The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 12/18/2005 - 12/25/2005

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Have A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year !



Here's wishing all our readers, listeners and their families a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR. HAPPY HANNUKAH to all our Jewish friends as well ! We at TALK SHOW AMERICA and THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN would like to thank all of you for your continued listener and readership loyalty throughout the years.

2005 was a banner year for both the show and the blog as we broke records for visitors to the website and listeners to the show. The show is now on two Radio station in Florida, WWPR 1490 AM and WTMY 1280 AM. The podcasting of Talk Show America this year has also taken off in popularity that we never dreamed possible. Everyday I receive email from listeners of the show and readers of the blog encouraging me and praising me for the continued battle we fight everyday against the Main Stream News Media and the Liberal Left and their attacks on America, the President and Our Military. I am humbled by your praise and support.

It takes more than one man behind a microphone or computer keyboard. It takes also, dedicated listeners and readers such as yourselves, who participate and assist daily in this battle to keep America Strong, Proud, and Free. Thank You one and all.

Please take the time during your busy holiday season to remember all of OUR BRAVE MEN and WOMEN serving in our military who keep us safe and free no matter where they are serving, and the sacrifices of their families as well. They deserve your prayers and thoughts especially during Christmas. GOD BLESS THEM ALL !

God Bless You, God Bless President Bush, God Bless the US Military, and God Bless The United States of America !

J.R.
Host/Producer Talk Show America
Editor/Publisher The Talk Show America

President Bush: Remember Troops During Holidays

In a Christmas Eve message, President Bush said the holidays are a time to mourn U.S. troops who have died in overseas missions and to find ways to help others in need, especially those whose lives were shattered by Hurricane Katrina.


In his Saturday radio address, Bush also recognized the burden military families endure when loved ones are abroad.


"During the holiday season and throughout the year, we think with pride of the men and women of our armed forces, who are keeping our nation safe and defending freedom around the world," he said. "In Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, they are protecting our liberty by spreading liberty to others, and all Americans are grateful to our troops for their courage and commitment."


Bush taped the address at the White House on Thursday before leaving for a long holiday weekend with family members at Camp David, Md.


Bush and his relatives planned a busy Christmas Eve. They were attending a candlelight service at the Camp David chapel with military families and watching the annual Christmas pageant put on by children of U.S. troops.


Among those joining the president and his wife, Laura, at the wooded compound in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains are Bush's parents, former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara; Mrs. Bush's mother, Jenna Welch; and the first couple's twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna.


The president and first lady fly to their ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Monday, returning to Washington on New Year's Day.


In his broadcast, Bush urged Americans to look for ways to volunteer their time and talents to those in need.


"There are many among us who are hurting and require a helping hand," he said, citing the victims of hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast. "We pray for their strength as they continue to recover and rebuild their lives and their communities."


The president said the holiday also is a time to remember heroic men and woman who died in war.


"We pray that God will comfort the loved ones they left behind," he said. "The sacrifices of these brave troops have rescued millions from lives of tyranny and sorrow, and made America more secure. We will always cherish the memory of each of our fallen servicemen and women, and count it a privilege to be citizens of the country they served."

Rumsfeld serves up Christmas dinner in Iraq

US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, garbed in a white chef's hat, served up a sumptuous Christmas repast for US troops at their base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, according to an AFP journalist.

"What can I get you?" he asked the soldiers who had a choice between lobster, steak or crab and were proud to have their picture taken with the secretary.

"Let there be no doubt," he said to them later as they sat at their tables. "If the United States was to withdraw from Iraq today, the terrorists -- emboldened by victory -- would attack us elsewhere in this region and at home in the United States."

He warmly thanked the soldiers for their service in Iraq and to their country.

"In the long struggle between freedom and tyranny, freedom ultimately prevails. It prevails because of the dedication and perseverance of those wearing America's uniforms," he said.

Rumsfeld arrived in Iraq on Thursday.

Businessman jailed for sale of chemicals to Saddam

A DUTCH businessman was given a 15-year prison sentence yesterday after he was found guilty of complicity in war crimes for selling chemicals to Saddam Hussein's Iraq which were used to carry out gas attacks.

The court in the Hague said Frans van Anraat, 63, supplied the raw materials knowing they would be used to make poison gas during 1980-1988 war with Iran.

Poison gas was also used against Iraq's own Kurdish population, including an attack on the town of Halabja in 1988.

Roel van Rossum, the presiding judge told a packed court: "His deliveries facilitated the attacks and constitute a very serious war crime. He cannot counter with the argument that this would have happened even without his contribution.

"Even the maximum sentence is not enough to cover the seriousness of the acts."

Stars turn backs on America's troops in Iraq

During world war two American troops away from home for Christmas were entertained by Marlene Dietrich, Bing Crosby and the Marx Brothers. Even in Vietnam Bob Hope was guaranteed to put in an appearance. But soldiers in Iraq are more likely to get a show from a Christian hip-hop group, a country singer you have probably never heard of and two cheerleaders for the Dallas Cowboys.

Just as the seemingly intractable nature of the war has led to a growing recruitment crisis, so the United Services Organisation, which has been putting on shows for the troops since the second world war, is struggling to get celebrities to sign up for even a short tour of duty.

It is a far cry from the days following the September 11 2001 attacks, when some of the biggest names in show business, from Jennifer Lopez to Brad Pitt, rallied to the cause. "After 9/11 we couldn't have had enough airplanes for the people who were volunteering to go," Wayne Newton, the Las Vegas crooner who succeeded Bob Hope as head of USO's talent recruiting effort, told USA Today. "Now with 9/11 being as far removed as it is, the war being up one day and down the next, it becomes increasingly difficult to get people to go."

Newton said many celebrities have been wary of going because they think it might be seen that they are endorsing the war. "And I say it's not. I tell them these men and women are over there because our country sent them, and we have the absolute necessity to try to bring them as much happiness as we can."

Some of the entertainers still willing to travel are die-hard true believers - rock musician Ted Nugent carried a Glock handgun to shows in Iraq last year and said in a radio interview that he manned a machine gun on a Humvee. But many of the USO's regular performers are fierce critics of the war, among them the comic and star of Good Morning Vietnam, Robin Williams, who told USA Today he would like to return to the Middle East in the spring for what would be his fourth tour since 2002. "I'm there for the [troops], not for W," he said in a reference to the president. "Go, man. You won't forget it. You'll meet amazing people," is his message to stars that ask him about the tours. But the comedian said he mostly tries to keep politics out of the show after he did a few jokes about Bush's brainpower at a base in 2003 and got a chilly reception.

NY Times: NSA Spying Beyond What Administration Admits

The National Security Agency has conducted much broader surveillance of e-mails and phone calls - without court orders - than the Bush administration has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on its Web site.

The NSA, with help from American telecommunications companies, obtained access to streams of domestic and international communications, said the Times in the report late Friday, citing unidentified current and former government officials.

The story did not name the companies.

Since the Times disclosed the domestic spying program last week, President Bush has stressed that his executive order allowing the eavesdropping was limited to people with known links to al-Qaida.

