http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/388032p-329252c.html

Quote :

"Taps found clues, not Al Qaeda, FBI chief says WASHINGTON - The National Security Agency's secret domestic spying hasn't nabbed any Al Qaeda agents in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress yesterday. Mueller told the Senate Intelligence Committee that his agents get "a number of leads from the NSA," but he made it clear Osama Bin Laden's henchmen weren't at the end of the trail. "I can say leads from that program have been valuable in identifying would-be terrorists in the United States, individuals who were providing material support to terrorists," Mueller testified. His assessment of the controversial NSA snooping appeared to undercut a key claim by President Bush. As recently as Wednesday, Bush defended bypassing courts in domestic spying by insisting that "one of the people making the call has to be Al Qaeda, suspected Al Qaeda and/or affiliate." The committee's chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), let slip that one disrupted plot involved Iyman Faris' scheme to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge. "I think as to the number of lives that have been saved, it might have been how many were on the Brooklyn Bridge if it had blown up," Roberts said. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official later told the Daily News that the NSA program was used after Faris agreed to cooperate in the investigation but "that was not what initiated it.""

Catching Bush in a lie these days is like shooting fish in a barrel.

2/3/2006 2:27:25 PM

That's not really a lie... anyone could be suspected Al Qaeda.

2/3/2006 2:29:51 PM

i'm shocked. SHOCKED

2/3/2006 2:31:43 PM

I guess you're right. He might not be lying, just incredibly paraoid.

[Edited on February 3, 2006 at 2:33 PM. Reason : fear leads to anger]

2/3/2006 2:32:14 PM

Quote :

"Catching Bush in a lie these days is like shooting fish in a barrel."

troll

2/3/2006 2:42:19 PM

Please explain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

Quote :

"In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who posts rude or offensive messages on the Internet, such as on online discussion forums, to disrupt discussion or to upset its participants. "Troll" can also mean the message itself or be a verb meaning to post such messages. "Trolling" is also commonly used to describe the activity. For more discussion on definitions, see below."

2/3/2006 2:47:49 PM

i'm not gonna give you the satisfaction


[Edited on February 3, 2006 at 2:50 PM. Reason : no trolling for you today]

2/3/2006 2:50:07 PM

i think excoriator should be banned next. make him use one of the smarter names, like solinari. I don't like excoriator. he makes lame arguments and trolls people.

2/3/2006 3:15:07 PM

Quote :

"That's not really a lie... anyone could be suspected Al Qaeda."

not really

you're probably one of those people who thinks we shouldn't use any kind of profiling at the airport

i don't care how liberal i get
i still think its fucking stupid that my great aunt has been put through the rigamarole 3 straight times at the airport

[Edited on February 3, 2006 at 3:17 PM. Reason : durrrrrr 75 year old women are such a threat]

2/3/2006 3:16:56 PM

Now he's trolling about trolling.

2/3/2006 4:42:14 PM

2/5/2006 1:47:35 AM

TIA = teh debil

2/5/2006 4:12:43 AM

Quote :

"Sen. Arlen Specter, whose committee has scheduled hearings Monday on the National Security Agency program, said he believes the administration violated a 1978 law specifically calling for a secretive court to consider and approve such monitoring. Specter, R-Pa., said he might consider subpoenas for administration documents that would detail its legal justification for the program. "The president could've taken this there and lay it on the line," Specter said, citing the special court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. "That court has an outstanding record of not leaking. They would be pre-eminently well-qualified to evaluate this program and say it's OK or not OK," Specter told NBC's "Meet the Press."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060205/ap_on_go_co/domestic_spying

2/5/2006 2:50:07 PM

Fucking communist.

2/5/2006 11:18:26 PM

where have you gone, Joe McCarthy... our country really needs you.

2/5/2006 11:33:56 PM

[Edited on February 6, 2006 at 1:42 AM. Reason : ]

2/6/2006 1:41:58 AM

Quote :

"Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events. The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/08/AR2006020802511.html

2/9/2006 1:16:27 PM

http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-10T222448Z_01_N10274804_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-EAVESDROPPING-POLL.xml

Quote :

"Americans say president shouldn't suspend rights Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:25 PM ET By Andrew Stern CHICAGO (Reuters) - Most Americans believe a president should not be allowed to suspend constitutional guarantees in order to fight terrorism, a poll released on Friday said. The poll, taken for the American Bar Association in the wake of the controversy generated by President Bush's domestic spying program, found the public divided over whether government eavesdropping on personal communications could ever be justified. "As our poll shows, and legal scholars agree, the awesome power of government to penetrate citizens' most private communications must not be held in one set of hands," Michael Greco, the group's president, told a news conference. "To prevent the very human temptation to abuse this power there must be checks and balances in the form of oversight by the courts and Congress," he said. "I personally reject the false choice that is being offered Americans that they must give up their liberties to have security. We must protect both, and we can protect both," he added. With the administration refusing to provide details of the eavesdropping program, which was a closely held secret until recently, the extent of any violations are unclear, Greco said. The program, authorized by Bush in 2001, allows the National Security Agency to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens to track people with suspected ties to al Qaeda and other militant groups. The White House has said warrantless eavesdropping is legal under Bush's Constitutional powers as commander-in-chief and a congressional authorization for the use of military force adopted days after the September 11 attacks. The program bypassed secret courts created under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that grant warrants. Greco said if those courts do not work as they should, the administration should ask Congress to amend the law. The Harris Interactive telephone survey of 1,045 adults taken February 3-6 found that 77 percent have reservations about the fundamental issues raised by the eavesdropping controversy, the ABA said in releasing the survey. Of that group, 52 percent agreed that a president should never be able to "suspend the constitutional freedoms of people like you." Another 25 percent said constitutional freedoms should never be suspended unless authorized by a court or Congress. [Continued]..."

