ACLU Shocked at Bush Use of National Security Agency for Domestic Spying
Posted on December 16, 2005
Update: Bush Responds To Accusations: Video! Hat tip: Gateway Pundit
Today, the NY Times Decided To Leak Classified Information about Bush lifting limits on phone taps after 9/11.
The ACLU are absolutely shocked!
The following can be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office:
“Eavesdropping on conversations of U.S citizens and others in the United States without a court order and without complying with the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is both illegal and unconstitutional. The administration is claiming extraordinary presidential powers at the expense of civil liberties and is putting the president above the law. Congress must investigate this report thoroughly. We also call upon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor to independently investigate whether crimes have been committed.
The scare tactics of the ACLU are typical. They want people to think that the NSA was listening while they talked dirty to their girlfriend down the road. What they purposefully leave out is that the only conversations tapped into were international ones, and that it actually nabbed several terrorists and saved an untold amount of lives. If you think the ACLU cares one bit about your privacy, take a look at what it does to its own donor members.
Later on in the NY Times piece we learn that this move actually helped us catch a number of terrorists.
The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists’ computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, the officials said.
In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said.
Michelle Malkin sums it up nicely.
Civil liberties extremists pretend there are no tradeoffs, no costs, to putting legal absolutism over national security. That is simply not the case. Had Faris remained free, he may have likely kept forging ahead until he found the right tools, the right bridge, the right trains, and the right time to execute the al Qaeda plot.
The Bush administration argues that the NSA program that helped uncover the Faris plot was necessary because officials needed to act quickly on large caches of information, such as the data found after the Zubaydah capture in March 2002. Normally, the government obtains court orders to monitor such information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But the window of opportunity to exploit the names, numbers, and addresses of those associated with the top terrorist leaders was obviously small.
Contrary to the impression the piece and headline leave of an administration acting in complete secrecy and with total impunity and disregard for civil liberties, the reporters reveal that Vice President Dick Cheney, then-NSA director Gen. Michael V. Hayden of the Air Force, and then-CIA director George Tenet called a meeting with Congressional leaders from both parties to brief them on the program.
The administration trusted that the briefing would remain confidential for the sake of national security. Obviously, they trusted too much.
In a time of extraordinary circumstances, while the remains of murdered Americans were still being recovered from Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and a field outside Shanksville, the President decided that stopping terrorists from killing more Americans was more important than entertaining the delicate sensibilities of the ACLU.
Thank God we have you, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times to guard our civil liberties! I just wish that you had been able to get this information when it was fresh and still of use to al Qaeda. Oh wait, it still might be, and you don’t care…
The Political Pitbull says:
This report will surely drive civil liberties organizations such as the ACLU bonkers. Expect a law suit any minute now.
What America should be more concerned about is all of the current leaks of classified information. The Times, which held this article for a year, just now released it. Surely this decision couldn’t have anything to do with Times reporter James Risen’s new book. Leaking classified information is a crime, and the Times should be prosecuted for it.
Speaking of special investigations, the ACLU has waged war on our National Security, and aided and comforted our enemies. If anyone needs to have a special investigation done on them, its the ACLU.
SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP TAXPAYER FUNDING OF THE ACLU
Others: Washington Post
The Astute Blogger
California Conservative
Protein Wisdom
Macs Mind
Iowa Voice
GOP Bloggers
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller
The Political Teen
For the opposite reaction see: Regular Ron.
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15 Responses to “ACLU Shocked at Bush Use of National Security Agency for Domestic Spying”
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The Giants
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Umm, prosecute on what grounds?
This country, bless its heart, does not have an official secrets act.
The Times can’t be prosecuted for it.
The spying didn’t do anything the gov could not have gotten through the FISA court, but this administration prefers not to believe in checks and balances.
This story came from NSA spooks who know there’s a good reason not to spy on American soil.
Check the Church Committee report if you wonder why they know that and you do not.
Can you show me where the privacy right is in the Constitution?
Jay, Griswold v. Connecticut. Katz v US. Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis’s The Right to Privacy. The 4th amendment.
Jimbo - the 4th Amendment does not state “right to privacy” just as the 1st Amendment does not state “separation of Church and State”. Both have been interpreted that way which does not mean it is the actual intent.
FISA does authorize surveillance without a warrant, but not on US citizens (with the possible exception of citizens speaking from property openly owned by a foreign power; e.g., an embassy.)