But the Times said that NSA technicians have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might lead to terrorists.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunications data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the paper said, quoting an unnamed official.

The story quoted a former technology manager at a major telecommunications firm as saying that companies have been storing information on calling patterns since the Sept. 11 attacks, and giving it to the federal government. Neither the manager nor the company he worked for was identified.

Clinton Official: Sen. Leahy Wrong on Domestic Spying

Claims by a top Senate Democrat that the Clinton administration's warrantless surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists was different from what the Bush administration has employed are being contradicted by a former Justice Department official who served under President Bill Clinton.

John Schmidt, who served as associate attorney general between 1994 and 1997, argues that both Congress and the Supreme Court have recognized presidents' "inherent authority" to bypass warrants in ordering the eavesdropping of U.S. citizens suspected of conspiring with foreign governments or terrorists to injure or kill Americans.

On Wednesday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, chided reporters for suggesting that Clinton ordered the same kinds of surveillance of U.S. citizens as Bush. Leahy claimed in a press conference that Clinton acted under an "entirely different power.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program.

Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree. News of the program comes in the wake of revelations last week that, after 9/11, the Bush White House approved electronic surveillance of U.S. targets by the National Security Agency without court orders.

The nuclear surveillance program began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST). Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. At its peak, they say, the effort involved three vehicles in Washington, D.C., monitoring 120 sites per day, nearly all of them Muslim targets drawn up by the FBI. For some ten months, officials conducted daily monitoring, and they have resumed daily checks during periods of high threat. The program has also operated in at least five other cities when threat levels there have risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle.

FBI officials expressed concern that discussion of the program would expose sensitive methods used in counterterrorism. Although NEST staffers have demonstrated their techniques on national television as recently as October, U.S. News has omitted details of how the monitoring is conducted. Officials from four different agencies declined to respond on the record about the classified program: the FBI, Energy Department, Justice Department, and National Security Council. "We don't ever comment on deployments," said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages NEST.

In Washington, the sites monitored have included prominent mosques and office buildings in suburban Maryland and Virginia. One source close to the program said that participants "were tasked on a daily and nightly basis," and that FBI and Energy Department officials held regular meetings to update the monitoring list.

The question of search warrants is controversial, however. To ensure accurate readings, in up to 15 percent of the cases the monitoring needed to take place on private property, sources say, such as on mosque parking lots and private driveways. Government officials familiar with the program insist it is legal; warrants are unneeded for monitoring from public property, they say, as well as from publicly accessible driveways and parking lots. "If a delivery man can access it, so can we," says one.

Officials also reject any notion that the program specifically has targeted Muslims. "We categorically do not target places of worship or entitles solely based on ethnicity or religious affiliation," says one. "Our investigations are intelligence driven and based on a criminal predicate."

Among those said to be briefed on the monitoring program were Vice President Richard Cheney; Michael Brown, then-director of the Federal Emergency Management Administration; and Richard Clarke, then a top counterterrorism official at the National Security Council. After 9/11, top officials grew increasingly concerned over the prospect of nuclear terrorism. Just weeks after the World Trade Center attacks, a dubious informant named Dragonfire warned that al Qaeda had smuggled a nuclear device into New York City; NEST teams swept the city and found nothing. But as evidence seized from Afghan camps confirmed al Qaeda's interest in nuclear technology, radiation detectors were temporarily installed along Washington, D.C., highways and the Muslim monitoring program began.

Plans to 'top' 9/11 strikes

Three Algerians arrested in an anti-terrorist operation in southern Italy are suspected of being linked to a planned new series of attacks in the United States, interior minister Giuseppe Pisanu said Friday.

The attacks would have targeted ships, stadiums or railway stations in a bid to outdo the September 11 2001 strikes by al-Qaeda in New York and Washington which killed about 2 700 people, Pisanu said.

The Algerians, suspected of belonging to a cell established by an al-Qaeda-linked Algerian extremist organisation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), were named as Achour Rabah, Tartaq Sami and Yasmine Bouhrama.

The first two were arrested on Friday in the Salerno area south of Naples, and in Curingia, in the southern Calabria region, respectively.

Bouhrama, 32, had been in jail in Naples since November 15 in connection with another investigation of the GSPC.

He is believed to be the head of the Salerno cell and to have liaised with other cells in Milan, Brescia and Naples.

The three in custody are also alleged to have procured false papers and funds to finance the GSPC, a hardline fundamentalist movement that rejects the Algerian government's attempt to draw a line under years of Islamist rebellion.

Pisanu said Friday's swoop was part of a wider operation involving other countries.

Links were uncovered between the GSPC's Italian activities and groups in Britain, the Italian news agency Ansa reported.

MSNBC On Line Poll 85 % Say Impeach Bush !

A Listener/Reader Emailed me The Following Poll:

Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment? * 132629 responses


Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
85%

No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors."
5%

No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.
8%

I don't know.
2%

Not a scientifically valid survey. Click to learn more.

About our Live Votes and surveys

How 1,000 people can be more representative than 200,000

One week in the middle of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, more than 200,000 people took part in an MSNBC Live Vote that asked whether President Clinton should leave office. Seventy-three percent said yes. That same week, an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found that only 34 percent of about 2,000 people who were surveyed thought so.

But MSNBC�s Live Votes are not intended to be a scientific sample of national opinion. Instead, they are part of the same interactive dialogue that takes place in our online chat sessions: a way to share your views on the news with MSNBC writers and editors and with your fellow users.

President Bush Job Approval At 50 %

Fifty percent (50%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That's up six points since the President's speech on Sunday night.

It's also the first time since July that the President's Job Approval has reached the 50% mark. He earns approval from 81% of Republicans, 23% of Democrats, and 42% of those not affiliated with either major political party.

Investor confidence has also jumped in recent days to the highest level in a year and a half. Consumer confidence reached the highest level in nine months.

The President's speech had a measurable impact concerning the War on Terror. Fifty percent (50%) of Americans now say the U.S. and its allies are winning. That's up from 44% immediately before the speech and the highest level of optimism measured in 2005.

Thirty percent (30%) of Americans say that they would definitely vote for Senator Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Presidential Election. Thirty-seven percent (37%) will definitely vote against her.

Immigration is considered a more important voting issue than Iraq by 29% of Americans. Fifty-four percent (54%) say the situation in Iraq is more important to them. Republicans are evenly divided on this question.

The President's highest rating of 2005 was 54% on February 4. His lowest rating was 40% on October 28.

Alito Argued to Overturn Roe in 1985 Memo

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito wrote in a June 1985 memo that the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion should be overturned, a finding certain to enliven January's confirmation hearings.

In a recommendation to the solicitor general on filing a friend-of-court brief, Alito said that the government "should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled."

The June 3, 1985 document was one of 45 released by the National Archives on Friday. A total of 744 pages were made public.

Abortion has become a wedge issue in connection with Alito's confirmation to take the Supreme Court seat held by Associated Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring. The federal appellate court judge has been seeking to assure senators that he would put his private views aside when it came time to rule on the issue as a justice. O'Connor has been a supporter of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling affirming a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The documents released Friday are the latest involving Alito and abortion.

