Bush Caught Allowing Eavesdropping on the American People w/o Warrants

[Ant]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush acknowledged on Saturday that he authorized the National Security Agency "to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations" and said leaks to the media about the program were illegal.

Sources have told CNN that Bush signed a secret order in 2002 allowing the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans and others in the United States who are communicating with people overseas. The story was first reported Friday in The New York Times.

During an unusual live, on-camera version of his weekly radio address, Bush said such authorization is "fully consistent" with his "constitutional responsibilities and authorities." (Watch Bush discuss eavesdropping, the Patriot Act -- 7:51)

"This is highly classified program crucial to our national security" and "its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks," Bush said.

"The existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports after being improperly given to news organizations," Bush said. "Unauthorized disclosure damages our national security and puts our nation at risk.

"Revealing this information is illegal." (Transcript)

The NSA eavesdrops on billions of communications worldwide. Although the NSA is barred from domestic spying, it can get warrants issued with the permission of a special court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court.

The court is set up specifically to issue warrants allowing wiretapping on domestic soil.
'Sad day'

Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said Saturday: "There's not a single senator or member of Congress who thought we were authorizing wiretaps."

"If he needs a wiretap, the authority is already there -- the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act," Feingold said. "They can ask for a warrant to do that and even if there's an emergency situation they can go for 72 hours as long as they give notice at the end of 72 hours."

Feingold said "it's a sad day" in light of what he heard Bush say.

"He authorized these wiretaps even though there was no specific law allowing it," Feingold said. "He's trying to claim somehow that the authorization for the Afghanistan attack after 9/11 permitted this and that's just absurd."

Bush said two of the September 11 hijackers -- Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi -- who flew the plane into the Pentagon "communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn't know they were here until it was too late."

He said the authorizations have made it "more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time and the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad."

"I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times" since the September 11, 2001, attacks and "I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups," he said.

Sources with knowledge of the program told CNN on Friday that Bush signed the secret order in 2002. The sources refused to be identified because the program is classified.

During an interview Friday for PBS' "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Bush said he understood that people want him to confirm or deny the Times report, but he couldn't discuss specifics because "it would compromise our ability to protect the people," according to a transcript of the program.

The New York Times report said the NSA has monitored international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants during the past three years as part of its war on terror.

Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, said in a statement that the newspaper postponed publication of the article for a year at the White House's request as editors pondered the national security issues surrounding the release of the information.

But after considering the legal and civil liberties aspects, and determining that the story could be written without jeopardizing intelligence operations, the paper ran the story, Keller said, emphasizing that information about many NSA eavesdropping operations is public record.

"What is new is that the NSA has for the past three years had the authority to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States without a warrant," Keller said. "It is that expansion of authority -- not the need for a robust anti-terror intelligence operation -- that prompted debate within the government, and that is the subject of the article."

CNN has not confirmed the exact wording of the president's order.
Effect on Patriot Act vote

However, senators contemplating a vote Friday on whether to renew some controversial portions of the Patriot Act used The New York Times' report as evidence that the government could not be trusted with the broad powers laid out in the act. (Read about the Patriot Act vote)

In particular, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said he had been unsure the night before how he would vote.

"Today's revelation that the government listened in on thousands of phone conversations without getting a warrant is shocking and has greatly influenced my vote," he said. "Today's revelation makes it very clear that we have to be very careful -- very careful."

One of Schumer's GOP colleagues, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, seemed troubled by Friday's news and said that the revelation, if true, was "very problemsome, if not devastating" to getting the Patriot Act renewed.

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman added that his committee would immediately begin investigating the matter and that such behavior "can't be condoned."

Stansfield Turner, a retired Navy admiral who headed the Central Intelligence Agency from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter, concurred with Schumer, saying, "Presidents have to conform to the law. All of the agencies of the government have to conform to the law."

[white Boy]

propaganda!

[Real American]

Good. The government should definitely be listening to telephone conversations of people with known links to Al-Quada.

[white Boy]

so wat if i said you were linked to al quada, and they tapped your phone, would that be right? would u like your phone tapped?

[Real American]

so wat if i said you were linked to al quada, and they tapped your phone, would that be right? would u like your phone tapped?

I am a white Christian, so it wouldn't affect me.

[Sikotic™]

so wat if i said you were linked to al quada, and they tapped your phone, would that be right? would u like your phone tapped?

I am a white Christian, so it wouldn't affect me.

Yeah, right now. Who's to say it won't affect you 10-20 years down the line?

[Ant]

I doubt any of us have to worry about the govt. tapping our phone now, but my issue is with the government overreaching its bounds w/o congressional approval.  Jackasses like Cwalker don't realize that Bush is only in office for 3more years, and once the government acquires new powers its reluctant to give them up.  So maybe you think GWB is a good president?  Eventually someone will be sitting in the white house that is a corrupt motherfucker, and do you want to support the aggregation of power by the executive branch then? 

There is already a system in place to do this, they could have gone thru the original process which is to ask for a warrant.  The CIA/FBI is allowed to eavesdrop on people as long as they eventually ask for a warrant, but Bush wants it to happen with no one being told about it.  Not even other departments of the government - he wants the executive to accquire more and more power...

but the short sighted morons don't understand that, that is why you've seen them cheer on bush as he grabs for more and more power... their immature minds cant contemplate the future and think forward far enough to realize someone else is going to be in charge. 

