Subscribe"Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, today released the following statement regarding the President’s decision to publicly confirm the existence of a highly-sensitive National Security Agency (NSA) program for intercepting communications within the United States.
Additionally, Senator Rockefeller released his correspondence to the White House on July 17, 2003 -- the day he first learned of thhe program -- expressing serious concerns about the nature of the program as well as Congress’ inability to provide oversight given the limited nature of the briefings.“For the last few days, I have witnessed the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General repeatedly misrepresent the facts.
“The record needs to be set clear that the Administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove the NSA program. The limited members who were told of the program were prohibited by the Administration from sharing any information about it with our colleagues, including other members of the Intelligence Committees.
“At the time, I expressed my concerns to Vice President Cheney that the limited information provided to Congress was so overly restricted that it prevented members of Congress from conducting meaningful oversight of the legal and operational aspects of the program.
“These concerns were never addressed, and I was prohibited from sharing my views with my colleagues.
“Now that this issue has been brought out into the open, I strongly urge the Senate Intelligence Committee to immediately undertake a full investigation into the legal and operational aspects of the program, including the lack of sufficient congressional oversight.”
Missteps in the War on Terror
"This may also be a violation of American law, which requires that a special court issue warrants for wiretaps on communications originating in the United States. Some officials familiar with the program said it is illegal. But a Justice Department memo took the radical position that the congressional resolution authorizing the president to act against Al Qaeda enabled him to use methods that were previously forbidden.
On Saturday, President Bush strongly defended the program, saying it has 'helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks' here and abroad. Had the administration really believed it had congressional consent for spying on Americans at home, it could have asked for legislation to affirm that. It didn't, for the obvious reason that Congress would not have agreed....Excesses of enforcement violate civil liberties."
"Since 9/11, the president has approved eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mails to and from the United States involving thousands of Americans whose names or numbers may have been found on laptops and cell phones seized from suspected terrorists.A legal procedure has been in place -- one which can be applied retroactively when the need to wiretap may arise in time-sensitive situations -- and the FISA judge has a record of overwhelmingly approving requests for eavesdropping. Why the exception for this administration to not follow the law?
The normal procedure is for the government to get a warrant from a special intelligence court. Even though that court rarely says no, records show that out of 4,713 other surveillance requests to the judge assigned, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, from 2002-2004, she denied only four and modified 96.
Critics ask, 'Why was the president so determined to avoid court supervision?'
'It prompts speculation that perhaps the government was using information that was illegally obtained,' says Steven Aftergood, a national security expert.
'He [President Bush] has essentially thumbed his nose at the Congress and said, "Regardless of what you say, I can do as I wish,"' says Jeffery Smith, a former general counsel at the CIA." [NBC Nightly News | December 19, 2005]
"While the full range of Bush’s intercepts is not known, the administration’s use of National Security Agency intercepts was an issue earlier this year, when it was disclosed that John Bolton, Bush’s nominee to be United Nations ambassador, had requested names of Americans that had been excised from NSA transcripts for privacy reasons.
Senate Democrats demanded that documents be turned over on 10 cases in which Bolton used his position as under secretary of state for arms control to obtain the names. The White House refused to provide the information and Bush evaded the need for Senate confirmation of Bolton’s ambassadorship by making him a “recess appointment.”
[source]
"...The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
"Let me ask why every smart blogger out there and every pundit on TV is talking about wiretapping when the obvious problem is that the U.S. government is now monitoring the entire U.S. Internet a la Echelon or Raptor.
Why do Gonzales and Condi Rice keep mentioning the 'technical' aspects of the program as a dodge around FISA?
Why this seemingly inconsequential parsing by Bush of the difference between 'monitoring and detection?' Bush says they use FISA if they're montioring, but this is about 'detection.'
Why, in his letter, does Rockefeller state that he's 'not a technician.?'
Why the mention of TIA in Rockefeller's letter?
And why the mention of 'large batches of numbers all at once?'
Why?:
These are not phone numbers we're talking about...These are IP addresses, email addresses.
A system is in place that basically filters on certain triggers (text, phoneme, etc.) within Internet 'conversations.' This is 'detection' or at least it's tortured definition that was placed in this idiot Bush's mind. 'Monitoring' would be recording an entire conversation, like in a phone conversation.
That system then collects information on those conversations including...ta da...source and destination IP addresses. Those IP addresses can then be stored for further investigation on other 'conversations.'
E.g., I start an email thread with a friend in France. I mention Al Qaeda. My conversation is 'detected' and my info is stored. The system then segments my address into another system and starts a deeper 'detection' on any further 'conversations' for further triggers. Hence, the system could still be said to be in the detecting mode, not monitoring. If I don't mention any other 'evil' words, if I simply send medical records or lusty love letters or diatribes against liberals, I'll eventually be dropped.
Ramifications:
Anybody doing anything on the Internet whose traffic gets routed overseas, no matter why, no matter how, is being sniffed. Let's just call it sniffed. Spare me the parsing of 'detection' versus 'monitoring.'
This is happening right now, as we speak."
"Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show."
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The 'restraint' on internal spying is that it absolutely not allowed.
By the way, Mark Felt, who we now know is deep throat, was convicted of illegally wiretapping people. (He was convicted after he retired, but the tapping itself took place while he was at the FBI)
Interesting bit of Trivia, Nixon himself actually testified against Felt, the first time he had ever appeared in court after Watergate. He was a prosecution witness but gave an impassioned defense for Felt. Why? Because Nixon always beloved Felt was Deep Throat and knew it would work as 'reverse psychology' on the Jury
posted by delmoi at 2:54 PM on December 19, 2005