In paperwork released earlier from Alito's time in the Justice Department's solicitor general's office, he recommended a legal strategy of dismantling abortion rights piece by piece. And as part of an application for a job as deputy assistant attorney general, Alito said the Constitution does not guarantee abortion rights.

The latest memo is certain to stir controversy as the Senate prepares for confirmation hearings for Alito, slated to begin Jan. 9.

In the memo, Alito focused on a woman making an informed choice and states rights.

"While abortion involves essentially the same medical choice as other surgery, it involves in addition a moral choice, because the woman contemplating a first trimester abortion is given absolute and unreviewable authority over the future of the fetus," Alito wrote. "Should not then the woman be given relevant and objective information bearing on this choice? Roe took from the state lawmakers the authority to make this choice and gave it to the pregnant woman. Does it not follow that the woman contemplating abortion have at her disposal at least some of the same sort of information that we would want lawmakers to consider?"

Consistent with his previous writings, Alito said these arguments would be preferable to a "frontal assault on Roe v. Wade."

"It has most of the advantage of a brief devoted to the overruling of Roe v. Wade; it makes our position clear, does not even tacitly concede Roe's legitimacy, and signals that we regard the question as live and open," Alito wrote.

In his memo, Alito said the government, in its argument, might be able to nudge the court and "to provide greater recognition of the states' interest in protecting the unborn throughout pregnancy, or to dispel in part the mystical faith in the attending physician that supports Roe and the subsequent cases."

Rumsfeld Says U.S. to Cut Iraq Troop Levels

Just days after Iraq's elections, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday announced the first of what is likely to be a series of U.S. combat troop drawdowns in Iraq in 2006.

Rumsfeld, addressing U.S. troops at this former insurgent stronghold, said President Bush has authorized new cuts below the 138,000 level that has prevailed for most of this year.

Rumsfeld did not reveal the exact size of the troop cut, but Pentagon officials have said it could be as much as 7,000 combat troops. The Pentagon has not announced a timetable for troop reductions, but indications are that the force could be cut significantly by the end of 2006.

That could include substantial reductions well before the November midterm congressional elections, in which Bush's war policies seem certain to be a major issue.

Rumsfeld said two Army brigades that had been scheduled for combat tours - one from Fort Riley, Kan., the other now in Kuwait - would no longer deploy to Iraq. That would reduce the number of combat brigades in Iraq from 17 to 15.

"The effect of these adjustments will reduce forces in Iraq by the spring of 2006 below the current high of 160,000 during the (Iraqi) election period to below the 138,000 baseline that had existed before the most recent elections," the defense secretary said.

Rumsfeld aides said details were to be provided later at the Pentagon.

Further reductions will be considered "at some point in 2006," after the new Iraqi government is in place and is prepared to discuss the future U.S. military presence, Rumsfeld added.

The Pentagon sent an extra 20,000 troops to Iraq to bolster security during the recent elections, and Rumsfeld has previously said those 20,000 would be withdrawn in January to return U.S. force levels to a 138,000 baseline.

FISA Court Discouraged Moussaoui Warrant

Led by the New York Times, a chorus of administration critics have been insisting all week that there was no reason for President Bush to circumvent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when he sought to wiretap terrorists operating inside the U.S. - since the FISA Court almost always approves such requests.

But that's not what the Times reported three years ago, after FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley came forward with the allegation that the Bureau might have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks if only investigators had been allowed access to the laptop computer of suspected 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui.

Moussaoui was arrested in Minneapolis on Aug. 16, 2001 - nearly four weeks before the 9/11 attacks - after an instructor at a local flight school called the F.B.I. to report that he suspected the Moroccan-born terrorist was up to no good.

In a May 2002 report the Times noted: "Two days later, F.B.I. agents in Minnesota asked Washington to obtain a special warrant to search his laptop computer."

However, there was a problem. The paper explained:
"Recent interviews of intelligence officials by The New York Times suggest that the Bureau had a reason for growing cautious about applying to a secret national security court for special search warrants that might have supplied critical information."

"The F.B.I.," officials told the Times, "had become wary after a well-regarded supervisor was disciplined because the [FISA] court complained that he had submitted improper information on applications."

The secret court went so far as to discipline Michael Resnick, the F.B.I. supervisor in charge of coordinating terrorist surveillance operations, saying they would no longer accept warrant applications from him.

Intelligence officials told the Times that the FISA Court's decision to reprimand Resnick, who had been a rising star in the FBI, "resulted in making the Bureau far less aggressive in seeking information on terrorists."

"Other officials," the paper said, complained that the FISA Court's actions against Resnick "prompted Bureau officials to adopt a play-it-safe approach that meant submitting fewer applications and declining to submit any that could be questioned."
Sen. Charles Grassley is among those who think that the FBI might have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks if the FISA Court hadn't discouraged the Bureau from aggressively pursuing a warrant in the Moussaoui case.

In a January 2002 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Grassley noted that had a search been permitted, "Agents would have found information in Moussaoui�s belongings that linked him both to a major financier of the [9/11] hijacking plot working out of Germany, and to a Malaysian Al Qaeda boss who had met with at least two other [9/11] hijackers while under surveillance by intelligence officials."

Al-Qaida Wanted to Kill Bush in White House

A top al-Qaida official close to Osama bin Laden wanted to kill President George W. Bush at the White House, according to a report in the N.Y. Daily News.

Abu Faraj Al-Libi - al-Qaida�s number three leader who was captured in Pakistan last May � also had plans to assassinate Pakistan�s President Gen. Pervez Musharaff.

The information has reportedly been corroborated by two senior U.S. counterterrorism officials.

"Al-Libi had one mission: Kill Bush and Musharraf," the Pakistani official told The News. "He wanted to kill Bush in the White House, preferably."

"It was clearly something they wanted to do. There's no question about that. It's the holy grail of jihad," a senior U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed.
Details of the plot to kill President Bush are highly classified, but word of the plans was disclosed earlier this week.

"It was not known if bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, personally ordered Al-Libi to hit the U.S. President,� writes The News.

BBC News, reporting in May after the capture of Al-Libi in Pakistan, said the low-key Al-Libi rose to the #3 Al-Qaida leadership spot when his mentor, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was captured in March 2003.

It was only through the interrogation of a number of suspects - arrested between January and August last year - that Pakistani authorities started taking note of his presence in the hierarchy, investigators told BBC News.

One security official said: "Every time we interrogate a militant linked to al-Qaida, al-Libbi's name pops up."
The Bush plot never made it past the initial stage of development, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials, and the president was never in imminent danger.

Bush Administration Defends Spying Program

The Bush administration formally defended its domestic spying program in a letter to Congress late Thursday saying the nation's security outweighs privacy concerns of individuals who are monitored. In a letter to the chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Justice Department said President Bush authorized electronic surveillance without first obtaining a warrant in an effort to thwart terrorist acts against the United States

"There is undeniably an important and legitimate privacy interest at stake with respect to the activities described by the president," wrote Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella. "That must be balanced, however, against the government's compelling interest in the security of the nation."

