morning meeting in Frist's office in which Reid told Frist there were enough votes to filibuster proposed compromise, according to two senior officials with knowledge of the meeting.

The White House and its congressional allies prefer to let the provisions expire and hold Democrats responsible in next year's midterm elections rather than let opponents whittle away at the law.

"In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without these vital tools for a single moment," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "The time for Democrats to stop standing in the way has come. The president calls on senators in both parties to put the safety of the American people above politics, end the filibuster and send him the bill that is essential to fighting the war on terrorism."

Making most of the act's provisions permanent was a priority for both the Bush administration and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill before Congress adjourns for the year.

The House on Wednesday passed a House-Senate compromise bill to renew the Act that supporters say added significant safeguards to the law. These supporters predict doom and gloom if the Patriot Act's critics win and the provisions expire.

The failure to renew the provisions would be "interpreted by our enemies as somehow inviting or even enabling further terrorist attacks on U.S. soil," Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah, said.

But the critics, who include senators with such wide-ranging views as Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Republican Larry Craig of Idaho, say they don't want the Patriot Act to expire — they just want enough time to improve the bill to the point where it doesn't infringe on American liberties.

"Continued good-faith negotiation will result in solving the problems in a way that will be acceptable to a vast majority of this body and will not in any way diminish the ability of our law enforcement and intelligence organizations to do their job," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., one of the original Democratic sponsors of the Patriot Act.

Congress passed the Patriot Act overwhelmingly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The law expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates and financiers.

The bill's supporters, who include Frist and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., must get 60 votes to overcome the critics' filibuster threat. Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Republican congressional leaders have been lobbying hard this week to secure those votes and avoid a filibuster.

The bill's opponents say the original act was rushed into law, and Congress should take more time now to make sure the rights of innocent Americans are safeguarded before making most of the expiring provisions permanent.

They says the current Patriot Act gives government too much power to investigate people's private lives.

"Folks, when we're dealing with civil liberties, you don't compromise them," said Craig, a board member of the National Rifle Association.
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Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.

"This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches."

Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight.

According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters. Some of the questions about the agency's new powers led the administration to temporarily suspend the operation last year and impose more restrictions, the officials said.

The Bush administration views the operation as necessary so that the agency can move quickly to monitor communications that may disclose threats to the United States, the officials said. Defenders of the program say it has been a critical tool in helping disrupt terrorist plots and prevent attacks inside the United States.

Administration officials are confident that existing safeguards are sufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, the officials say. In some cases, they said, the Justice Department eventually seeks warrants if it wants to expand the eavesdropping to include communications confined within the United States. The officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that deals with national security issues.

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

Dealing With a New Threat

While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands since the program began, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to those officials.

Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the officials said. But they said most people targeted for N.S.A. monitoring have never been charged with a crime, including an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden.

The eavesdropping program grew out of concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks that the nation's intelligence agencies were not poised to deal effectively with the new threat of Al Qaeda and that they were handcuffed by legal and bureaucratic restrictions better suited to peacetime than war, according to officials. In response, President Bush significantly eased limits on American intelligence and law enforcement agencies and the military.

But some of the administration's antiterrorism initiatives have provoked an outcry from members of Congress, watchdog groups, immigrants and others who argue that the measures erode protections for civil liberties and intrude on Americans' privacy.

Opponents have challenged provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the focus of contentious debate on Capitol Hill this week, that expand domestic surveillance by giving the Federal Bureau of Investigation more power to collect information like library lending lists or Internet use. Military and F.B.I. officials have drawn criticism for monitoring what were largely peaceful antiwar protests. The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security were forced to retreat on plans to use public and private databases to hunt for possible terrorists. And last year, the Supreme Court rejected the administration's claim that those labeled "enemy combatants" were not entitled to judicial review of their open-ended detention.

Mr. Bush's executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States - including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners - is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the N.S.A. operation.

The National Security Agency, which is based at Fort Meade, Md., is the nation's largest and most secretive intelligence agency, so intent on remaining out of public view that it has long been nicknamed "No Such Agency." It breaks codes and maintains listening posts around the world to eavesdrop on foreign governments, diplomats and trade negotiators as well as drug lords and terrorists. But the agency ordinarily operates under tight restrictions on any spying on Americans, even if they are overseas, or disseminating information about them.

