Spying by another name

[im10ashus]

WITH POLLS SHOWING THE American public increasingly skeptical about the need to abridge core constitutional freedoms to wage the war on terrorism, the Bush administration launched a major PR offensive this week to justify its decision to conduct warrantless wiretapping within the United States. The White House deserves credit for at least making its case. Unfortunately for the president, it's a weak case, and repetition doesn't make it any better.

Indeed, the administration's marketing team may be more adept than its legal theorists. All White House references to the National Security Agency's eavesdropping now call it a "terrorist surveillance program." That sounds far less objectionable than the media's blanket term, "domestic spying program." After all, it's hard to support domestic spying, but who wants to oppose "terrorist surveillance"? Maybe the Los Angeles Police Department could suspend the 4th Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches by launching a "criminal surveillance program."

Semantics aside, the administration's legal case remains wobbly, which may explain President Bush's churlish attitude toward his critics. On Wednesday, Bush defended the need for the program at NSA headquarters in Maryland. "Now, I understand there's some in America who say, well, this can't be true that there are still people willing to attack," he said. He then referred to Osama bin Laden's latest threatening audiotape.

Get it? The president is equating concerns about the legality of bypassing the courts to obtain a warrant to eavesdrop on Americans with a lack of appreciation for the threats posed by Al Qaeda. In Bush's world, only appeasers stand up for the Constitution.

cont'd...
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-nsa26jan26,0,2557329.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

[StateSecrets]

1. Illegal & Indiscriminate Spying Hurts Our National Security, Here is Why

January 26, 2006



Illegal & Indiscriminate Spying Hurts Our National Security, Here is Why



By Sibel Edmonds



According to numerous reports and audits released by entities such as Inspector General Offices of agencies that deal with national security and various presidential commissions, today, more than four years after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, almost all our national security related agencies are in disarray, riddled with incompetence, corruption, and in some cases criminal activities. While most of the real problems facing our national security today stem from gross mismanagement, inefficiency, incompetence and a lack of sensible policies and vigorous oversight, the Bush Administration insists upon blaming these deficiencies on a regrettable and dangerous lack of power in the executive branch. But the kind of power the Administration pursues is the kind of power that would vault the presidency to monarchical status and nullify the Bill of Rights.



· According to the DOJ-IG Report on the FBI’s Foreign Language Program that was released in October 2004, “more than 89,000 hours of audio and 30,000 hours of audio in other Counterterrorism languages have not been reviewed. Additionally, over 370,000 hours of audio in languages associated with counterintelligence activities have not been reviewed.”



· According to a report by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding WMD (Robb-Silberman Report), released in March 2005, in just the past 20 years the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, NRO, and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have all been penetrated by espionage. Secrets stolen include nuclear weapons data, U.S. cryptographic codes and procedures, identification of U.S. intelligence sources and methods (human and technical), and war plans. Indeed, it would be difficult to exaggerate the damage that foreign intelligence penetrations have caused.



· According to the final report by the 9/11 Discourse Project released in December 2005, the commissioners gave the federal government mediocre and failing grades for its response to its 41 recommendations, and characterized some failures as "shocking." The commission cited huge remaining loopholes in aviation security, a politicized system of doling out billions of homeland security dollars, and a failure to give firefighters and other responders the radio spectrum they need to communicate during crises.



· According to an audit released by the Department of Homeland Security in December 2005, nearly three years after it was formed, the immense DHS remains hampered by severe management and financial problems; problems that contributed to the flawed response to Hurricane Katrina.



· In December 2005, a group of House Democrats issued a report alleging that the Department of Homeland Security had failed to follow through on 33 promised improvements to border security, infrastructure protection and other physical security projects.



· According to an AP news article released on January 18, 2006, by Ted Bridis, the FBI missed neon-bright signs of espionage in the case of Bureau Intelligence Analyst Leandro Aragoncillo. He was arrested a few months ago. Despite several IG reports, congressional inquiries, and media reports on several other recent cases of alleged espionage activities, the bureau’s inability to secure even its own offices continues today. Here is an agency that is in charge of defending our national security and protecting our safety, but it has yet to prove it is capable of securing itself.