President Bush has acknowledged he authorized such surveillance and repeatedly has defended it in recent days.

Moschella maintained that Bush acted legally when he authorized the National Security Agency to go around the court to conduct electronic surveillance of international communications into and out of the United States by suspects tied to al-Qaida or its affiliates.

Moschella relied on a Sept. 18, 2001, congressional resolution, known as the Authorization to Use Military Force, as primary legal justification for Bush's creation of a domestic spying program. He said Bush's powers as commander-in-chief give the president "the responsibility to protect the nation."

The resolution "clearly contemplates action within the United States," Moschella wrote, and acknowledges Bush's power to prevent terrorism against the United States.

Moschella said the president's constitutional authority also includes power to order warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance inside the United States. He said that power has been affirmed by federal courts, including the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. The FISA court was created in 1978 after public outcry over government spying on anti-war and civil rights protesters.

Moschella said Bush's action was legal because the foreign intelligence law provides a "broad" exception if the spying is authorized by another statute. In this case, he said, Congress' authorization provided such authority.

The resolution didn't limit the president to going after al-Qaida only in Afghanistan, Moschella wrote.

Moschella also maintained the NSA program is "consistent" with the Fourth Amendment _ which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures _ and civil liberties.

For searches to be reasonable under law, a warrant is needed, Moschella said. But, outside criminal investigations, he said, the Supreme Court has created exceptions where warrants are not needed, finding that the "reasonableness of a search" depends on "the totality of the circumstances."

"Foreign intelligence collection, especially in the midst of an armed conflict in which the adversary has already launched catastrophic attacks within the United States, fits squarely within the 'special needs' exception to the warrant requirement," Moschella wrote.

"Intercepting communications into and out of the United States of persons linked to al-Qaida in order to detect and prevent a catastrophic attack is clearly reasonable."

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Iraqi Citizens Support Ongoing Anti-Terror Ops

As Iraq progresses militarily and democratically, citizens there are stepping forward to inform indigenous and coalition forces of terrorist operations and covert weapons caches, Multinational Force Iraq officials reported today. Iraqi citizens sometimes even are apprehending suspected terrorists themselves, officials noted.
For example, on Dec. 17, a group of Iraqi citizens near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, captured two suspected terrorists who were observed digging up a weapons cache. The citizens reportedly subdued the suspects and called the Kirkuk Joint Coordination Center, which then relayed the information to a nearby patrol. The combined Iraqi and U.S. patrol responded and secured more than 20 artillery rounds, while detaining the terrorist suspects for questioning, officials said.

Also on Dec. 17, another group of Kirkuk residents flagged down a U.S. Air Force patrol and led the airmen to a small weapons cache. The airmen reportedly found two mortar rounds, two rocket-propelled grenade warheads and several anti-aircraft artillery rounds. An explosive ordnance disposal team destroyed the weapons in a controlled detonation, officials said.

A tip from a local citizen in the Tissa Nissan area of Baghdad Dec. 16 led a group of soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Brigade, to a large, buried mortar cache of seven 60 mm mortar rounds. The soldiers reviewed the site and reportedly discovered another suspicious site, which had 19 60 mm mortar rounds. An explosive ordnance disposal team destroyed the ammunition, officials said.

Iraqi soldiers, too, are stepping forward to take the lead, officials said. Iraqi army troops from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Iraqi Intervention Force, reportedly found and cleared two weapons caches near Husaybah Dec. 17.

The first cache, northwest of the city, held six 40 mm rounds, three AK-47s, a single assault rifle and assorted small arms ammunition, officials said. The second cache of 50 82 mm fuses was found in a water tank, northeast of town. The ordnance was collected and slated for subsequent destruction, officials said.

Elsewhere in Iraq, on Dec. 15, soldiers with the Task Force Band of Brothers discovered a large cache of improvised explosive device components near Hawijah. The components reportedly were found by a pair of scout helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division.

The helicopter pilots spotted suspicious activity by several individuals, officials said. They then relayed the suspects' location to a nearby patrol from the division's 1st Brigade Combat Team. The patrol found a weapons cache buried in several 55-gallon drums.

The cache consisted of 414 two-way radios, 48 circuit boards, and more than 100 timing devices -- all of which are used to manufacture IEDs. The cache also included small amounts of AK-47 ammunition, detonation cord, batteries and several bomb-making manuals, officials said.

This was the second time in less than a month that 1st Brigade Combat Team has uncovered a major cache in its area. The team discovered more than 4,200 mortar rounds in a single cache Nov. 27 near Kirkuk, officials said.

Meanwhile, at several locations near Tikrit on Dec. 17, soldiers from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade detained 15 suspected terrorists as part of Operation Eagle Watch.

The 101st soldiers reportedly were conducting an area reconnaissance near Forward Operating Base Speicher, when they observed the terrorist suspects at two separate sites. Unit UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters swooped down to investigate. They found several AK-47 rifles, two sniper rifles, an RPK Soviet machine gun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, officials said.

The contraband was confiscated from the suspects, who then were taken to a nearby detention facility for questioning.

Letter to an American Soldier

Dear Soldier,

For some time now, we have sought to underplay the strife in Washington to reassure you that despite our differences we are all united behind your mission. It is no longer possible to do so. Sadly, there are some among us whose worldview is so skewed that in their minds you are worse than the murderous terrorists intent on our destruction. To them you are the bad one while they are freedom fighters. These people think we cannot and deserve not to win this war.

Such notions almost invariably come from the political Left, often from the highest echelons of the Democratic Party. Let me give you a few examples.

On June 14, 2005, Dick Durbin, the second highest ranked democrat in the U.S. Senate, compared the actions of our military personnel at Guant�namo Bay to those of the Nazi, Soviet and Pol Pot regimes.

Following the disclosure of the Abu Ghraib photos, Senator Kennedy kept pouring oil on fire for months through condemnatory speeches and denunciations. When the storm was abating at last, he reminded the world of it once again by speaking of �the first anniversary of Abu Ghraib.�

On December 6, 2005, Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, asserted that �the idea that we are going to win this war is just plain wrong.� This only one day after John Kerry claimed on national television that you go �into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children.�

As a naturalized citizen and someone who grew up under communism, I am keenly aware of just how great and wonderful this country is. While living in America, I also became conscious of the all around goodness and big-heartedness of the American people. It therefore pains me greatly when I see someone throwing mud at America�s best.

I will not stand by when John Kerry and his ilk compare you to the Nazis and terrorists. John Kerry betrayed his comrades 30 years ago, and now he is trying to do it again to the latest generation of heroic Americans. There is only one word that can describe such a man: traitor.

When I kiss my little girl good night, I do so knowing that many have paid � and many are paying still � a heavy price so that I can partake in this wondrous moment in freedom and peace. The thought that so many laid their lives while making it possible is almost too painful to bear. Tied to you with a bond forged by your sacrifice, I acknowledge its lopsided nature � I get the benefits while you bear the cost.

The nature of our existence is such that for almost everything that is good and precious we depend on the labor and goodwill of others. Of this I become especially cognizant when I think of you. I do not know why our lives take the course they do, but of this I am certain: God is just and with Him no noble sacrifice is ever in vain.

