OMG Look at this response I found in cyberspace

to the story about spying on private citizens. Man, these koolaid drinkers are ignorant.

if you research the story, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D) from WV had to approve of any spying done since he is the vice chairman of the intellegence agency with approval of several congressmen and other people - so, NO, President Bush did not authorize spying on private citizens. This is a political hack job and it is obvious to me -

That's so predictable.

one wonders if his acid spoiled?

it comes natural to idiots like that to blame every ill there is on ''liberals'' as they see them.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2002, said he wasn't informed of the domestic surveillance program. In an interview, Graham recalled a 2002 meeting in Vice President Dick Cheney's office about a far more narrow plan by the National Security Agency to intercept communications from outside the United States to other foreign destinations that rely on U.S. satellite links.

... spell "intelligence," I wonder about the qualifications to comment upon it.

Aside from that, the so-called "gang of eight" are required to be notified as part of oversight regs. Moreover, this post suggests that an extreme minority of the House and Senate have the authority to approve a violation of law. It just doesn't work that way. It would be up to the courts to prevent any abuse of power in the management or exercise of FISA law.

Rockefeller should have raised a stink about it, a long time ago, and he can be blamed for that, but not for approving the action.

This seems to be a rather simple-minded and uninformed opinion about the matter (as well as being a somewhat shoddy attempt to spread the blame for illegal actions which Bush undertook all by his lonesome).



edit punctuation.

What's shocked some people is the belated disclosure that a few Congressmen and other officials were being monitored, and that the Administration -- Bolton and others -- was using the NSA intercepts to push their own agenda.

Previously, most people in oversight positions just didn't want to know. But, if they did, there's an awful lot of open source information available about domestic warrantless surveillance. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00257.htm

it without approval. go figure. then what. get pissed. i would say

he has a big discipline problem and by the same logic
if the troops are violating orders and torturing prisoners than we have a huge problem of training and discipline that should be looked into. If not how low can you get to not take responsibility and blame the grunts.

He is slime.

over his adult lifetime, like getting hooked on Jim Beam, or his running away from his "problems" in one way or another, instead of facing them head on. The grunts were simply working for a commander who runs away. If Bush had been a natural born military leader, like I believe he sees himself, he would have run forward toward Vietnam, instead of hot footing it homeward,(Cut&Run)to Daddy.

In other words, a good scout don't shit too close to the trail. And the commander shitting dead center of the trail and then stepping on his swingin' Richard with booth boots, like Bush has so far, does not a sterling and exemplary example make for the grunts. I think the smart grunts view their supreme commander as a Walking, Bullshit talking, Smirking, Clusterflop, much as you and I view the CiC.

Now laying all the BULLSHIT aside...The Orders to mistreat POWs in Iraq, were cut at the DOD and the Commander in Chief gave the orders....Bush's narrowish Military F---ing mind, knew about the Abu Ghraibs, before the grunts doing time NOW, over Abu Ghraib, broke their first law at Abu Ghraib, because Bush and Rummy ordered it...

probably made the whole thing up.

and told the intel cmte chairs (Dems held the Senate after 9/11, didn't they?), Rockefeller couldn't have stopped him, and would, of course, have been unable to (legally) make the information public. Who knows? Maybe he did go to the justice dept. Maybe he's the leaker now. After the machiavellian antics of Roberts concerning the intel investigation, that doesn't seem so off-the-wall.

snip>
...The "Gang of Eight" would have to have been informed of this Presidential directive -- this is the leadership of the House and Senate, and the leadership of the Intelligence committees in both houses -- at the time that the initial directive was put into place.

On John Yoo's recommendation (according to reports here and here), the President issued the first order within a very short framework after 9/11. The Gang of Eight does not have to give unanimous agreement by any means for a Presidential Directive to become effective, there is simply a notification requirement of actions of this nature prior to the order going into effect.

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_firedoglake_archive.html#113485007313391863

yesterday on his radio show. Put all the blame on Jay Rockefeller.

I went into a small bakery to pick up a couple of cookie trays for work and the woman behind the counter was listening to Rush. Besides going on about Rockefeller "approving" Bush's actions, Rush kept insisting that a FISA court also approved the domestic spying by the NSA.

Then he would shriek about how this leak was undermining our national security for a bit, and then go after Rockefeller again....

Rush was absolutely freaking out - it was bizarre. Of course he didn't back up any of his statements though I hustled out of the shop as soon as possible so I didn't have to listen to even a minute more of his craziness.....

this freeper was just puppeting rush.

So what is to stop Jay Rockefeller from telling us at least some of what he knows now, IF he knows anything about Bush's spying. I wonder how long Bush waited to inform congress, of what he had taken it upon himself to do? Did Bush wait until after Senator Bob Graham was gone, before he informed congress, because Bob Graham said he knew nothing about the spying?