What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, they said.

In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said.

Under the agency's longstanding rules, the N.S.A. can target for interception phone calls or e-mail messages on foreign soil, even if the recipients of those communications are in the United States. Usually, though, the government can only target phones and e-mail messages in the United States by first obtaining a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which holds its closed sessions at the Justice Department.

Traditionally, the F.B.I., not the N.S.A., seeks such warrants and conducts most domestic eavesdropping. Until the new program began, the N.S.A. typically limited its domestic surveillance to foreign embassies and missions in Washington, New York and other cities, and obtained court orders to do so.

Since 2002, the agency has been conducting some warrantless eavesdropping on people in the United States who are linked, even if indirectly, to suspected terrorists through the chain of phone numbers and e-mail addresses, according to several officials who know of the operation. Under the special program, the agency monitors their international communications, the officials said. The agency, for example, can target phone calls from someone in New York to someone in Afghanistan.

Warrants are still required for eavesdropping on entirely domestic-to-domestic communications, those officials say, meaning that calls from that New Yorker to someone in California could not be monitored without first going to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court.

A White House Briefing

After the special program started, Congressional leaders from both political parties were brought to Vice President Dick Cheney's office in the White House. The leaders, who included the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, learned of the N.S.A. operation from Mr. Cheney, Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden of the Air Force, who was then the agency's director and is now a full general and the principal deputy director of national intelligence, and George J. Tenet, then the director of the C.I.A., officials said.

It is not clear how much the members of Congress were told about the presidential order and the eavesdropping program. Some of them declined to comment about the matter, while others did not return phone calls.

Later briefings were held for members of Congress as they assumed leadership roles on the intelligence committees, officials familiar with the program said. After a 2003 briefing, Senator Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who became vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee that year, wrote a letter to Mr. Cheney expressing concerns about the program, officials knowledgeable about the letter said. It could not be determined if he received a reply. Mr. Rockefeller declined to comment. Aside from the Congressional leaders, only a small group of people, including several cabinet members and officials at the N.S.A., the C.I.A. and the Justice Department, know of the program.

Some officials familiar with it say they consider warrantless eavesdropping inside the United States to be unlawful and possibly unconstitutional, amounting to an improper search. One government official involved in the operation said he privately complained to a Congressional official about his doubts about the program's legality. But nothing came of his inquiry. "People just looked the other way because they didn't want to know what was going on," he said.

A senior government official recalled that he was taken aback when he first learned of the operation. "My first reaction was, 'We're doing what?' " he said. While he said he eventually felt that adequate safeguards were put in place, he added that questions about the program's legitimacy were understandable.

Some of those who object to the operation argue that is unnecessary. By getting warrants through the foreign intelligence court, the N.S.A. and F.B.I. could eavesdrop on people inside the United States who might be tied to terrorist groups without skirting longstanding rules, they say.

The standard of proof required to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is generally considered lower than that required for a criminal warrant - intelligence officials only have to show probable cause that someone may be "an agent of a foreign power," which includes international terrorist groups - and the secret court has turned down only a small number of requests over the years. In 2004, according to the Justice Department, 1,754 warrants were approved. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can grant emergency approval for wiretaps within hours, officials say.

Administration officials counter that they sometimes need to move more urgently, the officials said. Those involved in the program also said that the N.S.A.'s eavesdroppers might need to start monitoring large batches of numbers all at once, and that it would be impractical to seek permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court first, according to the officials.

The N.S.A. domestic spying operation has stirred such controversy among some national security officials in part because of the agency's cautious culture and longstanding rules.

Widespread abuses - including eavesdropping on Vietnam War protesters and civil rights activists - by American intelligence agencies became public in the 1970's and led to passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which imposed strict limits on intelligence gathering on American soil. Among other things, the law required search warrants, approved by the secret F.I.S.A. court, for wiretaps in national security cases. The agency, deeply scarred by the scandals, adopted additional rules that all but ended domestic spying on its part.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, though, the United States intelligence community was criticized for being too risk-averse. The National Security Agency was even cited by the independent 9/11 Commission for adhering to self-imposed rules that were stricter than those set by federal law.