2/11/2006 4:36:58 AM

Quote :

"Of that group, 52 percent agreed that a president should never be able to "suspend the constitutional freedoms of people like you." "

wow, they word that in an interesting manner. I'm not sure what constitutional freedoms they are alluding to.

2/11/2006 6:02:09 AM

OMF AMENDMENTS AREN'T PART OF THE CONSTITUTION

AREN'T I SO DARN SMART?

2/11/2006 6:22:22 AM

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is not an amendment.



[Edited on February 11, 2006 at 6:35 AM. Reason : drunk...]

2/11/2006 6:29:14 AM

Again, take your pick:

Amendment:
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am4

Constitution:
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A2Sec3

Quote :

"he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed..."

The FISA laws requiring the executive branch to seek a warrant were passed by Congress, and the President is Constitutionally bound to take care that they are faithfully executed, so try another one.

---

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001799.html

Quote :

"Bob Barr, Bane of the Right? You could find just about everything at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference this week: the bumper sticker that says "Happiness is Hillary's face on a milk carton," the "Straight Pride" T-shirt, a ride on an F-22 Raptor simulator at the Lockheed exhibit, and beans from the Contra Cafe coffee company (slogan: "Wake up with freedom fighters"). As of midday yesterday, a silent auction netted $300 for lunch with activist Grover Norquist, $275 for a meal with the Heritage Foundation president and $1,000 for a hunting trip with the American Conservative Union chairman. But lunch with former congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.), with an "estimated value" of $500, had a top bid of only $75 -- even with a signed copy of Barr's book, "The Meaning of Is," thrown in. Former congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.), bucking the tide at the Conservative Political Action Conference, debates Viet Dinh of Georgetown University, one of the Patriot Act's authors. Vice President Cheney, at left, represented the more prevalent view among attendees. (By Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post) No surprise there. The former Clinton impeachment manager is the skunk at CPAC's party this year. He says President Bush is breaking the law by eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without warrants. And fellow conservatives, for the most part, don't want to hear it. "You've heard of bear baiting? We're going to have, today, Barr baiting," R. Emmet Tyrell, a conservative publisher, announced as he introduced a debate Thursday between Barr and Viet Dinh, one of the authors of the USA Patriot Act. "Are we losing our lodestar, which is the Bill of Rights?" Barr beseeched the several hundred conservatives at the Omni Shoreham in Woodley Park. "Are we in danger of putting allegiance to party ahead of allegiance to principle?" Barr answered in the affirmative. "Do we truly remain a society that believes that . . . every president must abide by the law of this country?" he posed. "I, as a conservative, say yes. I hope you as conservatives say yes." But nobody said anything in the deathly quiet audience. Barr merited only polite applause when he finished, and one man, Richard Sorcinelli, booed him loudly. "I can't believe I'm in a conservative hall listening to him say [Bush] is off course trying to defend the United States," Sorcinelli fumed. Far more to this crowd's liking was Vice President Cheney, who stopped by CPAC late Thursday and suggested the surveillance program as a 2006 campaign issue. "With an important election coming up, people need to know just how we view the most critical questions of national security," he told the cheering crowd. Dinh, now a Georgetown law professor, urged the CPAC faithful to carve out a Bush exception to their ideological principle of limited government. "The conservative movement has a healthy skepticism of governmental power, but at times, unfortunately, that healthy skepticism needs to yield," Dinh explained, invoking Osama bin Laden. Dinh brought the crowd to a raucous ovation when he judged: "The threat to Americans' liberty today comes from al Qaeda and its associates and the people who would destroy America and her people, not the brave men and women who work to defend this country!" It was the sort of tactic that has intimidated Democrats and the last few libertarian Republicans who question the program's legality. But Barr is not easily suppressed. During a 2002 Senate primary, he accidentally fired a pistol at a campaign event; at a charity event a decade earlier, he licked whipped cream from the chests of two women. Barr wasn't going to get a lesson on patriotism from this young product of the Bush Justice Department. "That, folks, was a red herring," he announced. "This debate is very simple: It is a debate about whether or not we will remain a nation subject to and governed by the rule of law or the whim of men."..."

[Edited on February 11, 2006 at 6:52 AM. Reason : ...and I'm the moron...]

2/11/2006 6:30:15 AM