Oops! Another case of our rights slipping away!

[barry2952]

Paper Reports NSA Collecting Phone Records

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls in an effort to build a database of every call made within the country, it was reported Thursday.

AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel ``to find out exactly what is going on.''

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the panel, sounded incredulous about the program and railed against what he called a lack of congressional oversight. He argued that the media was doing the job of Congress.

``Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al Qaida?'' Leahy asked. ``These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything ... Where does it stop?''

The Democrat, who at one point held up a copy of the newspaper, added: ``Shame on us for being so far behind and being so willing to rubber stamp anything this administration does. We ought to fold our tents.''

The program does not involve listening to or taping the calls. Instead it documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called, the newspaper said.

The NSA and the Office of National Intelligence Director did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

NSA is the same spy agency that conducts the controversial domestic eavesdropping program that has been acknowledged by President Bush. The president said last year that he authorized the NSA to listen, without warrants, to international phone calls involving Americans suspected of terrorist links.

The report came as the former NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden - Bush's choice to take over leadership of the CIA - had been scheduled to visit lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday. However, the meetings with Republican Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were postponed at the request of the White House, said congressional aides in the two Senate offices.

The White House offered no reason for the postponement to the lawmakers.

Hayden already faced criticism because of the NSA's secret domestic eavesdropping program. As head of the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005, Hayden also would have overseen the call-tracking program.

The NSA wants the database of domestic call records to look for any patterns that might suggest terrorist activity, USA Today said.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, told the paper that the agency operates within the law, but would not comment further on its operations.

One big telecommunications company, Qwest, has refused to turn over records to the program, the newspaper said, because of privacy and legal concerns.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the NSA refused to grant its lawyers the necessary security clearance.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the terrorist surveillance program ``has been subject to extensive oversight both in the executive branch and in Congress from the time of its inception.''

Roehrkasse noted the OPR's mission is not to investigate possible wrongdoing in other agencies, but to determine if Justice Department lawyers violated any ethical rules. He declined to comment when asked if the end of the inquiry meant the agency believed its lawyers had handled the wiretapping matter ethically.

 

[fossten]

Paper Reports NSA Collecting Phone Records

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls in an effort to build a database of every call made within the country, it was reported Thursday.

AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel ``to find out exactly what is going on.''

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the panel, sounded incredulous about the program and railed against what he called a lack of congressional oversight. He argued that the media was doing the job of Congress.

``Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al Qaida?'' Leahy asked. ``These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything ... Where does it stop?''

The Democrat, who at one point held up a copy of the newspaper, added: ``Shame on us for being so far behind and being so willing to rubber stamp anything this administration does. We ought to fold our tents.''

The program does not involve listening to or taping the calls. Instead it documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called, the newspaper said.

The NSA and the Office of National Intelligence Director did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

NSA is the same spy agency that conducts the controversial domestic eavesdropping program [false statement] that has been acknowledged by President Bush. The president said last year that he authorized the NSA to listen, without warrants, to international phone calls involving Americans suspected of terrorist links.

The report came as the former NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden - Bush's choice to take over leadership of the CIA - had been scheduled to visit lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday. However, the meetings with Republican Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were postponed at the request of the White House, said congressional aides in the two Senate offices.

The White House offered no reason for the postponement to the lawmakers.

Hayden already faced criticism because of the NSA's secret domestic eavesdropping program [false statement]. As head of the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005, Hayden also would have overseen the call-tracking program.

The NSA wants the database of domestic call records to look for any patterns that might suggest terrorist activity, USA Today said.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, told the paper that the agency operates within the law, but would not comment further on its operations.

One big telecommunications company, Qwest, has refused to turn over records to the program, the newspaper said, because of privacy and legal concerns.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program [false statement] because the NSA refused to grant its lawyers the necessary security clearance.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the terrorist surveillance program [true statement]``has been subject to extensive oversight both in the executive branch and in Congress from the time of its inception.''

Roehrkasse noted the OPR's mission is not to investigate possible wrongdoing in other agencies, but to determine if Justice Department lawyers violated any ethical rules. He declined to comment when asked if the end of the inquiry meant the agency believed its lawyers had handled the wiretapping matter ethically.

Notice in bold the statement that PHONE CALLS aren't being listened to. They are only keeping records of who's calling whom.

