Bush says wiretapping would have prevented 9/11 but he was spying before!!

[helderheid]

Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 13 January 2006

The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.

In its "Transition 2001" report, the NSA said that the ever-changing world of global communication means that "American communication and targeted adversary communication will coexist."

"Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws," the document says.

However, it adds that "senior leadership must understand that the NSA's mission will demand a 'powerful, permanent presence' on global telecommunications networks that host both 'protected' communications of Americans and the communications of adversaries the agency wants to target."

<snip>
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011306Z.shtml

[Bounce]

1. sure he was!

Vote Democrat - we'll impeach the bastard!

[helderheid]

3. Not if Diebold has anything to say about it! :) Welcome to DU!

And for the record, I will vote anyway!!

:hi:

[Bounce]

4. Thanks!

I love this place!

[uppityperson]

2. Yup, the only way to have stopped 911 was to have illegally wiretapped

:sarcasm:
though this was one of the times I yelled at the tv last night.

[helderheid]

5. more

Jeffrey Smith, the former General Counsel for the CIA under the Clinton administration, also weighed in on the controversy Wednesday. Smith said he wants to testify at hearings that Bush overstepped his authority and broke the law. His own legal opinion on the spy program was included in a 14-page letter to the House Select Committee on Intelligence that said that President Bush does not have the legal authority to order the NSA to spy on American citizens, aides to Congressman John Conyers said Wednesday evening.

"It is not credible that the 2001 authorization to use force provides authority for the president to ignore the requirements of FISA," Smith wrote, adding that if President Bush's executive order authorizing a covert domestic surveillance operation is upheld as legal "it would be a dramatic expansion of presidential authority affecting the rights of our fellow citizens that undermines the checks and balances of our system, which lie at the very heart of the Constitution."

Still, one thing that appears to be indisputable is that the NSA surveillance began well before 9/11 and months before President Bush claims Congress gave him the power to use military force against terrorist threats, which Bush says is why he believed he had the legal right to bypass the judicial process.

According to the online magazine Slate, an unnamed official in the telecom industry said NSA's "efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order. The source reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked for their cooperation in a 'data-mining' operation, which might eventually cull 'millions' of individual calls and e-mails."

[helderheid]

6. I am shocked no media is picking up on this - maybe send it to KO??

[EVDebs]

29. While yer at it, send KO this little tidbit. The Bush/Cheney crowd

is following a script written for them back in 1973 by Nixon. Different oilfields/country, same scenario !

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2432151&mesg_id=2432151

[cantstandbush]

7. If the warnings he had received didn't stop it his wiretaps would not have

How much more of a hint do you need when ME men pay cash for flying lessons to only learn to take off? Had the owner and instructor of these flying schools not been so greedy and reported this to the FBI that for sure would have prevented the attacks. But you know all those gun-loving, Rambo, RW-red-state folks love a fast buck more than country and they can't think their way out of a paper bag. Yet no one has held these people to account in the slightest. Had those highjackers visited a Mosque instead of a RW flying school, all the clerics and members would have been jailed. Oh, I forgot...many were.

[helderheid]

8. he's such a LIAR!!!!!!!!!

[CJCRANE]

9. Of course they were wiretapping before 9/11

that's how Cheney knew what day to hold his "terrorism exercises" and send little Georgie down to Florida out of the way.

[helderheid]

10. you said it. Why this thread isn't on fire with a gazillion recs is

beyond me - Bush says OVER AND OVER that if he had these powers before 9/11, 9/11 wouldn't have happened.

HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!
HE WAS ILLEGALLY SPYING BEFORE 9/11!

:rant:

[CJCRANE]

12. * lives in OPPOSITE world -

everything he says is the opposite of what he does.

You know I think I'm gonna try that tactic at work. If I'm having a bad day and do something wrong I'm just gonna deny it and say I'm doing a "heckuva job" and it's real "hard work", and besides it's my accusers who're doing a bad job, not me, in fact they would do it much worse than me and anyway it's that guy's fault who had the job before me.

[helderheid]

13. LMAO - I love it. Think I will too! :)

[Swamp Rat]

11. The old republic is dead

[helderheid]

14. I love that picture Swamp Rat!!

[bliss_eternal]

15. Aww--he's having blackouts again--

bless his hideous, blasphemous, black heart. Must have been on a bender and forgot all about that...

[helderheid]

16. That would account for this statement

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

President Bush -- April 20, 2004

[bliss_eternal]

33. He's such a freakshow--

constantly finding ways to validate breaking the law.