What do the various reports mentioned above have in common? These reports & audits, whether conducted by the Inspector General offices of our federal agencies, congress, or the presidential commissions, indicate that the weak state of our nation’s security today is a result of inefficient, incompetent and mismanaged government. How can any of the failures established by these reports be attributed to the lack of power to engage in massive communications intercepts of Americans? Based on these reports, how can one go about fixing our nation’s security problems by unlawfully gathering millions of discrete pieces of information from the citizens of our country, inundating our intelligence agencies with huge amounts of raw intelligence, and causing an insurmountable backlog?

The NSA has overwhelmed the FBI with raw intelligence gathered at the price of our liberty, privacy, and due process. Information culled from electronic eavesdropping and intercepted Internet traffic by the NSA resulting from Bush’s illegal authorization of domestic surveillance turned into a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips each month. A New York Times story says that FBI officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. The Times also reported that almost all of the tips led to dead ends, and one former FBI official said: "We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism -- case closed." He added: "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."

Mr. President, please stop. You are damaging our national security and simultaneously destroying what makes us American in mind and soul; our Bill of Rights. Remember what you told us just a few days after 9/11: “The terrorists hate our way of life, and they want to take it away from us.’” Mr. President, they haven’t, you beat them to that result. Do you really want to fix our security problems? Do you really want to address and fix our vulnerabilities? Then here is a start for you; implement a three-phrase program, and we can guarantee that you’ll make our “national security” problems disappear: Government Accountability, Government Oversight, and Government Integrity.

####

[im10ashus]

2. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. When they request more powers to help correct their past failures

with the powers they already had.... well, you get the picture. They don't know what to do with what they had much less what they are trying to grab. (Have grabbed)

[O.M.B.inOhio]

4. Seriously, the WH spin is "The Dems would let the terrorists go ..."

about their business unchecked. We are serious about stopping the terrorists."

Georgie wasn't serious enough to return from his month'long vacation in 2001 when he got his PDB: "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US."

Their is a strong argiment to the weak-minded (or too busy/lazy to think it through). We're in trouble. So why don't the dem's reply with a barb that hits home, even it's impolite. Mention the PDB and whose fault 9/11 was. Suggest they're spying on political rivals. Make them prove they're not using security for political gain again (remember the terror alerts during the 2004 campaign?) What favors do the Dumbocrats expect from this unscrupulous junta?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. They had to make a DVD to show him what he missed on the telly

during the first two days of Katrina.... so... what does that tell you.... then there's this....

[Skidmore]

6. Spying by any other name is still spying.

[radio4progressives]

7. I just wrote a short post on the term Domestic Spying... Critical

I'm kicking and nominating this thread, and just to make note that i strongly believe that if we succumb to the BushCo's agenda, we will forever lose our basic fundamental rights as citizens for generations to come. Once undone, it is nearly impossible to roll back, given the way our system has worked in the past two and half decades.

[im10ashus]

11. Thanks!

I am not going to succumb to their agenda. I will fight to my last breath!

[H2O Man]

8. His twisted logic

would be funny, if he were not damaging the country and the world. Yesterday, he was speaking about the domestic spying program, and he said the "terrorists will strike without warning" as justification of his breaking the law. Please! Why doesn't someone ask, if they strike without warning, what good is listening doing?

He said today that FISA is of no value because it was authored in the 1970s. Well, the Constitution was authored in the 1700s. Does it have less value?

Bush said he will not release information on Abramoff, including photos of the two of them together, and meetings with senior officials, because there is an investigation going on. Is he saying the photos of him hanging with Jack are to be viewed as part of criminal behavior in the White House? He said he's not friends with Jack .... yet we know George's best friend Karl is.

Today's press conference will give progressive democrats plenty of ammunition.

[im10ashus]

9. He has broken the law, no matter how he twists the facts.

Not only will they not release any of the information on Abramoff, they won't release any of the documents regarding Katrina. Is America so complacent that we will just say "OK! You must be right." It's sickening.

[H2O Man]

10. I just posted

a thread that has part of (and a link to) the 1972 Keith case, where the Supreme Court has already ruled on this. Bush has indeed become Nixon.