Wire Taps/Clinton -- Carter

[TimeToGo]

So that slimy Drudge guy has a story about both Clinton and Carter signing wire taps.

Of course, he has his political reasons for leading off his page with that story, but I'm wondering if anyone here knows the story -- that was my first reading of it.

[catmother]

1. i think i heard something earlier on msnbc that this does go all

the way back to carter. i think it might have been david gergen speaking, but i'm not sure.

i did see barbara boxer who said she spoke to john dean (former nixon counsel) who said that this was an impeachable offense.

[lvx35]

2. Did they bypass the secret courts like Bush

I think that's one of the big things, Bush broke all the laws of oversight

[TimeToGo]

3. I don't know

I saw it on the Drudge page, but I didn't read it closely. Maybe I should, but I don't like to. I had gone over there to see if he was reporting on it. Wasn't surprised that he took a contrary view, but was surprised to see that headline.

[TimeToGo]

5. Exec. Orders

This is what he linked to:

Clinton:

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-12949.htm

Carter:

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo12139.htm

Can't vouch for anything here.

[TahitiNut]

12. "United States persons" NOT involved under these orders.

These orders are TOTALLY in compliance with FISA in that they do NOT involve "United States persons." It's necessary to understand that FISA covers a range of conditions. Whenever "United States person" are involved, a court warrant is required. Indeed, these Executive Orders specifically order what FISA requires.

This is the right wing noise machine doing its best to obfuscate and distract.

[high density]

13. So why didn't Drudge post Bush's Executive Order

so that we could compare them?

Oh that's right... Because Bush did secret illegal shit.

[catmother]

4. it seems from what i've heard that the president can do it without

a court order if he requests one within 72 hours after the tap. this is allowed because sometimes it would take too long to go to the court. but i haven't heard that bush applied to the courts after the fact.

[papau]

6. Clinton and Carter followed the law - Bush broke the law- - But that is

is not made clear by the RW postings

I wonder why?

[radio4progressives]

9. it really isn't the issue....

the issue is that the government has the full capability of spying on it's own citizens, and generally receives a rubber stamp by this secret FISA court, to do this.

we're not really going to get to the bottom of why Bush circumvented the FISA court - unless a whistleblower has that information, and is holding on to it for a while. if that's the case, that will be great - but anyone paying any attention to every other serious investigation, has witnessed time after time, lies, obfuscations and cover ups.

we can keep our fingers and toes xx crossed in hopes the whistleblower has more damning information and it will be soon be made public.

however, we can't count on it.

What I really needs to be done, is to make hay while the sun is shining, on what has been revealed, not necessarily to impeach bush, (that would be frosting on the cake) but to SAVE US (you and me and our grandchildren) from the permanent establishment of the police state and permamanent state of fascism.

[papau]

14. Given automatic OK from Court- the only reason can be a political hit list

Shades of Nixon.

And tonight NSA voices are saying that is what it was!

Will MSM report this?

[radio4progressives]

16. Good Question... And it really does have the stench of Political Hit Men

at work...

to get at the question, i have keep smacking up against the brick wall put up by the NYT. Why did they hold on to this story for a year? why did they even bother going to the White House for PERMISSION????

oh yea, "National Security"...meme.

you see this, is just a freaking endless circle of insanity.

what we have to do is get the notion back into the political fora, that we do not compromise our rights just because someone in the white house has decided that we're going to remain in a constant state of war.

We have to forthrightly reject this insane meme.

[The2ndWheel]

17. That's my issue with it as well

I see so many posts about the legality of who the NSA is spying on, instead of the NSA spying. To me, if you get rid of Bush(which isn't going to happen), but leave the surveillance infrastructure in place, you solve absolutely nothing. Just like every other damn problem that never seems to go away, and requires us to fight them a thousand times over, domestic spying will come back again and again. Which will only get worse as time goes on, with the increased complexity of civilization, and new technologies being imagined everyday. The next time domestic spying happens, they'll get even more information quicker. That will happen, because nobody is going to get rid of the problem, the NSA(and the rest) itself.

[radio4progressives]

10. self deleted duplicate

[radio4progressives]

11. self deleted triplicate

[radio4progressives]

7. Carter Signed the FISA - Given the Hostage Crises that brought his

presidency down, given the peace talks he was involved with... it wouldn't surprise me in the least that Carter used wire taps -

Echelon was under Clinton.