Concerns and Revisions

Several senior government officials say that when the special operation began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight outside the N.S.A. The agency can choose its eavesdropping targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or other Bush administration officials. Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation, a former senior Bush administration official said. Before the 2004 election, the official said, some N.S.A. personnel worried that the program might come under scrutiny by Congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was elected president.

In mid-2004, concerns about the program expressed by national security officials, government lawyers and a judge prompted the Bush administration to suspend elements of the program and revamp it.

For the first time, the Justice Department audited the N.S.A. program, several officials said. And to provide more guidance, the Justice Department and the agency expanded and refined a checklist to follow in deciding whether probable cause existed to start monitoring someone's communications, several officials said.

A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, helped spur the suspension, officials said. The judge questioned whether information obtained under the N.S.A. program was being improperly used as the basis for F.I.S.A. wiretap warrant requests from the Justice Department, according to senior government officials. While not knowing all the details of the exchange, several government lawyers said there appeared to be concerns that the Justice Department, by trying to shield the existence of the N.S.A. program, was in danger of misleading the court about the origins of the information cited to justify the warrants.

One official familiar with the episode said the judge insisted to Justice Department lawyers at one point that any material gathered under the special N.S.A. program not be used in seeking wiretap warrants from her court. Judge Kollar-Kotelly did not return calls for comment.

A related issue arose in a case in which the F.B.I. was monitoring the communications of a terrorist suspect under a F.I.S.A.-approved warrant, even though the National Security Agency was already conducting warrantless eavesdropping.

According to officials, F.B.I. surveillance of Mr. Faris, the Brooklyn Bridge plotter, was dropped for a short time because of technical problems. At the time, senior Justice Department officials worried what would happen if the N.S.A. picked up information that needed to be presented in court. The government would then either have to disclose the N.S.A. program or mislead a criminal court about how it had gotten the information.

Several national security officials say the powers granted the N.S.A. by President Bush go far beyond the expanded counterterrorism powers granted by Congress under the USA Patriot Act, which is up for renewal. The House on Wednesday approved a plan to reauthorize crucial parts of the law. But final passage has been delayed under the threat of a Senate filibuster because of concerns from both parties over possible intrusions on Americans' civil liberties and privacy.

Under the act, law enforcement and intelligence officials are still required to seek a F.I.S.A. warrant every time they want to eavesdrop within the United States. A recent agreement reached by Republican leaders and the Bush administration would modify the standard for F.B.I. wiretap warrants, requiring, for instance, a description of a specific target. Critics say the bar would remain too low to prevent abuses.

Bush administration officials argue that the civil liberties concerns are unfounded, and they say pointedly that the Patriot Act has not freed the N.S.A. to target Americans. "Nothing could be further from the truth," wrote John Yoo, a former official in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and his co-author in a Wall Street Journal opinion article in December 2003. Mr. Yoo worked on a classified legal opinion on the N.S.A.'s domestic eavesdropping program.

At an April hearing on the Patriot Act renewal, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, asked Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., "Can the National Security Agency, the great electronic snooper, spy on the American people?"

"Generally," Mr. Mueller said, "I would say generally, they are not allowed to spy or to gather information on American citizens."

President Bush did not ask Congress to include provisions for the N.S.A. domestic surveillance program as part of the Patriot Act and has not sought any other laws to authorize the operation. Bush administration lawyers argued that such new laws were unnecessary, because they believed that the Congressional resolution on the campaign against terrorism provided ample authorization, officials said.

The Legal Line Shifts

Seeking Congressional approval was also viewed as politically risky because the proposal would be certain to face intense opposition on civil liberties grounds. The administration also feared that by publicly disclosing the existence of the operation, its usefulness in tracking terrorists would end, officials said.

The legal opinions that support the N.S.A. operation remain classified, but they appear to have followed private discussions among senior administration lawyers and other officials about the need to pursue aggressive strategies that once may have been seen as crossing a legal line, according to senior officials who participated in the discussions.

