Bush tries to spank the NYT, they smack him back

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The New York Times

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2005

{snip}

But Bush secretly decided that he was going to allow the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens without obtaining a warrant - just as he had earlier decided to scrap the Geneva Conventions, American law and army regulations when it came to handling prisoners in the war on terror.

Let's be clear about this: Illegal government spying on Americans is a violation of individual liberties, whether conditions are troubled or not. Nobody with a real regard for the rule of law and the Constitution would have difficulty seeing that. The law governing the National Security Agency was written after the Vietnam War because the government had made lists of people it considered national security threats and spied on them. All the same empty points about effective intelligence-gathering were offered then, just as they are now, and the Congress, the courts and the American people rejected them.

This particular end run around civil liberties is also unnecessary. The intelligence agency already had the capacity to read Americans' mail and e-mail and listen to their telephone conversations. All it had to do was obtain a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The burden of proof for obtaining a warrant was relaxed a bit after Sept. 11, but even before the attacks the court hardly ever rejected requests.

Bush defended the program Saturday, saying it was saving lives, hotly insisting that he was working within the Constitution and the law, and denouncing The New York Times for disclosing the program's existence. We don't know if he was right on the first count; this White House has cried wolf so many times on the urgency of national security threats that it has lost all credibility. But we have learned the hard way that Bush's team cannot be trusted to find the boundaries of the law, much less respect them.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/18/opinion/edliberty.php

cept on the neoCONs watch... the 'liberal' justice dept. on clinton's NEVER rejected a one.

911-BUSH-KNEW

peace

I think the people he targeted would not have passed the reasonableness test of FISA, lax as it is.

There is NO excuse for violating the provisions of our Constitution.

Great article!

I am impressed. That little bit quite succinctly sums up what is clearly an impeachable offense.

When I heard Shrub slamming them yesterday, I laughed. I guess he doesn't realize that they have the ability to hit back HARD. Good for them. I hope it doesn't stop here!!!

The NYT is fighting for its integrity. At least this time they know where to direct their attention.

and a real investigation into 911 should start up. With all his eavesdropping, not a single thing of value has been found out.
:applause:

You see, the Bush administration really isn't concerned about terrorism. They are avoiding the FISA courts because they want to spy on their political and business advesaries under the guise of "national security".

"...They trusted their elected leaders to follow long-established democratic and legal principles and to make any changes in the light of day. But President George W. Bush had other ideas. He secretly and recklessly expanded the government's powers in dangerous and unnecessary ways that eroded civil liberties and may also have violated the law."

:applause:

who they spied on? RW'ers who used to tell me I shouldn't worry about Homeland Security as long as I am a good americun are now seeking me out to tell me they
agree with my concerns! As Martha would say; "That's a good thing." This is a red state but the reddys are also independent. Lots of retired military here. They do NOT like big government. That's why they swallowed Ronnie RayGuns shtick so whole hog. The news of the Quakers being spied on by the Pentagon was ill recieved around here.
As a post script...given what I know of veterans I would propose combat vets be in charge in the future of deciding whether or not this country goes to war. It's not a fun movie to them. It's something to be avoided whenever possible.

There are lots of ways for We the People to get these answers.

Best would be to force release as part of the Bush-Cheney Impeachment prosecution.

There is a reason the House serves as the prosecutor in an Impeachment.

The House is the body closest and most representative of the Sovereigns here. You know. The ones who "do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." We the People. Us. You. Me. Our Parents. Our Grandparents. All those who have fought for (and resisted) our march to a more perfect union.

That little word "for", means a lot.

"We the People" have given to the united States, and not that the States or the National Government has given to "We the People". It is "We the People", the Sovereign Citizens, who must, through our efforts and responsibilities, secure this Charter of Liberty, Freedom and for Responsible Government for All Future Generations.

The authority of government lies entirely and irrevocably within the Body of The Whole, "We The People".

overdue by all we citizens. The power derives from us not the king not god. I do not know just how an FOI request is initiated but I suppose I could learn. I would like to ask how many have been illegally spied upon. HOW were they selected for gods sake? WHY was not the usual path of obtaining judicial consent not good enough?
Oh crap I am having a hard time being civil just thinking about this. Thank you for your considered response.

Members of the Senate and House need to hear from us. Ask them what they are going to do to stand up for your right to know. Enlist friends and neighbors. Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter. They have an obligation to represent their constituents.

Even in the reddest districts and states, engaging people may not be as hard as you think. The Dems feel surrounded and under seige (which can motivate action). The Republicans are starting to feel a bit surrounded themselves -- they're finding it harder to rationalization it all away.

Messages to elected officials can be short and sweet:

"Where do they get off listening in on our neighbors without getting a warrant? Are they so paranoid that they think the judges are Al Qaeda operatives? It doesn't make sense. The only way to find out what's been going on is to open an Impeachment Inquiry. Are you ready to stand up for our right to know?"

Or

"They terrorized us with threats of a mushroom cloud in 45 minutes. They made boom threats! I don’t want any more toothless hearings and reports. They must be held accountable. Impeachment is the only way."

OR

"Every month we hear about some new secret or shameful thing they have been up to, things they know we would say NO WAY to -- going after a country they knew didn't pose a real threat to us, the torture, the spying, and we probably don't know the half of it. Wasn't this nation founded on the principle of consent? What are you going to do about all this?"