You come from the greatest nation that has ever been and you defend the great idea on which it stands � that men may be free. You fight that others too may have the freedom to live up to their God-given potential and pursue happiness in the way they see fit. Freedom is after love the greatest gift a man can give. And you, dear friend, give both in a measure infinitely abundant.

However severe the hardships you now face or sharp the pain you now endure, one thing can never be in doubt: we will win this war. We will win it, because we have the best military in the world. We will win, because America does not cow before head-chopping terrorists. We will win, because win we must.

We will not let darkness prevail over light, and good will not run in the face of evil. Those whom you have liberated will stay free, and those who would enslave them will meet with the fate they deserve. Once your mission is accomplished, you will come home to a thankful nation leaving behind a country that will never be a threat again.

Embittered and seething with rage, those who speak ill of your toil loathe their own country and attack you, because it is you who makes America strong. Rarely angry with our vicious foe, they are always quick to chide and belittle our military. But do not let that disturb you. They only represent a small number in this land. America brims with grateful people who appreciate your sacrifice, who love you, and who pray for you.

I also want you to know this. We will hold the traitors accountable regardless of where they are or how high their office. We will not allow them to sully your honor or your service. We will not allow them to throw mud into the blood you have spilled. We will not allow them to smear the reputation or the memory of the bravest among us. We will call them on their lies, and we will call them for what they are. And in the end they will go down in shame that their words and actions rightly deserve.

May God bless you and keep you safe.

With abiding appreciation for your service and sacrifice,

I remain gratefully yours,

Vasko Kohlmayer

Vasko Kohlmayer defected from communist Czechoslovakia at the age of 19. He lives in London and works in the publishing industry. He can be contacted at vasko_ kohlmayer@msn.com

U.S. Army in Iraq let down by media & politicians

by Colonel Ken Allard

The Army that I saw last week in Iraq is a superbly competent, disciplined and overwhelmingly lethal force. While undergoing undeniable strains from four years of combat, it is far from the breaking point: but it is being badly let down by both the media and politicians back home.

First the media: The most frequent complaint I heard from the troops is that the war they are fighting in Iraq is not the one they see being reported on TV - and yes, those extensive base-camps are as fully "wired" as most American cities. The only casualties usually reported by the media are our own - but never the extensive destruction being visited upon the insurgent infrastructure. The only real question - are we winning? - is the only one not being analyzed.

The Politicians: Sometimes it's hard to know who's on your side. The Bush administration is belatedly engaging the war of ideas yet is also to blame for the chronic manpower shortages (active and reserve) that have bedeviled the ground forces ever since 9/11. Meanwhile, both Ted Kennedy and Jack Murtha seem oddly intent on doing what Zarkawi and Bin Laden have thus far been unable to do - breaking the will of the American people to sustain this fight.

Our forces may be stretched thin but if you really want to break them, just try bringing them home short of accomplishing their mission. We could get away with thinly disguised retreats in places like Vietnam and Somalia, which were strategic backwaters. But if we manage to rescue defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq - the Schwerpunkt of the fight with radical Islam - then our grandchildren will arise and curse our memories.

U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division finds "large cache"

As the piles of missiles and rockets dug from the desert floor grew, smiles on U.S. Army soldiers' faces turned to scowls of serious concern.

Working on a tip from an informant, soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division on Tuesday dug up more than a thousand aging rockets and missiles wrapped in plastic, some of which had been buried as recently as two weeks ago, Army officials said.

"This is the mother load, right here," Sgt. Jeremy Galusha, 25, of Dallas, Ore., said, leaning on a shovel after uncovering more than 20 Soviet missiles.

As the sun set Tuesday, U.S. soldiers continued to uncover more, following zigzagging tire tracks across the desert floor and using metal detectors to locateweapons including mines, mortars and machine gun rounds.

But the growing piles of missiles and rockets were of primary concern for the soldiers in Iraq, where bombs made with loose ordinance by insurgents are the preferred method to target coalition forces.

"In our eyes, every one of these rockets represents one less IED," said 2nd Lt. Patrick Vardaro, 23, of Norwood, Massachusetts, a platoon leader in the division's 187th Infantry Regiment.

Vardaro would not comment on whether there were signs the caches had been used recently to make bombs, but the service records accompanying the missiles dated to 1984, suggesting they were buried by the Iraqi military under Saddam Hussein.

Still, the plastic around some of the rockets _ of Soviet, German and French origins _ appeared to be fresh and had not deteriorated as it had on some of the older munitions.

An U.S. Air Force explosive ordinance team planned to begin destroying them as early as Wednesday morning.

Commanders in the 101st said knowing that an Iraqi tipped them off to the buried weapons could mean that residents in this largely Sunni Arab region about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Baghdad are beginning to warm up to coalition forces.

"The tide is turning," Vardaro said. "It's better to work with Americans than against us."

Army officials would not say who had informed them of the weapons caches or whether national security forces including Iraqi Army and police had helped.

"A good Samaritan told us about it," he said, reports AP.

U.S. Leading Economic Indicators Rises in Nov.

A widely watched measure of future economic activity rose in November as fewer people filed for jobless benefits, suggesting the nation's economy may grow moderately into the spring, a private research group said Thursday.

The Conference Board said its Index of Leading Economic Indicators, which tries to gauge future economic growth, rose 0.5 percent in November.

Much of last month's gains were tied to a drop in the number of applicants seeking unemployment benefits, which spiked soon after Hurricane Katrina devastated U.S. Gulf States.

The Conference Board's measure of current economic activity, the coincident index, rose 0.2 percent in November, following a 0.2 percent increase in October. The research group said that over the last six months, industrial production and employment have been the engines of growth in its coincident index.

"The 0.5 (percent rise) is a solid gain. It is a nice rise," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Economy Grows at Fastest Pace in 1 1/2 Years



The U.S. economy turned in a remarkably strong performance in the summer despite surging energy prices and the battering the Gulf Coast states took from hurricanes, although business growth was slightly lower than the government previously estimated. The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that the gross domestic product, the nation's total output of goods and services, rose at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the July-September quarter. It was the fastest pace of growth in 1 1/2 years.

While down slightly from the 4.3 percent GDP estimate made a month ago, the new figure demonstrated that the economy kept expanding at a strong pace during the summer, led by solid increases in consumer demand, especially for autos, and business investment.

The third quarter performance was up substantially from a 3.3 percent GDP growth rate in the April-June quarter and was the best showing since the economy expanded at a 4.3 percent rate in the first three months of 2004.

The Bush administration, which has been on a concerted campaign to highlight the economy's strong points to bolster the president's approval ratings, said the 4.1 percent GDP growth rate was evidence of a vibrant economy.

"Today's GDP is more proof that businesses are booming and investors are confident," Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in a statement. "The U.S. economy demonstrated its resilience in the last several months."

Poll: More Americans prefer 'Merry Christmas' greeting

In the cultural battle over whether to use the seasonal greeting "Happy holidays" or "Merry Christmas," the latter appears to be winning, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Tuesday.