For example, just days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Mr. Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer, wrote an internal memorandum that argued that the government might use "electronic surveillance techniques and equipment that are more powerful and sophisticated than those available to law enforcement agencies in order to intercept telephonic communications and observe the movement of persons but without obtaining warrants for such uses."

Mr. Yoo noted that while such actions could raise constitutional issues, in the face of devastating terrorist attacks "the government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties."

The next year, Justice Department lawyers disclosed their thinking on the issue of warrantless wiretaps in national security cases in a little-noticed brief in an unrelated court case. In that 2002 brief, the government said that "the Constitution vests in the President inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional authority."

Administration officials were also encouraged by a November 2002 appeals court decision in an unrelated matter. The decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which sided with the administration in dismantling a bureaucratic "wall" limiting cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence officers, cited "the president's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."

But the same court suggested that national security interests should not be grounds "to jettison the Fourth Amendment requirements" protecting the rights of Americans against undue searches. The dividing line, the court acknowledged, "is a very difficult one to administer."

edit: if UL says it's hard to read, it must be hard to read...

[Usually Lurkin]

Is that center justified for everybody? (Hard to read).

This was posted at the Corner:
EAVESDROPPING INS AND OUTS [Mark R. Levin]
Some brief background: The Foreign Intelligence Security Act permits the government to monitor foreign communications, even if they are with U.S. citizens -- 50 USC 1801, et seq. A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications are wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
The reason the President probably had to sign an executive order is that the Justice Department office that processes FISA requests, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), can take over 6 months to get a standard FISA request approved. It can become extremely bureaucratic, depending on who is handling the request. His executive order is not contrary to FISA if he believed, as he clearly did, that he needed to act quickly. The president has constitutional powers, too.

I'd like to stress this from the article:
What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, they said.

and this:
Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the officials said.

[dude1394]

Figures...NYSlimes and congressman scoring points by damaging our national security. Actually it was a good week for the anti-american crowd. They filibustered the renewal of the Patriot Act and leak classified information used to foil terrorist plots. Nice weeks work.

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday he personally has authorized a secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks and he lashed out at those involved in publicly revealing the program. "This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security," he said in a radio address delivered live from the White House's Roosevelt Room.

"This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power, under our laws and Constitution, to protect them and their civil liberties and that is exactly what I will continue to do as long as I am president of the United States," Bush said.

Angry members of Congress have demanded an explanation of the program, first revealed in Friday's New York Times and whether the monitoring by the National Security Agency violates civil liberties.

Defending the program, Bush said in his address that it is used only to intercept the international communications of people inside the United States who have been determined to have "a clear link" to al- Qaida or related terrorist organizations.

He said the program is reviewed every 45 days, using fresh threat assessments, legal reviews by the Justice Department, White House counsel and others, and information from previous activities under the program.

Without identifying specific lawmakers, Bush said congressional leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times on the program's activities.

[dude1394]

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012583.php

Dubya responds...

PAUL adds: Here is what President Bush said about the "spying" the government engaged in without warrants:

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.

This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.

As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, it was clear that terrorists inside the United States were communicating with terrorists abroad before the September the 11th attacks, and the commission criticized our nation's inability to uncover links between terrorists here at home and terrorists abroad. Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn't know they were here, until it was too late.

The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September the 11th helped address that problem in a way that is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities. The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time. And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.

The activities I authorized are reviewed approximately every 45 days. Each review is based on a fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland. During each assessment, previous activities under the authorization are reviewed. The review includes approval by our nation's top legal officials, including the Attorney General and the Counsel to the President. I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups.

The NSA's activities under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice Department and NSA's top legal officials, including NSA's general counsel and inspector general. Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it. Intelligence officials involved in this activity also receive extensive training to ensure they perform their duties consistent with the letter and intent of the authorization.

This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties. And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I'm the President of the United States

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Figures...NYSlimes and congressman scoring points by damaging our national security. Actually it was a good week for the anti-american crowd. They filibustered the renewal of the Patriot Act and leak classified information used to foil terrorist plots. Nice weeks work.

inaccurate. from the article in question:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

inaccurate. from the article in question:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

And to coincide with a book out it seems.