Notice how many times the NSA foreign terrorists surveillance program is demagogued in this article. This is a recycling of an old story that has already been discredited. Numerous FISA judges have already said that the program is legal.

End of story.

Thank you, barry, for blowing your alarm horn so loudly and prematurely. Once again you've been snowed by the MSM.

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Thursday, May 11, 2006 10:50 a.m. EDT
USA Today NSA Scoop Not News


The USA Today "scoop" on the NSA's massive telephone surveillance program isn't really news at all - though liberal media outlets have been blaring the story as a shocking revelation all Thursday morning.

The Agency, the paper announced ominously, "has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans . . . The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime."

But as NewsMax noted in December - back when the New York Times tried to ballyhoo a similar story about the NSA's terrorist surveillance program - CBS's "60 Minutes" blew the lid off the agency's domestic wiretapping in Feb. 2000, when the Clinton administration was using it for all sorts of unauthorized purposes.

"60 Minutes" host Steve Kroft introduced the segment by saying:

"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency."

NSA computers, said Kroft, "capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world."

Echelon expert Mike Frost, who spent 20 years as a spy for the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, told "60 Minutes" that the agency was monitoring "everything from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs."

Mr. Frost detailed activities at one unidentified NSA installation, telling "60 Minutes" that agency operators "can listen in to just about anything" - while Echelon computers screen phone calls for key words that might indicate a terrorist threat.

Now, more than six years later, the big media is pretending that this is all brand new - something cooked up by President Bush in a mad rush to shred the Constitutional rights of every American.

But even USA Today had to admit in its own report that the NSA wiretapping program has "been done before, though never on this large a scale."

Judging from the "60 Minutes" transcript, Mr. Kroft would beg to differ on the scale question.

 

[turn_on68]

If you have nothing to hide why do you care?

 

[fossten]

If you have nothing to hide why do you care?

Who are you talking to?

 

[fossten]

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON NSA SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM -12:03 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack. As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. In other words, if al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they're saying.

Today there are new claims about other ways we are tracking down al Qaeda to prevent attacks on America. I want to make some important points about what the government is doing and what the government is not doing.

First, our international activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates. Al Qaeda is our enemy, and we want to know their plans. Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat. Fourth, the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities.

We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates. So far we've been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil.

As a general matter, every time sensitive intelligence is leaked, it hurts our ability to defeat this enemy. Our most important job is to protect the American people foreign another attack, and we will do so within the laws of our country.

Thank you.

 

[Joeychgo]

If you have nothing to hide why do you care?

Well, if you have nothing to hide, would you care if a cop came to your door and asked to search your house, then asked for your bank records, medical records and credit card records?

What if they didnt ask? You came home from work to find a dozen cops searching your home. Would you be pissed?

We have a Constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and siezures - which is well established to mean that absent probably cause and/or a warrant, the government cannot get into our private records such as medical, bank, credit card, etc.

Is this what they are doing? It doesnt seem so. At present, it 'sounds' as if they are not unreasonably searching, but they could easily start doing so. This is why you nip things in the bud, so it doesnt become degraded to the point where we are met by Gestapo officers or KGB, asking for our papers.

So - this isnt political - at least not to me. I believe strongly in personal freedoms and get nervous anytime they are even close to being encroached on.

 

[fossten]

Well, if you have nothing to hide, would you care if a cop came to your door and asked to search your house, then asked for your bank records, medical records and credit card records?

What if they didnt ask? You came home from work to find a dozen cops searching your home. Would you be pissed?

We have a Constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and siezures - which is well established to mean that absent probably cause and/or a warrant, the government cannot get into our private records such as medical, bank, credit card, etc.

Is this what they are doing? It doesnt seem so. At present, it 'sounds' as if they are not unreasonably searching, but they could easily start doing so. This is why you nip things in the bud, so it doesnt become degraded to the point where we are met by Gestapo officers or KGB, asking for our papers.

So - this isnt political - at least not to me. I believe strongly in personal freedoms and get nervous anytime they are even close to being encroached on.

I know what you're saying, Joey, and I agree with you to a certain extent. I know there's a potential slippery slope here, but what else can we do? We are clearly at war and in danger. Up until 9/11, Al Qaeda strolled freely about the country, doing whatever they wanted. Now we've cracked down. I don't like it, but I'd rather win the war and then see what to do next.