[LynnTheDem]

17. bush said "NO ONE COULD HAVE PREVENTED 911".

NOW he says he could have prevented it?

bush said NO ONE would wiretap Americans without having a warrant.

bush was wiretapping Americans without warrants when he said that.

bush LIES.

[helderheid]

19. Forgot that one!!!

[libodem]

18. Be nice to know

what Sybil Edmonds knows. There was plenty on tape before 9/11.

[helderheid]

20. I don't know much about her other than she isn't allowed to talk - is

there an official gag order?

[texastoast]

21. I got spyed on when the ACLU called me

to renew my membership about a week ago.

The fundraiser and I were talking, and I decided to go outside and took the cordless. Before getting out the door, it sounded like someone picked up another phone in the house, but no one else was home. The fundraiser remarked on it as well, because it really sounded like we were talking down a barrel. I laughed and said it's just the shrub's spying little henchmen.

So, given the moment, and the fact the ACLU was collecting money to fight the spying, I mentioned that I had read about shrubbie's pre-9/11 spying on truthout. She wanted to know more about it, so it might end up as more fodder for the ACLU lawsuit on the subject.

Pee-pie, shrubbie. We see you too!

[helderheid]

22. Oooooh!!! I just joined the ACLU today. I hope they run with this story!!

I am also planning on writing a letter to the editor about his comments last night that spying would have prevented 9/11 and point out he already was spying.

[Vickers]

23. I have no doubt that ou heard something, but believe me when I say

that you would never, ever, EVER hear a sound when someone like the NSA is listening to your call.

Just trust me on this one.

[Poiuyt]

24. 9/11 could have been prevented if Bush wasn't fixated on Star Wars

1) Bush received a briefing from the CIA 1 month before telling him that Osama bin Laden wanted to fly airplanes into US buildings

2) At least two of the hijackers were on the FBI's watch list, but were still able to buy plane tickets under their own names.

3) On Sept 10, the NSA intercepted a message fromal Queda saying that "tomorrow is zero hour." It didn't get translated until Sept 12.

[helderheid]

27. MIHOP/LIHOP?

[Patsy Stone]

25. Blah, blah, blah...

How about a piece of paper titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the US"? How about FBI agents reporting flight trainees with no intention of learning to LAND the planes?? What, suddenly his guys would have been able to sort through Eleventy millon calls and pick out something, and have an actual CLUE what to do with it??

Nah. More BS. Couldn't find water if he fell out of a damn boat.

[helderheid]

26. Couldn't find water if he fell out of a damn boat.

:spray:

[Rex]

28. They started right after he stole the election

so that everything would be in place for his soft-porn dictatorship. He even let the "cat out of the bag" early in his POTUS career! I'm sure this very thread will be used against me one day.

[helderheid]

30. GREAT. I guess that means me too!

:scared:

[EVDebs]

31. If a Terrorist Surveillance Plan were really working.....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2432099

[hwmnbn]

32. How many of his lies do we need to catch.....

to have him convicted for high crimes and misdemeanors?

The enormity of what he has done, and what we've allowed to happen, just blows my mind! How we get rid of this clown is anybody's guess now.

I know all my e-mails, phone calls, postings on websites, are now the property of the NSA. There is no assumption of privacy on my part anymore.

I have ideas about how to get rid of this administration. We'll talk later....

[samhsarah]

34. lying sack of shit.

[BuyingThyme]

35. kcik

[helderheid]

36. thank you!! Check this out too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x307296

[BuyingThyme]

37. I'm a dial-up kinda person, but maybe I'll put it on the overnight.

Thanks.

[helderheid]

38. I think if you click the 2nd link, you have an option to choose a dial up

connection. After clicking "video", choose "Lage kwaliteit" :)

[in_cog_ni_to]

39. And they had the names of 2 of the hijackers whose names were IN THE PHONE

BOOK! They had that info BEFORE 911. The more they talk, the deeper they dig their hole. Let 'em keep digging. I can't WAIT to bury them in all their lies and filth they've brought upon this country.

[Just Me]

40. Why the hell has this been ignored/censored?!?!

Oh,...nevermind. :grr:

[helderheid]

41. LOL

no shit!!

[BuyingThyme]

42. kcik

[deacon]

43. UM, they had the memo 'bin laden determined to strike against the U.S.'

and he went on vacation for 4 weeks.

[Rocknrule]

44. Not stealing the election from Gore would've prevented 9/11

you sick brainless bastard