[dude1394]

Here's hoping the SOBs who leaked this vital classified information to the enemy are brought up on charges and arrested. You would think the the liberals would agree since they are so up in arms about a faux "outing" of the "faux" agent starlet Valerie Plame.

From http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...-get-frog.html

Hey anyone know an easier way to put titles on these links? It used to be pretty easy, now much harder.

Will the Gray Lady Leakers Get Frog Marched to the Hoosegow?

After yesterdays high fives and back slaps, the mood at the New York Times was not so jolly today after about, oh, 10:06 AM, when GW talked about how he really feels about the latest national security leak reported in yesterday's edition:

"This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country. "

Hmm. George Bush is not one to speak in symbols or mince words. His message today leaves you with the impression that "W" is more than miffed. He has lately not ignored the vicious political attacks from the Left. In November, he pointed out the dishonest reporting from the New York Times. Bush won't let this national security leak go that easy. He stated today the information was "improperly reported". Look for an investigation into this leak. "W" isn't letting this one go! And, this of course, is very bad news for the New York Times.

Powerline said as much yesterday:

The Times believes that it should be the arbiter of what will and will not help the terrorists and thus impair our national security. I don't agree. Under the Plame precedent, this case is a no-brainer. The intelligence officials who leaked to the Times should be identified, criminally prosecuted, and sent to prison. Under the Pentagon Papers case, the reporters and editors at the Times who published the leaked story can't be criminally prosecuted. Perhaps the Supreme Court should revisit that precedent when the opportunity arises.

[Mavdog]

interesting parallel you attempt to make.

on the one hand there's the orchestrated campaign to exact revenge by exposing the identity of an undercover CIA agent, on the other side is a news article exposing the current administration's end run around the courts.

that's ludicrous.

[Epitome22]

The good news is, not all Republicand and Conservatives are Bushbots.

Former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) was on CNN yesterday, debating Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) on the merits of the secret domestic spying program, and he is not pleased:

…Well, the fact of the matter is that the Constitution is the Constitution, and I took an oath to abide by it. My good friend, my former colleague, Dana Rohrabacher, did and the president did. And I don’t really care very much whether or not it can be justified based on some hypothetical. The fact of the matter is that, if you have any government official who deliberately orders that federal law be violated despite the best of motives, that certainly ought to be of concern to us…

…Well, gee, I guess then the president should be able to ignore whatever provision in the Constitution as long as there’s something after the fact that justifies it…

…The fact of the matter is the law prohibits — specifically prohibits — what apparently was done in this case, and for a member of Congress to say, oh, that doesn’t matter, I’m proud that the president violated the law is absolutely astounding, Wolf…


This was a real low point for America. Thanks Bush.

[Mavdog]

The pattern is very, very troubling.

The current administration has continued to ignore our nation's laws. The need to obtain court consent to tap phone lines? furgettaboutit.

the need to get a court to OK interception of e mails? fuhrgettaboutit

The need to get other nation's consent to abduct a person from their soil? furgettaboutit.

lawlessness is a terrible habit to get in. it's time the current administrations stops crossing that line.

[dude1394]

Patrick Fitzgerald let's us know again why democrats cannot be trusted with national security as they filibuster the Partiot Act so that they can re-erect the walls between law enforcement and intelligence.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012602.php

the House Republican conference reminds us why the act is so important:

If allowed to expire, the information-sharing provisions critical to breaking down the pre-9/11 “wall” between our law enforcement and intelligence personnel will be lost. This will have dire consequences.

Patrick Fitzgerald, a longtime United States Attorney and current special prosecutor, testified to his experience of how the “wall” worked in practice:

I was on a prosecution team in New York that began a criminal investigation of Usama Bin Laden in early 1996. The team ... had access to a number of sources. We could talk to citizens. We could talk to local police officers. We could talk to other U.S. Government agencies. We could talk to foreign police officers. Even foreign intelligence personnel. And foreign citizens.... We could even talk to al Qaeda members—and we did. .... But there was one group of people we were not permitted to talk to. Who? The FBI agents across the street from us in lower Manhattan assigned to a parallel intelligence investigation of Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. We could not learn what information they had gathered. That was “the wall.”