 

[97silverlsc]

No need for Congress, no need for courts
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/no-need-for-congress-no-need-for.html
(updated below)

I just this morning read the obviously significant USA Today article detailing the fact that the NSA is maintaining a comprehensive data base of every call made by every American – both internationally and domestically – whether they have anything to do with terrorism or not, obviously all of this without warrants or oversight of any kind. I'm not going to pretend to have all of the legal issues figured out in two hours, and so I won't yet opine as to whether there are serious grounds for arguing either that this is legal or that it’s illegal.

But there is one highly significant, and revealing, item buried in the USA Today article regarding Qwest's refusal to cooperate with the NSA’s demands (and it heroic refusal to capitulate to the NSA’s intimidation tactics and threats) that it turn over its customers' calling data:


The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.


This theme emerges again and again. We continuously hear that the Bush administration has legal authority to do anything the President orders. Claims that he is acting illegally are just frivolous and the by-product of Bush hatred. And yet, as I detailed here, each and every time the administration has the opportunity to obtain an adjudication of the legality of its conduct from a federal court (which, unbeknownst to the administration, is the branch of our government which has the authority and responsibility to interpret and apply the law), it does everything possible to avoid that adjudication.

This continuous evasion of judicial review by the administration is much more serious and disturbing than has been discussed and realized. By proclaiming the power to ignore Congressional law and to do whatever it wants in the area of national security, it is seizing the powers of the legislative branch. But by blocking courts from ruling on the multiple claims of illegality which have been made against it, the administration is essentially seizing the judicial power as well. It becomes the creator, the executor, and the interpreter of the law. And with that, the powers of all three branches become consolidated in The President, the single greatest nightmare of the founders. As Madison warned in Federalist 47:


From these facts, by which Montesquieu was guided, it may clearly be inferred that, in saying "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates," or, "if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers," he did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency in, or no control over, the acts of each other.

His meaning, as his own words import, and still more conclusively as illustrated by the example in his eye, can amount to no more than this, that where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted. This would have been the case in the constitution examined by him, if the king, who is the sole executive magistrate, had possessed also the complete legislative power, or the supreme administration of justice; or if the entire legislative body had possessed the supreme judiciary, or the supreme executive authority.


The attribute which most singularly defines this administration is its insistence that our Government is based on unilateral and unreviewed Presidential Decree. The President directs the telecom companies to turn over this information and they obey. That’s how our Government works, as they see it. And if the telecom companies are concerned about their legal liability as a result of laws which strongly suggest that they are acting illegally if they comply with the President’s Decree, and thus request a judicial ruling first, that request, too, is denied. There is no need for a judicial ruling once the President speaks. What he orders is, by definition, legal, and nobody can say otherwise, including courts.

Amazingly, again and again, they don't even want their own Justice Department to know what they are doing because they are afraid that DoJ lawyers will tell them that it is against the law. They don't want to hear that it is against the law. As USA Today reported: "For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events." They know very well that their conduct might be, and in some cases that it is definitely is, illegal, but they are purposely avoiding having the DoJ be able to opine on the legality of their behavior.

That is the same inherently corrupt motive which led the NSA to refuse to give DoJ lawyers security clearance to enable the DoJ to investigate whether their lawyers acted unethically in connection with the NSA illegal eavesdropping program. As intended, that refusal caused the DoJ to shut down its investigation. As Jack Balkin notes about that cover-up, also disclosed yesterday:


Note the irony: While private phone company employees at AT&T and other corporations must have sufficient security clearances to know what is going on in the NSA program- because they are helping to run it-- the Justice Department's own ethics lawyers do not. It's a convenient way to forestall any investigation into wrongdoing.


They desperately avoid not only a ruling from a court as to whether their conduct is legal, but also opinions from their own Justice Department lawyers, likely driven by the fact that many DoJ lawyers opined that the NSA program was illegal -- something they do not want to ever hear again.

Ultimately, I think that the impact of this disclosure may be more political than legal. I think most Americans will find it simply creepy that the Administration bullied the telecom companies to provide them with data to enable it to keep track of every single call every American ever makes, no matter who they are.