In the poll, which surveyed 1,003 adult Americans by phone, 69 percent said they prefer "Merry Christmas" over "Happy holidays," which garnered 29 percent.

Compared with the 2004 Christmas -- or holiday -- season, the number of people who said they use "Happy holidays" has dropped 12 percentage points, from 41 percent to 29 percent.(Test your holiday spirit)

That's bound to be good news for some Christian conservatives who've been pushing for advertisers and stores to wish patrons "Merry Christmas" rather than the more secular and inclusive "Happy holidays." (Full story)

Those who prefer "bah humbug" were not included in the survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

1st Amendment 'doesn't create church-state wall of separation'

Court whacks civil-liberties group, OKs Ten Commandments display

A U.S. appeals court today upheld the decision of a lower court in allowing the inclusion of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse display, hammering the American Civil Liberties Union and declaring, "The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state."

Attorneys from the American Center for Law and Justice successfully argued the case on behalf of Mercer County, Ky., and a display of historical documents placed in the county courthouse. The panel voted 3-0 to reject the ACLU's contention the display violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

The county display the ACLU sued over included the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, the Star Spangled Banner, the national motto, the preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the Bill of Rights to the U. S. Constitution and a picture of Lady Justice.

Writing for the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Richard Suhrheinrich said the ACLU's "repeated reference 'to the separation of church and state' ... has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state."

Suhrheinrich wrote: "The ACLU, an organization whose mission is 'to ensure that ... the government [is kept] out of the religion business,' does not embody the reasonable person."

The court said a reasonable observer of Mercer County's display appreciates "the role religion has played in our governmental institutions, and finds it historically appropriate and traditionally acceptable for a state to include religious influences, even in the form of sacred texts, in honoring American traditions."

State Budgets Boosted by Bush Tax Cuts, Analysts Say

After battling red ink for the past few years, state officials are watching their revenues increase to create budget surpluses, a development some analysts attribute to the financial growth caused by the tax cuts signed into law by President Bush in 2003.

According to the most recent Fiscal Survey of States released by the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), only three states had to scale back their originally budgeted amounts in 2005 when revenues failed to meet projections.

But that's far short of the number of states -- 37 -- that had to do the same thing during the 2003 and 2004 fiscal years combined. And whereas the three states in 2005 revised their budgets downward by $634.6 million, the 37 states in the previous two years had to find $14.5 billion in savings.

Dan Mitchell, senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told Cybercast News Service that "there's no question state government finances are very, very closely tied to the health of the national economy."

Forty-two states ended up collecting more revenue than they expected in the fiscal year that ended in June, the NASBO report states. Alabama, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey and South Dakota saw their revenue projections match the FY 2005 amount budgeted, and only in three states -- Indiana, Missouri and Washington -- did the revenue come in short of the amount originally anticipated in fiscal year 2005.

The good news is expected to continue through the 2006 fiscal year, when proposed state budgets anticipate an average 5.2 percent increase in revenue and spending growth of about 3.8 percent.

One of the success stories of the past few years is Massachusetts. When Republican Gov. Mitt Romney came into office in January 2003, the state had a budget deficit of about $3 billion. Currently, Romney and the Democratic legislature expect to end the 2006 fiscal year with an estimated surplus of $850 million and a "rainy day" fund of $1.7 billion.

Across the country, Montana is using a record overflow of about $300 million to give its citizens property tax relief, while New Mexico is using part of its projected $1 billion surplus to build a 21st-century airport to launch passengers and cargo on suborbital spaceflights.

There's no question, Mitchell said, that the 2003 federal tax cut passed by Congress and signed by President Bush "had a very good effect on the economy." State governments, he said, "are benefiting immensely, albeit indirectly," from the $350 billion tax relief package.

"Ever since the 2003 tax cut, we've basically had 4 percent economic growth," Mitchell said. "That's very good by global standards. Countries like France and Germany are happy to get 1.5 percent growth, and we've had 4 percent growth for a multi-year period."

Since many states tie their tax codes to the federal definition of income, the Bush tax cuts produced "an inadvertent tax cut at the state level," Mitchell said. "But there's no question that the effect of that is small compared with that of faster economic growth."

President had legal authority to OK taps

President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.

The president authorized the NSA program in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. An identifiable group, Al Qaeda, was responsible and believed to be planning future attacks in the United States. Electronic surveillance of communications to or from those who might plausibly be members of or in contact with Al Qaeda was probably the only means of obtaining information about what its members were planning next. No one except the president and the few officials with access to the NSA program can know how valuable such surveillance has been in protecting the nation.

In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.

Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.

In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the ... courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence ... We take for granted that the president does have that authority."

The passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 did not alter the constitutional situation. That law created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that can authorize surveillance directed at an "agent of a foreign power," which includes a foreign terrorist group. Thus, Congress put its weight behind the constitutionality of such surveillance in compliance with the law's procedures.

But as the 2002 Court of Review noted, if the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches, "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."

Every president since FISA's passage has asserted that he retained inherent power to go beyond the act's terms. Under President Clinton, deputy Atty. Gen. Jamie Gorelick testified that "the Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes."

FISA contains a provision making it illegal to "engage in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute." The term "electronic surveillance" is defined to exclude interception outside the U.S., as done by the NSA, unless there is interception of a communication "sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person" (a U.S. citizen or permanent resident) and the communication is intercepted by "intentionally targeting that United States person." The cryptic descriptions of the NSA program leave unclear whether it involves targeting of identified U.S. citizens. If the surveillance is based upon other kinds of evidence, it would fall outside what a FISA court could authorize and also outside the act's prohibition on electronic surveillance.

The administration has offered the further defense that FISA's reference to surveillance "authorized by statute" is satisfied by congressional passage of the post-Sept. 11 resolution giving the president authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force" to prevent those responsible for Sept. 11 from carrying out further attacks. The administration argues that obtaining intelligence is a necessary and expected component of any military or other use of force to prevent enemy action.

But even if the NSA activity is "electronic surveillance" and the Sept. 11 resolution is not "statutory authorization" within the meaning of FISA, the act still cannot, in the words of the 2002 Court of Review decision, "encroach upon the president's constitutional power."

FISA does not anticipate a post-Sept. 11 situation. What was needed after Sept. 11, according to the president, was surveillance beyond what could be authorized under that kind of individualized case-by-case judgment. It is hard to imagine the Supreme Court second-guessing that presidential judgment.

John Schmidt served under President Clinton from 1994 to 1997 as the associate attorney general of the United States. He is now a partner in the Chicago-based law firm of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw.

Wicker says Bush acted within the law

U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker, R-Tupelo, says President Bush acted on the best possible legal advice and was within the law when he began ordering domestic anti-terror spying by the National Security Agency after Sept. 11, 2001.

Wicker, an 11-year member of the House, said Bush fully explained his reasons in Sunday night's televised address to the nation.

Some lawmakers in both parties have criticized the spying order and say Bush acted outside the Constitution.

"I applaud the president," Wicker said.

Wicker said appropriate oversight committees in both houses of Congress were apprised of the action when it was taken.