[Mavdog]

If by filibustering the extension of the Patriot Act the "democrats cannot be trusted with national security",
the revelation that the current republican administration ignores laws established to protect our individual rights means the republicans can't be trusted.
period.

[dude1394]

Well I'm sure you can't mean this guy.

John McCain: Bush Right to Use NSA
Sen. John McCain disappointed Democrats on Capitol Hill on Sunday by defending the Bush administration's decision to use the National Security Agency to monitor a limited number of domestic phone calls in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

[Mavdog]

uh, did you forget to post the rest of his comments?

[quote]Administration officials said congressional leaders had been briefed regularly on the program. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said there were no objections raised by lawmakers who were told about it.

"That's a legitimate part of the equation," McCain said on ABC's "This Week." But he said Bush still needs to explain why he chose to ignore the law that requires approval of a special court for domestic wiretaps.

[dude1394]

Nope..but you've got him drawn, quartered and some sort of tyrant already.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

The pattern is very, very troubling.

The current administration has continued to ignore our nation's laws. The need to obtain court consent to tap phone lines? furgettaboutit.

the need to get a court to OK interception of e mails? fuhrgettaboutit

The need to get other nation's consent to abduct a person from their soil? furgettaboutit.

lawlessness is a terrible habit to get in. it's time the current administrations stops crossing that line.

Clinton's Echelon did the whole email and phone tap things.
Does that mean the Democrats can't be trusted?
Can you imagine a 60min report coming out saying that Bush's NSA was listening in on the phone conversations of Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton?

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

The need to get other nation's consent to abduct a person from their soil? furgettaboutit.

And this sounds like the CLinton-Berger rendition program. I guess by "continued to ignore our nation's laws" you meant continuation from the previous administration, and that the Democrats, by extension, can't be trusted. period.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

Clinton's Echelon did the whole email and phone tap things.
Does that mean the Democrats can't be trusted?
Can you imagine a 60min report coming out saying that Bush's NSA was listening in on the phone conversations of Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton?

As I understand Echelon, that is a program in conjunction with other countries (such as Austrailia and Grt Britain) that looks at international communications.

In this case, the Bush administration chose to ignore the requirement to obtain the court warrant for tapping the communication of domestic sources. This was supported by an Executive order from bush, therefore it was a cognizant violation.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

And this sounds like the CLinton-Berger rendition program. I guess by "continued to ignore our nation's laws" you meant continuation from the previous administration, and that the Democrats, by extension, can't be trusted. period.

The "clinton-Berger rendidtion program" was done with support of the CIA, but the work was done by the officials of the country in which the actions occured.

Look to the Italian's or the German's government response to these revelations to understand their people appear to have been kept out of the loop.

[Mavdog]

there sure is a pattern developing, and it's not a very positive one by any stretch. the use of our country's agancies to spy on its citizens- who are targeted for no other reason then their opposition to the current administration- is disturbing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 20, 2005
F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week, came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored.

The F.B.I. had previously turned over a small number of documents on antiwar groups, showing the agency's interest in investigating possible anarchist or violent links in connection with antiwar protests and demonstrations in advance of the 2004 political conventions. And earlier this month, the A.C.L.U.'s Colorado chapter released similar documents involving, among other things, people protesting logging practices at a lumber industry gathering in 2002.

The latest batch of documents, parts of which the A.C.L.U. plans to release publicly on Tuesday, totals more than 2,300 pages and centers on references in internal files to a handful of groups, including PETA, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group, which promotes antipoverty efforts and social causes.

Many of the investigative documents turned over by the bureau are heavily edited, making it difficult or impossible to determine the full context of the references and why the F.B.I. may have been discussing events like a PETA protest. F.B.I. officials say many of the references may be much more benign than they seem to civil rights advocates, adding that the documents offer an incomplete and sometimes misleading snapshot of the bureau's activities.

"Just being referenced in an F.B.I. file is not tantamount to being the subject of an investigation," said John Miller, a spokesman for the bureau.