But beyond that, when the NSA scandal first broke, the administration’s principal political defense was to continuously assure Americans that they were eavesdropping only on international calls, not domestic calls. Many, many Americans do not ever make any international calls, and it was an implicit way of assuring the heartland that the vast bulk of the calls they make – to their Aunt Millie, to arrange Little League practice, to cite just a few of the administration’s condescending examples – were not the type of calls being intercepted. The only ones with anything to worry about were the weird and suspect Americans who call overseas to weird and suspect countries. If you’re not calling Pakistan or Iran, the Government has no interest in what you’re doing.

That has all changed. We now learn that when Americans call their Aunt Millie, or their girlfriend, or their psychiatrist, or their drug counselor, or their priest or rabbi, or their lawyer, or anyone and everyone else, the Government is very interested. In fact, they are so interested that they make note of it and keep it forever, so that at any time, anyone in the Government can look at a record of every single person whom every single American ever called or from whom they received a call. It doesn't take a professional privacy advocate to find that creepy, invasive, dangerous and un-American.

UPDATE: Two additional points worth making: (1) One of the disturbing aspects of the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program was that it was seen by many intelligence professionals as a radical departure from the agency's tradition of not turning its spying capabilities on the American public domestically. The program disclosed yesterday decimates that tradition by many magnitudes. This is a program where the NSA is collecting data on the exclusively domestic communications of Americans, communicating with one another, on U.S. soil -- exactly what the NSA was supposed to never do.

(2) The legal and constitutional issues, especially at first glance and without doing research, reading cases, etc., are complicated and, in the first instance, difficult to assess, at least for me. That was also obviously true for Qwest's lawyers, which is why they requested a court ruling and, when the administration refused, requested an advisory opinion from DoJ.

But not everyone is burdened by these difficulties. Magically, hordes of brilliant pro-Bush legal scholars have been able to determine instantaneously -- as in, within hours of the program's disclosure -- that the program is completely legal and constitutional (just like so many of them were able confidently to opine within hours of the disclosure of the warrantless eavesdropping program that it, too, was perfectly legal and constitutional). Having said that, there are some generally pro-Bush bloggers expressing serious skepticism over the legality and/or advisability of this program.

 

[Joeychgo]

I know what you're saying, Joey, and I agree with you to a certain extent. I know there's a potential slippery slope here, but what else can we do? We are clearly at war and in danger. Up until 9/11, Al Qaeda strolled freely about the country, doing whatever they wanted. Now we've cracked down. I don't like it, but I'd rather win the war and then see what to do next.

I understand, and agree, its not easy. Its every bit of a tightrope walk.

 

[Calabrio]

...Let's just pretend that they were actually RECORDING every single telephone call. Who the hell do you think has time to listen to them all? We don't even have the man power to sort through captured Iraqi intelligence files, what makes anyone think we have the resources or technology to ever listen to phone calls.

The intelligence community is so overwhelmed right now, the amount of intelligence that will never be analyzed is astounding. To think that they're going to waste the HUMAN RESOURCES necessary to "SPY" on the public is absurd.

Even without the logic explanations, people should know better.

 

[MAC1]

No need for Congress, no need for courts
But not everyone is burdened by these difficulties. Magically, hordes of brilliant pro-Bush legal scholars have been able to determine instantaneously -- as in, within hours of the program's disclosure -- that the program is completely legal and constitutional (just like so many of them were able confidently to opine within hours of the disclosure of the warrantless eavesdropping program that it, too, was perfectly legal and constitutional). Having said that, there are some generally pro-Bush bloggers expressing serious skepticism over the legality and/or advisability of this program.

Just like hordes of brilliant anti-Bush legal scholars have been able to determine instantaneously -- as in seconds -- that the program is completely illegal. Whether the program is legal or illegal is only a matter of which judge makes the decision.

When it comes to the federal government collecting phone number data in an effort to uncover potential terrorist plots, the ACLU and the liberal press and their cohorts can’t wait to come out of the woodwork to complain. Yet, these same complainers aren’t a bit upset that their own personal data and that of millions of Americans is being collected on a daily basis and sold on the open market to the highest bidder. That’s right, social security numbers; credit card numbers; dates of birth; where born; home addresses; occupation; work location; income; Web sites visited; stores visited; groceries bought; credit cards used; which phone company; and let's not forget telephone bills; and on, and on.