"This has been done on a very limited basis. It reflects the reality we are in in a very difficult kind of war," he said.

The surveillance was disclosed Friday by The New York Times.

The newspaper, Wicker said, should not have published the story.

"I have to wonder why they chose to do it so soon after the elections in Iraq," Wicker said. "I am glad the president went ahead and made clear what his motivations were."

50% Say U.S. Winning War on Terror

The President's Sunday night speech has increased the nation's confidence concerning the situation in Iraq and the War on Terror. Confidence is up among Republicans and unaffiliateds, but not among Democrats.

Fifty percent (50%) of Americans now believe that the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror. That's up from 44% immediately preceding the speech. It's also the highest level of confidence in more than a year.

Just 25% of Americans believe the terrorists are winning. Rasmussen Reports has asked this survey question more than 70 times over the past two years. Just once, in April 2004, has a smaller percentage of Americans believed that the terrorists were winning. When December began, 28% believed the terrorists were winning.

Forty percent (40%) of Americans now give the President good or excellent marks for handling the situation in Iraq. That's up from 35% before the speech.

The number giving the President poor marks on Iraq declined to 39% from 42%. This is the first time all year that the number giving the President good or excellent marks has matched the number saying poor.

Resigned FISA Judge a Committed Clintonista

The press is breathlessly reporting that U.S. District Judge James Robertson has resigned from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - "apparently" in a fit of conscience over news that President Bush was using the National Security Agency to monitor the telephone conversations of terrorists.

If the reports are correct, Judge Robertson's conscience has evolved considerably since the days when he was dismissing one criminal case after another against cronies of Bill Clinton - the man who appointed him to the bench in 1994.

Old Arkansas media hand Paul Greenberg has long had Robertson's number. In a 1999 column for Jewish World Review, Greenberg described the honorable judge as "one of the more prejudiced Clintonoids on the bench."

As Accuracy in Media noted in 2000, Judge Roberston's conscience wasn't particularly troubled by the crimes committed by one-time Clinton Deputy Attorney General Webb Hubbell.

In two cases involving Hubbell, AIM reported, "Judge James Robertson threw out a tax charge and another for lying to federal investigators. Appellate courts overruled in both cases, and Hubbell then plead guilty to felonies in each case."
Judge Robertson's conscience also seemed to go AWOL when it came to the case of Archie Schaffer, an executive with Tyson Chicken - the company that had showered Mr. Clinton with campaign contributions and helped steer Mrs. Clinton to her commodities market killing.

Critics said Judge Robertson was merely returning the favor on behalf of the man who appointed him, when - as CNN reported in 1998, he "threw out the jury conviction of Tyson Foods executive Archie Schaffer for providing gifts to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy."

Robertson had "granted a motion by Schaffer to overturn the verdict which found him guilty of giving Espy tickets to President Bill Clinton's first inaugural dinner and gifts at a birthday party for the firm's chief executive, Don Tyson."

In the context of his past performance on the bench, Judge Robertson's media fans will surely understand why some of us aren't buying their claims that he stormed off the FISA court in a fit of outrage over perceived law breaking.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

FISA Court Approved Bush Spy Program

Contrary to claims by Democrats currently hyperventilating on Capitol Hill over President Bush's decision to use the National Security Agency to monitor communications among terrorists, Bush's so-called "illegal" spy program has indeed undergone judicial review.

And a special foreign intelligence surveillance appeals court set up to review the case confirmed that such "warrantless searches" were completely legal.

Notes OpinionJournal.com today:

"The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978."

But the Journal notes that in a 2002 case dubbed: "In Re: Sealed Case," the FISA appeals court decision cited a previous FISA case [U.S. v. Truong], where a federal court "held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information."

The court's decision went on to say: "We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."

What's more, notes the Journal: "The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about" the Bush surveillance program.

How Bush Tried to Kill Snoopgate Story is B.S.

Johnathan Alter of Newsweek published this story on 12/19/2005 about the President personally summonsing the NY Times Editor and Publisher to the White House to ask them not to print the so called "Snoopgate Story".

Well, even if that's true, and I emphasize "IF", so what. The NY Times already printed that the administration had asked them not to print the story. So why is this news?

It's news folks because the MSNM isn't getting the milage out of this that they hoped for. It's news because many Americans are not alarmed by the "Snoopgate" story and understand that the President ordered the surveillance of persons overseas linked with Al-Qaeda having conversations with someone in the US. Not any and all US Citizens.

Just read the following paragraph, especially the opening sentence:


Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate�he made it seem as if those who didn�t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda�but it will not work. We�re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

The MSNM was beside itself with glee when this story broke. They were jumping up and down in fits of joy. "Finally, we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex,corruption, and political intrigue..." It's like this is what we (MSNM) have been waiting for!.

and you just have to love this part:

I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting,
but one can only imagine the president�s desperation.


Yes, Jonathan, that's right, one can only imagine, you admit here that the Times would not comment on the meeting, so how do you know what when on there ? The answer folks, is that he doesn't know and is just speculating.

If the Times would not comment on the meeting then how does he know what transpired between the Times and the President? So if he doesn't know how can he write an article saying that he does ?

ZERO crediblity !

Democrats Say They Didn't Back Wiretapping

Some Democrats say they never approved a domestic wiretapping program, undermining suggestions by President Bush and his senior advisers that the plan was fully vetted in a series of congressional briefings. "I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities," West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, said in a handwritten letter to Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003. "As you know, I am neither a technician nor an attorney."

Rockefeller is among a small group of congressional leaders who have received briefings on the administration's four-year-old program to eavesdrop _ without warrants _ on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the United States with suspected ties to al-Qaida.

The government still would seek court approval to snoop on purely domestic communications, such as calls between New York and Los Angeles.

The White House brushed aside Democrats' contention that they weren't provided enough information on the program. "They were briefed and informed," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, repeatedly refusing to address Democrats' specific complaints. "Congress has an important oversight role."

Some legal experts described the program as groundbreaking. And until the highly cl conference that he was assuming unlimited powers.

"To say 'unchecked power' basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject," he said angrily. "I am doing what you expect me to do, and at the same time, safeguarding the civil liberties of the country."

Despite the defense, there was a growing storm of criticism in Congress and calls for investigations, from Democrats and Republicans alike. Until the past several days, the White House had only informed Congress' top political and intelligence committee leadership about the program that Bush has reauthorized more than three dozen times.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he and other top aides were now educating the American people and Congress. "The president has not authorized ... blanket surveillance of communications here in the United States," he said.

Report: Syria agrees to hide Iran nukes

Syria has signed a pledge to store Iranian nuclear weapons and missiles.

The London-based Jane's Defence Weekly reported that Iran and Syria signed a strategic accord meant to protect either country from international pressure regarding their weapons programs. The magazine, citing diplomatic sources, said Syria agreed to store Iranian materials and weapons should Teheran come under United Nations sanctions.

