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Read this article first. When you get to the bottom the fun really starts!!! |
| Saturday 22nd July 2006 | The Press Association | |
U.S. authorities could not track al Qaeda effectively if required to obtain court warrants before eavesdropping on telephone conversations involving U.S. callers, top intelligence officials said on Wednesday. Three administration officials, including CIA Director Michael Hayden, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to press lawmakers to ease warrant requirements for the surveillance of al Qaeda suspects. "Why should our laws make it more difficult to target al Qaeda communications that are most important to us -- those entering or leaving this country," Hayden said. The four-star Air Force general set up President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance program in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks while he was director of the National Security Agency. The program allows the government to eavesdrop on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without obtaining a warrant, if in pursuit of al Qaeda. Hayden said most of the phone calls involve al Qaeda suspects overseas calling people inside the United States. Democrats and some Republicans say the program could overstep Bush's authority as commander in chief and appears to violate the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. FISA requires warrants for individual eavesdropping suspects inside the United States. CIVIL LIBERTIES QUESTION But the administration officials called FISA impractical and ineffective for tracking al Qaeda, saying the law would require separate warrants for each U.S.-bound phone call placed by an overseas suspect. "It would cause a tremendous burden," said NSA Director Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander. "You'd be so far behind the target if you were in hot pursuit, with the number of applications that you'd have to make and the time to make those, that you'd never catch up." Hayden backed compromise legislation between the White House and Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania that would allow a secret FISA court to review the NSA program to determine its legality. "The chairman's bill will allow NSA to use all the tools that it has," the CIA director said. But critics including Sen. Diane Feinstein, a California Democrat, say the compromise bill could endanger civil liberties because it allows the FISA court to approve entire surveillance programs rather than separate warrants. "It opens a Pandora's box of all kinds of games that can be played," said Feinstein, who has been briefed on the NSA program as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Stephen Bradley, acting assistant attorney general, stressed that the program was tightly focussed on militant activities. Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Specter's committee that Bush blocked a Justice Department investigation of the NSA program. Gonzales said the president refused to give the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility access to the classified program. The office announced in May it was unable to conduct an investigation into the role department lawyers had in developing the eavesdropping program. |
OK - It is video time! Watch this clip carefully and pay attention for the following pieces of information: 1. Does Dubya say that wiretapping without a warrant is unconstitutional? 2. Does he then go on to say that wiretapping would therefore breach the oath of office that he swore? 3. Does he then say that it is fine to wiretap after all (12 months later and AFTER he has been caught allowing one of the largest and most insidious domestic spying programs every undertaken)? 4. How long can the intelligence community tap a line for prior to requiring a court order allowing them to continue doing it? Now click play and watch the video...
Clearly, there are some more than interesting facts in there, however, the key fact regarding this article is the ability of the intelligence community to tap a phone line for 72 hours before they are required to get a court order and even then, as the Senator points out at the end of the, the court orders are almost always granted! So, in light of all of this, the overriding question is simple... Why are the US Administration and the US Intelligence Services lying to the American people about the need to relax wiretapping laws? I will tell you why... The US Administration need the law relaxed because they think that it will then make it easier for them to get a retrospective law change that may further help them to crawl out of a rather deep set of legal and constitutional holes that they currently find themselves in. You see, the Dubya administration has trampled all over the laws of the US and the Constitution itself and they have, as seen in the video, admitted it along the way. The problems they now face are coming from all directions such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation's successful application to sue AT&T for handing over phone records without a warrant. Dubya has already blocked one investigation into his conduct regarding this issue and now they are looking to srike down all others before they even get started. Getting rid of the law that currently says that a court order is required would make it infinitely more difficult for somebody to prosecute the Dubya administration or members of the intelligence community as they would be able to argue that clearly the law was at fault. By itself, this is not a particularly good defence but it is certainly of great benefit to any well-crafted case. Michael Hayden, a man as responsible for the entire scandal as anybody else is currently doing his finest Colin Powell at the UN impression and spinning a web of lies so broad that it is quite incredible that anybody in the Senate Judiciary Committee has not died laughing at him yet! He claims that the current laws on wiretapping make it "...more difficult to target al Qaeda communications that are most important to us -- those entering or leaving this country," when clearly with a 72 hour window BEFORE the need to obtain a court order, this is blatantly untrue. This law is being passed now and the people of America need to do something to stop it NOW. YOUR GOVERNMENT IS LYING AGAIN. THEY ARE CLAIMING THAT THEY ARE ONLY LOOKING AT CALLS BETWEEN AL-QAEDA MILITANTS AND CITIZENS OF THE US BUT THIS IS SIMPLY UNTRUE IN LIGHT OF THE FACT THAT THEY OBTAINED 50,000,000 PHONE RECORDS AS PART OF THIS SURVEILLANCE OPERATION. THAT IS AROUND 20% OF THE ENTIRE US POPULATION...DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT THERE ARE 50,000,000 AL-QAEDA OPERATIVES IN YOUR NATION? DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT THE DUBYA ADMINISTRATION BELIEVES THAT THERE ARE 50,000,000 AL-QAEDA OPERATIVES IN THE US? DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT THEY HAVE THE FIRST CLUE WHO OR WHERE THESE PEOPLE ARE, IF THEY EVEN EXIST AT ALL? IF THEY KNOW WHO AND WHERE THEY ARE NOW THEN HOW CAN THEY CLAIM THAT THEY DID NOT KNOW PRIOR TO SEPTEMBER 11TH 2001? THEY ARE HAVING THEIR CAKE AND EATING IT ON SO MANY LEVELS AND YOU ARE HANDING OUT THE NAPKINS... DO SOMETHING BEFORE YOUR ONCE FREE NATION IS FINALLY TURNED INTO THE POLICE STATE THAT BUSH, CHENEY, RUMSFELD, WOLFOWITZ, PERLE AND ALL OF THE OTHER LUNATICS ARE DREAMING OF. |