Though federal legislation is pending to ban the sale of telephone bills, it is still interesting to see how the liberal media and Bush critics pay little attention to the fact that telephone bills (obviously containing phone numbers) of millions of Americans are even for sale in the first place. Yet, when President Bush authorizes general collection of phone number data in the interest of national security, suddenly the liberal media comes alive with clever and misleading headlines and stories about how the Bush administration is once again violating privacy rights of Americans.

So, what’s this really all about? It’s about elections and 2008.

 

[raVeneyes]

Who the hell do you think has time to listen to them all?

There is a current NSA program which uses high powered microwave receptors to intercept cell phone and cordless phone transmissions from all around the world. This data is run through a computer algorithm to match the wave patterns of speech to certain key words and voice patterns. It sounds like something out of a tech movie, but it truly exists. This program has been running for several years now and is the one referenced as the "illegal wiretapping program" in the article that has the NSA's chief who is now up for the head job at the FBI in the hot seat.

*This* program sounds illegal to me....for a few reasons:

- Current federal law insists that all calling and customer information be kept private. Everything from the person's actual conversation to the numbers they dial to their billing information is protected under federal law. Law enforcement agencies are not allowed under any circumstance to obtain this data without warrants.

-If they *were* permitted to obtain this data they simply would have obtained a warrant for it and thereby had a judge order that the telecom companies give the information to the agencies who needed it. Need an example, see Qwest's response to the inquires.

This however is another clear example of the bruisers who are working under the auspices of the Bush administration taking liberties.

 

[fossten]

There is a current NSA program which uses high powered microwave receptors to intercept cell phone and cordless phone transmissions from all around the world. This data is run through a computer algorithm to match the wave patterns of speech to certain key words and voice patterns. It sounds like something out of a tech movie, but it truly exists. This program has been running for several years now and is the one referenced as the "illegal wiretapping program" in the article that has the NSA's chief who is now up for the head job at the FBI in the hot seat.

*This* program sounds illegal to me....for a few reasons:

- Current federal law insists that all calling and customer information be kept private. Everything from the person's actual conversation to the numbers they dial to their billing information is protected under federal law. Law enforcement agencies are not allowed under any circumstance to obtain this data without warrants. [wrong]

-If they *were* permitted to obtain this data they simply would have obtained a warrant for it and thereby had a judge order that the telecom companies give the information to the agencies who needed it. Need an example, see Qwest's response to the inquires.

This however is another clear example of the bruisers who are working under the auspices of the Bush administration taking liberties.

You are incorrect. There is no expectation of privacy regarding which phone number calls which. You need to read the Congressional Communications Act to Assist Law Enforcement of 1994. You will then see what is actually law.

http://www.askcalea.net/calea.html

Pay close attention to the phrase "or other lawful authorization."

The "program" has been in place since the Clinton Administration. Why didn't you people cry foul back then?

The "program" is also subject to Congressional OVERSIGHT. That means that several Congressmen KNOW ABOUT THIS PROGRAM. That means that the law is being followed. You left that part out.

Also bear in mind, the rest of you Bush-bashers, that phone records are subpoenaed on a regular basis by grand juries, judges, and prosecutors across the country on a daily basis WITHOUT warrants and NOBODY fusses about it. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Nice try.

By the way, Barry, what do you think of your guy Conyers leading the charge to make us UNSAFE HERE IN AMERICA?

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Friday, May 12, 2006 12:24 a.m. EDT

Dems Join Suit to Ban Terrorist Surveillance

Until now, Democrats had insisted that they didn't want to end President Bush's terrorist surveillance program, saying instead that the law merely needed to be changed to make terrorist surveillance inside the U.S. illegal.

On Wednesday, however - even before USA Today's bogus report about the NSA's phone number data collection program - 71 House Democrats signed up to sponsor a move that would make it illegal for the NSA to continue to monitor terrorist phone calls.

The liberal web site Raw Story reported Thursday:

"The 71 Democrats and one independent filed an amicus brief in two federal courts reviewing challenges to the warrantless wiretapping program in Detroit and New York, joining the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights."

"Both suits demand the program be stopped."