FISA also says that the Attorney General can authorize emergency surveillance without a warrant when there is no time to obtain one. But it requires that the Attorney General notify the judge of that authorization immediately, and that he (and yes, the law does say ‘he’) apply for a warrant “as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance.”
It also says this:
“In the absence of a judicial order approving such electronic surveillance, the surveillance shall terminate when the information sought is obtained, when the application for the order is denied, or after the expiration of 72 hours from the time of authorization by the Attorney General, whichever is earliest. In the event that such application for approval is denied, or in any other case where the electronic surveillance is terminated and no order is issued approving the surveillance, no information obtained or evidence derived from such surveillance shall be received in evidence or otherwise disclosed in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding in or before any court, grand jury, department, office, agency, regulatory body, legislative committee, or other authority of the United States, a State, or political subdivision thereof”.
Nothing in the New York Times report suggests that the wiretaps Bush authorized extended only for 72 hours, or that normal warrants were sought in each case within 72 hours after the wiretap began. On the contrary, no one would have needed a special program or presidential order if they had.
Any questions? Please show me where the ACLU is wrong, and if you can’t, explain why you object to reality.
Meredith,
However much you might believe in ‘original intent,’ the highest law of the land holds that Americans have a right to privacy.
Actual intent isn’t the law.
BTW, nothing in the Constitution explicitly gives the Supreme Courth the power to declare anything unconstitutional, but its well established and its the law.
Anybody know if the small governnment, keep the police out of my business Republicans have been put on the Endangered Species List?
Why can’t I trackback??? I’ve been waiting since last night tp track back my take on this on your site, and it’s not even allowing me …what gives???
Anyway come on by the site. It’s titled…
Listen Up Bush-Bots
Have to agree with the ACLU, it is much better to have one or two peoples privacy protected than to stop terrorist from killing thousands. What are those neocons thinking? The ACLU protects us from being victims.
Y’all might want to reflect on this information.
http://orwellian.org/Cryptography_Manifesto.txt
It includes many details of how the NSA spys on us domestically, with an extended treatment of email monitoring by way of how I monitored the emails of over 7000 employees on Wall Street.
“Have to agree with the ACLU, it is much better to have one or two peoples privacy protected than to stop terrorist from killing thousands. What are those neocons thinking? The ACLU protects us from being victims.”
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Ben Franklin
Who knew Ben hated America so much?
[Insert the appropriate names.] would have us abandon this struggle for the sake of “world opinion.” They might want to revisit former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s robust reply when confronted with condemnation from many nations: “We are not going to die so that the world will speak well of us.” [Mona Charen]
Any way you look at it guys you do’nt want people lerking around spying on you,because you start with spying and the next thing you know you’re told where you can and cannot live. I mean you have to draw a line somewhere,yes they can spy on terrorists this way but if they have no bounderies,then the next time it could be anyone. To me this is just more right-wing politics,do you right-wingers want the government to run your lives to???
Better than the “left-wingers” running the place. At least those of us on the right have the courage (sometimes; I’m talking to YOU RINOs) to confront evil when we see it.
If you were to go along with the “Left-Wing” party line, then we would be back to September 10th 2001.
As Jay and others have pointed out repeatedly, they only did this about 40 times, never did it to purely domestic calls, and made sure to keep Congress in the loop.
Me, I would not be happy if NSA wasn’t spying on our enemies. That is what they do. That is their mission.
Or would you prefer more dead Americans sacrificed to the penaltemate altar of lefty moral relativism? How many would suffice this time? 4,000? 5,000?
The paranoia of the left in this case is hilarious. Why do these people assume that the guvmint gives a tinker’s damn about their lives?
This is a case of pure wish-fulfillment. They want to believe that their lives are interesting enough so that someone, anyone, will snoop on them. They live in a paranoid world that assumes the guvmint has enough resources to track what liberal idiots do in their spare time.
Here’s a clue for ya: if you don’t want the guvmint spying on you, then don’t get its attention. Don’t peddle kiddie porn. Don’t attend Neo-Nazi rallies. Don’t donate money to terrorist groups. Don’t threaten to kill the president (yes, this really is illegal as hell and can get you an all-expenses paid vacation to federal prison)
Pull the cord on the Cluebat, and it will say the following: “No one gives a damn what you say to your tranny b/f in San Fansisco. Your life sucks.”
haha now america is a communist country at last
and you [edited] are buying it!
perfect
now i like you guys
now that you let your gov’t spy on anyone it wants
Yep, 30 people were wiretapped because of intelligence we got fighting the WOT.
The sky is falling!