"The F.B.I. does not target individuals or organizations for investigation based on their political beliefs," Mr. Miller said. "Everything we do is carefully promulgated by federal law, Justice Department guidelines and the F.B.I.'s own rules."

A.C.L.U officials said the latest batch of documents released by the F.B.I. indicated the agency's interest in a broader array of activist and protest groups than they had previously thought. In light of other recent disclosures about domestic surveillance activities by the National Security Agency and military intelligence units, the A.C.L.U. said the documents reflected a pattern of overreaching by the Bush administration.

"It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

"You look at these documents," Ms. Beeson said, "and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology."

The documents indicate that in some cases, the F.B.I. has used employees, interns and other confidential informants within groups like PETA and Greenpeace to develop leads on potential criminal activity and has downloaded material from the groups' Web sites, in addition to monitoring their protests.

In the case of Greenpeace, which is known for highly publicized acts of civil disobedience like the boarding of cargo ships to unfurl protest banners, the files indicate that the F.B.I. investigated possible financial ties between its members and militant groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.

These networks, which have no declared leaders and are only loosely organized, have been described by the F.B.I. in Congressional testimony as "extremist special interest groups" whose cells engage in violent or other illegal acts, making them "a serious domestic terrorist threat."

In testimony last year, John E. Lewis, deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, said the F.B.I. estimated that in the past 10 years such groups had engaged in more than 1,000 criminal acts causing more than $100 million in damage.

When the F.B.I. investigates evidence of possible violence or criminal disruptions at protests and other events, those investigations are routinely handled by agents within the bureau's counterterrorism division.

But the groups mentioned in the newly disclosed F.B.I. files questioned both the propriety of characterizing such investigations as related to "terrorism" and the necessity of diverting counterterrorism personnel from more pressing investigations.

"The fact that we're even mentioned in the F.B.I. files in connection with terrorism is really troubling," said Tom Wetterer, general counsel for Greenpeace. "There's no property damage or physical injury caused in our activities, and under any definition of terrorism, we'd take issue with that."

Jeff Kerr, general counsel for PETA, rejected the suggestion in some F.B.I. files that the animal rights group had financial ties to militant groups, and said he, too, was troubled by his group's inclusion in the files.

"It's shocking and it's outrageous," Mr. Kerr said. "And to me, it's an abuse of power by the F.B.I. when groups like Greenpeace and PETA are basically being punished for their social activism."

[dude1394]

Hmmmm...seems like even Clintoon understood what was necessary when dealing with the bad guys.

Via powerline

John Schmidt, associate attorney general of the United States in the Clinton administration, superbly explains why the NSA intercept program is legal under all authorities and precedents:

[dude1394]

And somehow, somehow...The democrats think that reducing our ability to protect ourselves is a good thing. Also they are so used to having the MSM back them up that they just keep forgetting that the blogosphere has a very,very long memory. Can't wait to see the political ads with Harry Reid stating how happy he was that the dems KILLED the Partriot Act. Guilliani is going to have fun with that one.

Chutzpah

I just finished watching as much of Harry Reid's briefing on the Patriot Act as I could stand. That amounted to less than a minute. In that brief time, however, I saw the definition of the word chutzpah. It was Harry Reid. Check out this Harry quote from a Reuters article:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said, "The president says he wants to fight the terrorists, but his political stunt with the Patriot Act suggests he's more interested in scoring political points. Extend it, don't end it," said Reid. He said a majority of the Senate would back a temporary extension if Republican leaders allowed a vote on it.

This is the same Harry Reid that proclaimed to loud applause that they'd "killed the Patriot Act." Does he think that we won't remember last Friday's events? Is he that stupid? Or does he think we're that stupid and/or forgetful?