Predictably, Michigan Democrat John Conyers led the charge:

"As our brief makes clear, this Congress dealt with this issue authoritatively almost 30 years ago - warrantless spying on American soil is flatly prohibited," he railed.

 

[fossten]

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Friday, May 12, 2006 9:16 a.m. EDT
Poll: Strong Support for NSA Phone Surveillance


Despite a day of media hyperventilation over the National Security Agency's program to collect information on domestic phone calls, a new poll finds the American people back the operation by overwhelming numbers.

In a survey taken yesterday after USA Today blew the cover on the program, 63 percent of those surveyed said they supported the records gathering operation, with 44 percent saying they "strongly" endorsed it.

Just 35 percent said they were opposed to the collection of phone records by the government, with a mere 24 percent saying they "strongly" objected to it.

65 percent of those surveyed told ABC/Post pollsters that it was more important to investigate potential terrorist threats "even if it intrudes on privacy."

A slight majority - 51 percent - said President Bush had done a good job surveilling terrorists without abusing the privacy rights of Americans.

502 randomly selected adults were interviewed by the Post and ABC News Thursday night, giving the survey a margin of error of +/- 5 points.

 

[raVeneyes]

Pay close attention to the phrase "or other lawful authorization."

...

The "program" has been in place since the Clinton Administration. Why didn't you people cry foul back then?

...

The "program" is also subject to Congressional OVERSIGHT.

...

phone records are subpoenaed on a regular basis by grand juries, judges, and prosecutors across the country on a daily basis WITHOUT warrants and NOBODY fusses about it.

1) the only "lawful authorization" allowed under the constitution is a warrant issued by a judge

2) this is not the same program as the NSA's wireless communications surveillance program. The wireless communications surveillance program that listens to as much wireless communications traffic as possible *has* been in effect since before the Clinton administration, it's been being worked on since the Regan administration. It is still controversial, but is ostensibly more legal as it only tracks data which is 'publicly' available simply by listening to broadcast radio wavelengths. The program being questioned by which the NSA is building a database of all phone calls made by all customers of these companies in order to preform a boolean search for suspected networks is completely separate from the NSA's listening posts.

3) Congress does not have the power to authorize search and seizure

4) Judges, juries, and prosecutors have the power to subpoena phone records only as part of an active case...further, the act of subpoena is a judicial demand for those records and is effective for the same constitutional reasons as a warrant...it is not a violation of privacy.

 

[raVeneyes]

Poll: Strong Support for NSA Phone Surveillance

Once again proving that about half of Americans are below average intelligence...

 

[97silverlsc]

Jack Cafferty hits the nail on the head!
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/TSR-Cafferty-Dictatorship-5-11-06.wmv

 

[Joeychgo]

Jack Cafferty hits the nail on the head!

Yeah he did.

 

[Calabrio]

There is a current NSA program which uses high powered microwave receptors to intercept cell phone and cordless phone transmissions from all around the world. This data is run through a computer algorithm to match the wave patterns of speech to certain key words and voice patterns. It sounds like something out of a tech movie, but it truly exists. This program has been running for several years now and is the one referenced as the "illegal wiretapping program" in the article that has the NSA's chief who is now up for the head job at the FBI in the hot seat.

Yeah, and if you believe that's actually the case, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Also, the pentagon was hit by a missle, and the passengers on the airline belived to have hit it are all living in a compound in Texas.

Put aside the myth. Put aside the hollywood nonsense. But aside the scaremongering. While there are efforts to develop that kind of technology, it doesn't exist yet. NOR does anyone have the ability to process all of it. The ONLY things being analyzed are from people with hostile ties. And even those files are not being analyzed because there is inadequate manpower.

*This* program sounds illegal to me....for a few reasons:

You guys can't have it both way. COMPILING A DATA BASE OF PHONE NUMBER PATTERNS may likely be a tool used to identify terrorist networks. Especially if one of them is eventually caught, you can refer to the data base.
It has nothing to do with bully tactics, it has nothing to do with an errosion of rights.

People throw around "rights' far too casually. You have certain rights. And then there are things you've come to expect. You don't have a "RIGHT to complete privacy."

This however is another clear example of the bruisers who are working under the auspices of the Bush administration taking liberties.

No, it's another unfortunate example of liberals and activists distorting reality, playing off the ignorance of the public, resulting in the jeordizing of our national security, in order to demonize the President and engage in political opportunism.