This is a very important issue, and we have an opportunity to have our "freedoms" (rights) restored - but people will have to start looking at this as a citizens rights matter, rights that have been systematically violated and stripped away by both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Both parties deserve our full rath and ire on this MOST IMPORTANT issue for every single American Citizen.

[lvx35]

18. Echelon is a cold war era spying system.

so it wasn't something Cinton intiated. I think what is happening now is FUNDAMENTALLY different than anything that's happened before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

[The2ndWheel]

23. What is fundamentally different about it?

That the human beings on this land mass are having the same thing happen to them that the entity that governs this land mass has been doing to other human beings on other land masses for decades?

Not that this is the first time that this entity has spied on it's own citizens.

I don't know what people expect. You give power the power to spy on foreign military, eventually it's going to come back on you. Power always wants more power, and it will go around laws when it needs to. You write more laws, and power will go around those as well.

You give agencies like DARPA free reign to come up with anything they can think of, and they'll do it.

But the problem won't be fixed, so we all better get used to it.

[lvx35]

25. I think you've got to look closer.

The thing about Echelon and all that was that you had this perceived agreed upon threat in the Soviet Union, and everybody on the same page as far as being against it, and people not really lying about the fact that the CIA and KGB were going head to head in all kinds of spy stuff. Here you've got a president who is acting as an alien entity, OUTSIDE of the government security apparatus doing whatever the hell he pleases. The former was government against government, this here is a rogue faction in our own government who is afraid to let secret courts in the GOVERNMENT know what he is up to. I think this is about a fracturing deep in the government, not the government agreeing to spy on the Soviets.

[onehandle]

8. Bush broke the law to get his domestic spying campaign up.

That's the difference between power hungry Bush and other Presidents.

Impeachment with a Democratic Congress in 2006.

[catmother]

15. my husband works for a large international computer company

and he said that all e-mail is routed through virginia (CIA?). he also says that he expects that every e-mail he writes will be read -- and not just by the person it's being sent to.

[lvx35]

19. Yeah, there's nothing secure about email

Just in general. Its questionable that EVERY email is routed through the CIA, because you can set up closed networks with functional email, at least on Linux. But I assume my gmail is being read, I think your husband is on track. My copy of MSN Messenger was sending info off on regular basis. I went online and somebody decompiled it, and saw the software actually had SANDIA.GOV in the stuff. It was totally government surveilliance.

[catmother]

21. well i hope when they read our e-mails and we talk about bushco,

etc. that we're not considered a "threat" like those quaker women who were against the war. but i figured if they haven't knocked on my door yet, i'm okay. lol

[lvx35]

24. Ahh I say keep it up...

Let em learn a thing or two....enough time with this crowd will make converts of anybody! :)

[C_U_L8R]

20. Now Georgie...

Even if all the other children broke the law
that doesn't mean that you, Georgie, can break the law too

Since you have broken the law Georgie
You could act nobly like Washington and confess
or better like Nixon and resign from office.

Or Georgie, you could lie, cheat, deny and fight this whole
thing to the end and that end will be your end Georgie...
and the moral is every crime has it's penalty and you
should never have broken the law in the first place.

[flaminbats]

22. the President is not a king..

why should anyone oppose the impeachment of a President? Congress should have the power to investigate and remove from office all executive officeholders who may be guilty of Treason, Bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

In Section 3 of the Constitution.."Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgement and Punishment, according to Law."

In other words..Congress should never be afraid to investigate the very people we trust to enforce the law and "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

[MrDale]

26. if this was a big deal...

and the clinton and carter did do the exact same illegal things as the bush administration, wouldn't you think that the bush administration and republican congressmen and house would have pointed this out by now to cover their asses? they need everything and anything they can find in order to retaliate against the democrats and this would be somethin very helpful to them, but they aren't bringing it up.

[cry baby]

27. Even if they did, Drudge wouldn't know about it...it's effin secret!

He is full of it.

[rucky]

28. I'm getting tired of the "two wrongs make a right" defense.

If this is true, we lose credibility by defending Dems who abuse executive power.

[rfkrfk]

29. why do people using a two-way radio, expect privacy?

When you make a long distance phone call,
part of the circuit could be by radio.
I can't believe anyone does not know this.
If you send a radio signal into my house, it belongs to me.
Phone call, same as CB, in my opinion.

If you want privacy, use PGP,
or other encryption.