Here's an exchange from Fox News Sunday:

REID: Think of what happened 20 minutes ago in the United States Senate. We killed the Patriot Act. (Applause.)
WALLACE: Senator, is that really something to celebrate?
REID: Of course it is. The fact is that I voted for the original Patriot Act, it was the right thing to do, and the Patriot Act that I talked about there, at least some semblance of it, came out of the judiciary committee in the Senate unanimously, it passed the Senate unanimously. It was an improvement over what we had. It was sent to the House of Representatives and came back in a fashion that I thought was very bad, as did a bipartisan group of senators. Now, keep in mind what we're talking about. 2003, New Year's Eve in Las Vegas, hundreds of thousands of people come to Las Vegas. And do you know that those people that came to Las Vegas had their credit cards looked at; they had what rooms they stayed in, what cars they rented? Now, what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas, but not in this instance. It's in some federal data bank. That's what the Patriot Act is doing to the American people, and we have to make sure that Big Brother doesn't take over this country.



An now Reid expects us to trust him when he says "Mend it, don't end it?" That isn't gonna happen, Mr. Reid. You've proven in less than a week that you can't be trusted.

The key section in Reid's long answer is "The fact is that I voted for the original Patriot Act, it was the right thing to do, and the Patriot Act that I talked about there, at least some semblance of it, came out of the judiciary committee in the Senate unanimously, it passed the Senate unanimously. It was an improvement over what we had. It was sent to the House of Representatives and came back in a fashion that I thought was very bad, as did a bipartisan group of senators."

It might interest Sen. Reid to know that Chairman Sensenbrenner and Chairman Specter verified that the House gave in on 80% of the the provisions. Is the Minority Leader now saying that getting 80% of what he wants isn't good enough?

To be blunt, that's the definition of chutzpah, Senator. Does this mean that you'll let these key provisions of the Patriot Act expire because you didn't get 100% of the things you wanted? Sir, that's what I'd expect of a spoiled brat. It isn't the behavior of a senator, much less what I'd expect of the Senate Minority Leader.

Harry Reid, Patriot Act, Filibuster, Intelligence

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Hmmmm...seems like even Clintoon understood what was necessary when dealing with the bad guys.

Via powerline

That seems an odd opinion, especially in light of the fact that the framework for obtaining the warrant for a NSA wiretap was contained in the The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. That is when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which is where the bush administration SHOULD have gone to get the warrants, was established.

[dude1394]

You mean the opinion of John Schmidt, associate attorney general of the United States in the Clinton administration I presume.

[dude1394]

Ah the dems and their Patriotism...or maybe just another case of the democrats not having enough intelligence to understand the issues sort of like their vote to invade Iraq...hard to figure out to be honest.

betsyspage

Jay Rockefeller has publicized a letter that he wrote to Vice President Cheney voicing his concerns about the NSA surveillance program. Rockefeller said that he didn't feel that he had the expertise to evaluate it, not being a lawyer. Well, his colleague on the Intelligence Committee, Senator Pat Roberts, a Republican, challenges Rockefeller's version of events.

"In his letter ... Senator Rockefeller asserts that he had lingering concerns about the program designed to protect the American people from another attack, but was prohibited from doing anything about it," Mr. Roberts said in a statement yesterday. "A United States Senator has significant tools with which to wield power and influence over the executive branch. Feigning helplessness is not one of those tools."
In his 2003 letter to Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rockefeller said the program raised "profound oversight issues" and he regretted that high security of the program prevented him from seeking advice on the matter. Mr. Rockefeller also told Mr. Cheney that he had made a handwritten copy of the letter, which he distributed to the press Monday.
If Mr. Rockefeller had these concerns, Mr. Roberts said, he could have raised them with him or other members of Congress who had been briefed on the program.
"I have no recollection of Senator Rockefeller objecting to the program at the many briefings he and I attended together," Mr. Roberts said. "In fact, it is my recollection that on many occasions Senator Rockefeller expressed to the vice president his vocal support for the program," most recently, "two weeks ago."

Hmmm. Let some reporter ask Rockefeller if he did express support for the program "two weeks ago."

[dude1394]

Dems back away from the cliff..

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate leaders reached a bipartisan agreement on Wednesday to extend for six months key provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act set to expire in 10 days.

The accord, to be voted on later on Wednesday, would provide time for Congress to try to resolve differences over safeguards for civil liberties before making most of the provisions the Bush administration deems necessary for its war on terror permanent.

[Drbio]

They had to....the people are watching.