Spying On Americans
What has been revealed regarding Bush and his illegal wiretaps is just the tip of the iceberg. What you have been hearing about the Bush administration is only a small portion of the abuses that have been going on. The NY times only told you part of the story, they may release the rest later. This is so typical of mainstream reporting, they sat on this for a year and knew of it before the 2004 election. The mantra of the Times should be 'half the truth all the time, always told too late for it to matter'.
This administration had the tools it needed available to it to tap the phones of suspected terrorists. The FISA courts were set up specifically for this purpose. The President could tap someone’s phone for 72 hours while he waited to get a warrant if it was an emergency. Why on earth would he circumvent a process that has been in place for the very purpose that he claims to need it for?
The number of phones tapped in America by this illegal Presidential activity numbers in the millions. Don’t let the lie that Bush told that he only authorized 30 or so fool you. Millions of American citizens have had their phones bugged illegally by the Bush Administration. The FISA court provided a clear check to insure that wiretaps were used for the purpose they were intended. If you are tapping millions of phones and hundreds of millions of phone calls, be assured that it would not be difficult to slip in a few Senators, Congressman, Federal Judges, News Media Executives, Independent Prosecutors, Corporate Titans on the list of phones to be tapped.
The simple fact is that this administration is not using these taps to gather information on terrorism. They are using this information for other purposes. Some may deal with gathering business intelligence for well connected corporations so they can know what their competitors are up to... for of course, a large donation to the GOP. Other uses may be to discover what members of the House and Senate and Judiciary are saying on their phones. This would never be approved by the FISA court and hence we can understand why they never wanted use the process that was in place.
In defense of President Bush, I honestly don’t think he has a clue what is going on or how this information is used. He is just not a very intelligent man. This smells like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Why? The NSA is part of the DOD. Those agencies inside the Government who are fighting the war on terror must go through the FISA system to get warrants to tap phones. Let me make this perfectly clear to each and every reader, Those who are fighting terrorism and are on the front lines on the War On Terror do not have access to and in almost all cases were not even aware of this program. The only agencies that appear to have been aware of this were key officeholders in the DOD and the Vice President. Imagine how frustrating it is to try to catch terrorists and finding out that this process is in place but isn’t being used for the purpose the administration claims.
Folks turn off that infernal football game! Your country is being stolen from you while you are laughing having a good time like a group of mentally retarded children who laugh and think it is funny while the house is burning down. The retarded children have an excuse for their ill timed levity.
You do not.
Mark S. Watson