Cwalker would gladly suck Bush cock even if he  turned the US into a dictatorship.  In fact Cwalker probably even gets a little excited at the thought of a Bush dictatorship.  Shit like this is why you're not a Real American, but a Real Poser.  A Real Bitch.  A real confused little boy that calls himself Cwalker but doesnt like black people.  Calls himself Cwalker, but hates Tookie.  Really its disturbing people with such poor logic exist in our society and become an active part of the political process.

[makaveli11]

What a big fuckin surprise?

[Real American]

Jackasses like Cwalker don't realize that Bush is only in office for 3more years, and once the government acquires new powers its reluctant to give them up. 

That is bullshit. During times of war, the government has always assumed greater power and temporarily curtailed civil liberties in order to ensure security. It happened during World War 2, but once that was over things went back to normal.

The fact that the New York Times released this story pretty much confirms that they care more about taking down president Bush then they do about the national security of our country. Whose side are they on?

[big mat]

Jackasses like Cwalker don't realize that Bush is only in office for 3more years, and once the government acquires new powers its reluctant to give them up. 

That is bullshit. During times of war, the government has always assumed greater power and temporarily curtailed civil liberties in order to ensure security. It happened during World War 2, but once that was over things went back to normal.

The fact that the New York Times released this story pretty much confirms that they care more about taking down president Bush then they do about the national security of our country. Whose side are they on?

None, they are journalist and they stating facts

[$do11a biLL$]

Jackasses like Cwalker don't realize that Bush is only in office for 3more years, and once the government acquires new powers its reluctant to give them up. 

That is bullshit. During times of war, the government has always assumed greater power and temporarily curtailed civil liberties in order to ensure security. It happened during World War 2, but once that was over things went back to normal.

The fact that the New York Times released this story pretty much confirms that they care more about taking down president Bush then they do about the national security of our country. Whose side are they on?

None, they are journalist and they stating facts

Exactly, Bush totally broke the law doing that shit.. this just makes me wonder what else has he done without nobody knowing, and what if he makes a mistake doing shit like this and gets in trouble with another big country and we see another 9/11 or worse?

You can definetly tell the journalists aren't taking any sides here. Especially when its all over the news.

[Real American]

Senator Accuses Times of Endangering U.S.


AP

WASHINGTON - A Republican senator on Saturday accused The New York Times of endangering American security to sell a book by waiting until the day of the terror-fighting Patriot Act reauthorization to report that the government has eavesdropped on people without court-approved warrants.

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"At least two senators that I heard with my own ears cited this as a reason why they decided to vote to not allow a bipartisan majority to reauthorize the Patriot Act," said Republican Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record) of Texas. "Well, as it turns out the author of this article turned in a book three months ago and the paper, The New York Times, failed to reveal that the urgent story was tied to a book release and its sale by its author."

Cornyn did not name the senators in his remarks on the Senate floor.

A call to The New York Times' Washington bureau was referred to spokeswoman Catherine Mathis, who could not be reached immediately.

Times reporter James Risen, who wrote the story, has a book "State of WAR: The Secret History of the     CIA and the Bush Administration," coming out in the next few weeks, Cornyn said.

"I think it's a crying shame ... that we find that America's safety is endangered by the potential expiration of the Patriot Act in part because a newspaper has seen fit to release on the night before the vote on the floor on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act as part of a marketing campaign for selling a book," Cornyn said.

Since October 2001, the super-secret National Security Agency has, without court-approved warrants, eavesdropped on the international phone calls and e-mails of people inside the United States.     President Bush said Saturday that the White House had kept the congressional leadership informed, which a Republican lawmaker confirmed.

But several senators cited the NSA revelation as a reason to uphold a filibuster on the renewal of the expiring portions of the USA Patriot Act — the domestic anti-terrorism law enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — without getting additional safeguards into the law. Supporters of renewing the law failed to get 60 votes needed to break the filibuster.

Bush on Saturday also attacked the disclosure. "As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."

[King Tech Quadafi]

oh no c walker, the "enemies" are plottin the destruction of america through their infiltration of the new york times

[Ant]

Jackasses like Cwalker don't realize that Bush is only in office for 3more years, and once the government acquires new powers its reluctant to give them up. 

That is bullshit. During times of war, the government has always assumed greater power and temporarily curtailed civil liberties in order to ensure security. It happened during World War 2, but once that was over things went back to normal.

The fact that the New York Times released this story pretty much confirms that they care more about taking down president Bush then they do about the national security of our country. Whose side are they on?

So go ahead and explain how they compromised national security by releasing this story?  Now that the American public knows Bush authorizes govt. eavesdropping without requiring warrants how are we less safe?  What are the terrorists going to do with this new knowledge?  This isn't a liberal issue a number of republicans have expressed dissappointment with this news.  The fact that you seriously think the NYT compromised national security by leaking this is yet another reason why you're a jackass.

[J Bananas]

I already have my phone tapped. Guess thats how uncle sam fucks you when you run the most lucrative kiddie porn ring on the west coast