If you hit brick walls with your district Rep. and Senators, you can target committee members. Seems to me a few different committees ought to have an interest in getting REAL answers:
Committee on Government Reform
Committee on Homeland Security
Committee on the Judiciary
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

And, regarding FOIA requests. The National Security Archive at George Washington University has been very effective in getting things released. It might be worthwhile to contact them to see if they are moving on this yet. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

but instead, a political one.

I added a bit on edit. A reminder to us all.

It is We the People who

"do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America"

That little word, "for" means alot.

. ."We the People" have given to the United States, and not that the States or the National Government has given to "We the People". It is "We the People", the Sovereign Citizens, who must, through our efforts and responsibilities, secure this Charter of Liberty, Freedom and for Responsible Government for All Future Generations.

The authority of government lies entirely and irrevocably within the Body of The Whole, "We The People."

In other words, we have given NO entity of OUR Government the power to thwart the ANY RIGHT we demand as a body.

or other serious disability caused by combat. Now THAT would be a "National Security Council"!!! Proven courage. Hard-earned wisdom.

Finally, some balls swell in the pants of the paper of record!

the NYT has to explain why it sat on this for over a year.

of the leak of the monitoring of bin Laden's cell phone signal. They're now the bane of conservatives who are howling that they released it now to give advantage to the Democrats in the Patriot Act tussle in Congress.

I think Judy Miller's spell on the owner of the New York Times has been broken (she's not fucking him any more). George can't expect the NYT to carry his water any more.

the other night, and lehrer just basically shined him on http://www.pbs.org/newshour :thumbsup:

JIM LEHRER: --but the story is now all over the world.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah.

JIM LEHRER: I mean, it's on the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post, every newspaper in America today, and it's going--it's the main story of the day. So--

PRESIDENT BUSH: It's not the main story of the day.

JIM LEHRER: Well, but I mean in terms of the way it's being covered--

PRESIDENT BUSH: The main story of the day is the Iraqi election.

JIM LEHRER: Right, and I'm going to get to that.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Okay.

The Presidential Papers Act. It is Law by a Congressional act that all Presidential Papers must be made public no more than twelve years after the President leaves office. Both Reagan and Bush 1 have been out of office for over twelve years but Bush* has refused to release any papers in direct violation of Congressional Law. What has Congress had to say about this breach of Law.????????????? Can you hear the crickets chirping?

:rofl:

My Mac is kinda antique, and I think if I start downloading programs into it I will be very sorry.

It's a very good editorial; although I wish the NYT hadn't sat on vital information for a whole year, hopefully better late than never. They certainly are dead-on regarding Bush's credibility.

Hekate

spying on people they had no business spying on. If you are into LIHOP or MIHOP, you can just imagine who the targets might have been.

to torture dungeons in middle Europe and points east. These un-people with no names. Who. Are. They?

As for the NYT, I think it's damn peculiar they waited a year to let us know that we are being spied on illegally, and I suspect that, a) the Bush Cartel has something on them (re: their in-house spy Judith Miller, or AIPAC, or other seriously discrediting dirt (treason, crime)) and they are trying to forestall that disclosure, or get Bush/Cheney impeached, so no one would believe a word they said about the NYT*; or b) they used Bush as "the hammer" (utterly unscrupulous as to lying and war crimes) to get the entire US military machine into the Middle East and now need a Democrat to competently administer and expand the war (for which a military Draft is needed), so they want the Chaos Masters out now, thus, they release this info. a year later and have a huffy-puffy editorial about our rights all ready to go, when Jr. balks.

*(Could they be wanting Cheney to succeed Bush? That seems a bit much, even from our "war rag of record." Naw, I think they want the Neo-Consters out now and the serious war to begin.)**

Note: I wonder what happened to the leaker of the Bush-spying-on-us material? That person just sitting around for a year wondering WTF?

**(1964. LBJ "the peace candidate," against that "extremism in the defense of liberty," nuke-mad Goldwater. I fell for it. Upshot: 2 million Southeast Asians slaughtered. 55,000+ US soldiers dead. Boffo war profits. Beware--is all I'm saying. Eyes open. Be smart. Put aside childish things (disappointment, disillusionment, anger at betrayal.) Strategize for election reform.)

"Beware--is all I'm saying. Eyes open. Be smart. Put aside childish things (disappointment, disillusionment, anger at betrayal.) Strategize for election reform.)

No wonder they hated Bill Clinton. Clinton set about following the advice of Eisenhower and held down defense spending. It cut into the military/industrial complex's profits.

Scary to think a dem would start the draft. I don't think that will happen.

But the MIC is looking ahead, and they see problems with profits from the bushwa occupation since it has wound down, material wise. I doubt anybody is ready to follow bush anywhere today so they need a new puppet, eh?

Bush broke the law when he decided he could tap your phone, without telling a Judge.

All he had to do was tell a Judge he was going to tap your phone. What? The Judge is gonna say no?

Bush decided he wasn't gonna tell no Judge.

That way, there would be no record - no paper trail. Just like there is no paper trail of your vote in the 2004 stolection.



He not only broke a law, he stabbed our Justice system in the throat.

what a weasel

apologized profusely for keeping this charade going for an entire year before finally letting the truth out?

Bush's Patriot Act defeat.

Then again, the Post makes it sound like they broke all three major developments in the developing (drumroll please) SPY-GATE.

:kick: