Bush/Cheney Gathering Info On Political Opponents?

[kpete]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/washington/29nsa.html?ei=5090&en=d689a624e9208b40&ex=1343361600&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1185712067-3OVUFbyK1kR8mevbPAVhgw

A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues.

Confirmation! The administration was using the NSA's data mining capabilities to compile information about certain Americans, and it did so without a warrant. The lack of a warrant tells us that these Americans were not suspected of involvement with criminal activity.

..................

The incident occurred in an election year.

Remember: At this same time, Bush's ultra-politicized Department of Justice was pressuring U.S. Attorneys to prosecute ginned-up "voter registration fraud" cases designed to suppress the Democratic vote.

The political use of NSA data mining falls under the heading of "What We Believe but Cannot Prove." The evidence may not yet be conclusive, but it all points in one direction. I further believe that the Democratic leadership knows that data mining has been used for political purposes.

more at:
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2007/07/data-mining-nsa-doj-corruption-and.html

[Atman]

1. Was the Pope a Hitler Youth?

:hi:

.

[tom_paine]

8. You mean the Bush Pope? I second that. Hell yes with 95% certainty I say that the Busheviks

were spying on the Democrats.

[glitch]

10. Why give them that 5% - they don't have one tiny scrap of benefit of doubt left. nt

[SoFlaJet]

2. Just as we've suspected for years now of course

Many of us have been saying they GOTTA have something on these senators and congressmen-prolly sex stuff, names and dates. I would NOT put it past these scumbags for a second.

[atreides1]

3. More then just his opponents

I think that he was also spying on members of his own party who were thought to be less then enthusiastic about this administration. Why else would the same members of Congress continue to support him even after the majority of the American people have shown that they do not support Bush's war!

[Frustratedlady]

4. Well, it finally is being talked about.

I was beginning to think I was getting cynical in my old age. From day one (partly due to the look on Kerry's face upon losing the election), I have felt the Repugs were spying on them in some way. I was convinced when the news came through about illegal surveillance. I hope this blows up in their faces and does it asap.

Nixon looks like an angel, compared to this cabal.

[mod mom]

5. Was Las Vegas Dec 2003 a test for TIA? Link:

Spying on the Home Front also looks at a massive FBI data sweep in December 2003. On a tip that Al Qaeda "might have an interest in Las Vegas" around New Year's 2004, the FBI demanded records from all hotels, airlines, rental car agencies, casinos and other businesses on every person who visited Las Vegas in the run-up to the holiday. Stephen Sprouse and Kristin Douglas of Kansas City, Mo., object to being caught in the FBI dragnet in Las Vegas just because they happened to get married there at the wrong moment. Says Douglas, "I'm sure that the government does a lot of things that I don't know about, and I've always been OK with that -- until I found out that I was included."

A check of all 250,000 Las Vegas visitors against terrorist watch lists turned up no known terrorist suspects or associates of suspects. The FBI told FRONTLINE that the records had been kept for more than two years, but have now all been destroyed.

In the broad reach of NSA eavesdropping, the massive FBI data sweep in Las Vegas, access to records gathered by private database companies that allows government agencies to avoid the limitations provided by the Privacy Act, and nearly 200 other government data-mining programs identified by the Government Accounting Office, experienced national security officials and government attorneys see a troubling and potentially dangerous collision between the strategy of pre-emption and the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable search and seizure.



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/etc/synopsis.html

[mod mom]

7. Here is a link to the Frontline show on Las Vegas:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/view/

[formercia]

14. People need to begin suing the private data-mining companies.

Hold the officers personally responsible. Make them pay through the nose. Take away their profit motive.

[fed-up]

6. what the hell are doing in office if they are dirty? time to clean the ENTIRE CONGRESS-security risk

to our country

How can our elected officials follow the will of the people if their votes are based on possible exposure of any wrong doings-personal secrets?


DO ask-do tell should be the motto

time to get ALL the crooks out of office

[bonito]

9. K&R n/t

[formercia]

11. Old Gig, new instruments.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1477467&mesg_id=1477467

[mzmolly]

12. And this will be what brings them down.

:hi:

[MiniMe]

13. Oops, wrong thread

[indepat]

15. Almost everything 'pukes do is for political purposes

[Golden Raisin]

16. Don't omit Rove's name

I'd call it Rove/Cheney/Bush. They probably have dirt on Republicans as well as Democrats. If the truth ever comes out, I suspect this bunch will make J. Edgar Hoover's spying look pretty tame & amateur.

[Festivito]

17. ..and political rivals, and political "friends" for blackmailing votes,...

Why stop at opponents?

.. Business associates and competition.
.. Federal employees who write reports or write laws to be passed.
.. College students so the future years can be tuned.
.. Stock traders.
.. Certainly it pays to know which politician sleeps with whom. (Regardless of party. If they won't take payoffs like a carpet of gold, they get sold-off like a carpet of media bombs.)
.. on and on, and on and on and on.

ALL WARRANT-LESS.

It's about money and the power it gives.