 

[fossten]

1) the only "lawful authorization" allowed under the constitution is a warrant issued by a judge

2) this is not the same program as the NSA's wireless communications surveillance program. The wireless communications surveillance program that listens to as much wireless communications traffic as possible *has* been in effect since before the Clinton administration, it's been being worked on since the Regan administration. It is still controversial, but is ostensibly more legal as it only tracks data which is 'publicly' available simply by listening to broadcast radio wavelengths. The program being questioned by which the NSA is building a database of all phone calls made by all customers of these companies in order to preform a boolean search for suspected networks is completely separate from the NSA's listening posts.

3) Congress does not have the power to authorize search and seizure

4) Judges, juries, and prosecutors have the power to subpoena phone records only as part of an active case...further, the act of subpoena is a judicial demand for those records and is effective for the same constitutional reasons as a warrant...it is not a violation of privacy.

Your ENTIRE post is moot, as there is no existing law being broken by the NSA program.

There is no warrant required to collect data on phone numbers calling phone numbers. Get a clue. You don't need a warrant to get your phone company statement, do you?

The program that's been going on since the Clinton admin. was Echelon. That program was never demagogued. Why now?

 

[fossten]

Yeah he did.

"Yeah he did" - Cafferty's a real HATER, and a leftist wacko kook besides. He doesn't have a clue.

But you guys keep on idolizing him while we enlightened individuals laugh ourselves silly.

Why isn't anyone asking about the suspicious timing of this story? This story is fully four months old, yet it comes out again exactly in time with Hayden's nomination to the CIA. By the way, this story was LEAKED - another ILLEGAL LEAK which should be prosecuted.

 

[fossten]

Once again proving that about half of Americans are below average intelligence...

63% = half? I guess I know which "half" you are in...

 

[Joeychgo]

"Yeah he did" - Cafferty's a real HATER, and a leftist wacko kook besides. He doesn't have a clue.

But you guys keep on idolizing him while we enlightened individuals laugh ourselves silly.

I dont idolize him - Hell I almost never watch him.

But he was right when he says instead of playing with the phones we should find osama, seal the borders and do better inspecting containers.

He's also got a point about the NSA telling the Justice dept that they dont have sufficient security clearance to investigate the NSA dealings.

 

[fossten]

I dont idolize him - Hell I almost never watch him.

But he was right when he says instead of playing with the phones we should find osama, seal the borders and do better inspecting containers.

He's also got a point about the NSA telling the Justice dept that they dont have sufficient security clearance to investigate the NSA dealings.

NO HE DOES NOT HAVE A POINT. He's an idiot, Joey. You know better than this, Joey. You know good and well that Al Qaeda uses phones to communicate in and to this country. You know that we need to be able to find, monitor, and track said phone calls in order to prevent another 9/11. And you know good and well that if this program were suspended, we would be more vulnerable than we are now.

Finding Osama isn't going to end the war on terror, Joey. Don't be so naive. But if we can't monitor any phone calls or even track phone calls, HOW WILL WE EVER CATCH HIM?

Do you really think that 9/11 was a fluke and that there's NO DANGER?


I have a question for ALL OF YOU:

Do any of you need a warrant to OPEN THE PHONE BOOK AND SEE WHO HAS WHICH NUMBER?

 

[Joeychgo]

Wait a second, we're not talking about monitoring international calls - the story is that they have been seeking all of OUR private phone records. I am concerned about how much of my private information they have collected. What dont I know about? Do they have my medical records? Credit card records?

They didnt ask for phone books. They are welcome to have every one. But having access to my call history does make me nervous. They might see my calling Bryan and start sending me Republican fund raising mail because I talk to a conservative!

Seriously. Why hasnt GW done anything concrete to seal the borders? One meeting and he can have national guard posted on the borders. So why hasnt he? This is the kind of thing that suprises me. Same with the container ports. Alot more could be done, why hasnt it been done?

One truth however. We dont know what successes have been made - what attackes have been averted. We dont know what 'hasnt' happened. Maybe there has been alot, maybe nothing. We just dont know, nor will we ever really know.

I just dont want to see another round of Japenese Internment Camps, or McCarthy Blacklists, or anything of the sort.