Iran also pledged to grant haven to any Syrian intelligence officer indicted by the UN or Lebanon. Five Syrian officers have been questioned by the UN regarding the Hariri assassination, Middle East Newsline reported.
"The sensitive chapter in the accord includes Syria's commitment to allow Iran to safely store weapons, sensitive equipment or even hazardous materials on Syrian soil should Iran need such help in a time of crisis," Jane's said.

The accord also obligated Syria to continue to supply the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah with weapons, ammunition and communications. Iran has been the leading weapons supplier to Hizbullah, with about 15,000 missiles and rockets along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

The accord, negotiations of which began in 2004, was signed on Nov. 14 and meant to prepare for economic sanctions imposed on either Iran or Syria. Under the accord, Jane's said, Iran would relay financial aid to Syria in an effort to ease Western sanctions in wake of the UN determination that Damascus was responsible for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Iran also pledged to supply a range of military aid to Syria. Jane's cited technology for weapons of mass destruction as well as conventional arms, ammunition and training of Syrian military.

Teheran would seek to upgrade Syrian ballistic missiles and chemical weapons systems. Under the accord, Iran would also be prepared to operate "advanced weapon systems in Syria during a military confrontation." Jane's said.

"The new strategic accord is based on the existing military MoUs, with the addition of the sensitive chapter dealing with cooperation in times of international sanctions or military conflict," Jane's reported.

Congressman calls for Bush impeachment

U.S. Rep. John Lewis said Monday in a radio interview that President Bush should be impeached if he broke the law in authorizing spying on Americans.

The Democratic senator from Georgia told WAOK-AM he would sign a bill of impeachment if one was drawn up and that the House of Representatives should consider such a move.

Lewis is among several Democrats who have voiced discontent with Sunday night's television speech, where Bush asked Americans to continue to support the Iraq War. Lewis is the first major House figure to suggest impeaching Bush.

"Its a very serious charge, but he violated the law," said Lewis, a former civil rights leader. "The president should abide by the law. He deliberately, systematically violated the law. He is not King, he is president."

Bush Did Not OK Blanket Surveillance of US Citizens

Some quotes from Monday's press briefing with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, about the National Security Agency's program that eavesdrops on Americans' communications:

Gonzales said one party to the communication must be outside the United States and linked with al-Qaida or an affiliate organization. "The president has not authorized ... blanket surveillance of communications here in the United States."

Gonzales would not provide the documents laying out the legal arguments for the program, but he didn't rule out releasing more information later. "We're engaged now in a process of educating the American people ... and educating the Congress."

Hayden asserted the program has worked in combatting terrorists, although he wouldn't offer specifics: "I can say unequivocally ... that we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available."

Gonzales said "we'll just have to wait and see" whether there is an investigation into who leaked information about the program.

Hayden and Gonzales suggested the government felt constrained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The 1978 law gives the government _ with approval from a secretive U.S. court _ the authority to conduct covert wiretaps and surveillance of suspected terrorists and spies. Hayden said FISA requires a process of "marshaling arguments" and "looping paperwork around."
"FISA was built for persistence," Hayden said. "FISA was built for long-term coverage against known agents of an enemy power. ... This program isn't for that. This is to detect and prevent. And here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger."

Gonzales said the administration considered changing FISA, but members of Congress advised them that lawmakers would not be likely to go along _ "certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program."

Judgments on who to monitor are made at the NSA, approved by an NSA shift supervisor and carefully recorded, Hayden said. "The reason I emphasize that this is done at the operational level is to remove any question in your mind that this is in any way politically influenced," he said.

On the importance of the intelligence, Hayden said, "There are probably no communications more important to what it is we're trying to do to defend the nation ... than those communications that involve al-Qaida and one end of which is inside the homeland."

President Bush's Approval Rating Rises

A successful Iraq election, a soaring domestic economy and a series of speeches by President Bush have apparently helped lift his job approval rating, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday.

Bush's job approval rating jumped to 47 percent, up eight points from it's all-time low in November. His approval rating regarding the handling of the war in Iraq jumped 10 points to 46 percent.

An aggressive public speaking campaign to boost American support for the war on terrorism � highlighted by successful free elections in Iraq � has helped regain confidence in the White House for many Americans, and may help drive a positive leadership agenda into 2006.

President Bush has consistently highlighted the need to "stay the course" in Iraq despite setbacks and occasional missteps, but the recent speeches have also advanced the strategic mission in Iraq, rather than the steady, negative drumbeat provided by major media outlets.

Seventy-one percent of those polled said the successful Iraqi elections � with more than 70 percent of Iraqis participating in the historic voting � move the U.S. closer to bringing military forces home from that region once the Iraqi troops are trained and ready to assume their own security there.

Positive economic news, including low unemployment, lower gas prices, tax cuts and rising revenues, also resulted in a 10 point gain with 45 percent of Americans saying they were positive about the U.S. economy

Monday, December 19, 2005

Attorney General Gonzales: Congress OKd Spying

Responding to a congressional uproar, the Bush administration said Monday that a secret domestic surveillance program had yielded intelligence results that would not have been available otherwise in the war on terror.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Congress had essentially given President Bush the authority for domestic surveillance after the Sept. 11 attacks.

At a White House briefing and in a round of television appearances, Gonzales provided a more detailed legal rationale for President Bush's decision authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on international phone calls and e-mails of people within the United States without seeking warrants from courts.

He refused to say how many people had been targeted and insisted, "This is not a situation of domestic spying."

Gonzales defended Bush's decision not to seek warrants from the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, saying that "we don't have the speed and the agility that we need in all circumstances to deal with this new kind of enemy."

Gen. Michael Hayden, deputy national intelligence director who was head of the NSA when the program began, said, "I can say unequivocally we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available."

Gonzales said he had begun meeting with members of Congress on the Bush administration's view that Congress' authorization of the use of military force after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ample authorization for the surveillance.

"Our position is that the authorization to use military force which was passed by the Congress shortly after Sept. 11 constitutes that authority," Gonzales said.

It was the most detailed legal explanation given by an administration officials since the New York Times reported Thursday that since October 2001 Bush had authorized the NSA to conduct the surveillance.

Gonzales said Congress' action after Sept. 11 essentially "does give permission for the president of the United States to engage in this kind of very limited, targeted electronic surveillance against our enemy."

Bush Says NSA Surveillance Necessary, Legal

President Bush, brushing aside bipartisan criticism in Congress, said Monday he approved spying on suspected terrorists without court orders because it was "a necessary part of my job to protect" Americans from attack.

The president said he would continue the program "for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens," and added it included safeguards to protect civil liberties.

Bush bristled at a year-end news conference when asked whether there are any limits on presidential power in wartime.

"I just described limits on this particular program, and that's what's important for the American people to understand," Bush said.

Raising his voice, Bush challenged Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - without naming them - to allow a final vote on legislation renewing the anti-terror Patriot Act. "I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to go home and explain why these cities are safer" without the extension, he said.

Reid represents Nevada; Clinton is a New York senator, and both helped block passage of the legislation in the Senate last week.

"In a war on terror we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment," Bush said.

Reid fired back quickly. "The president and the Republican leadership should stop playing politics with the Patriot Act," he said in a statement that added he and other Democrats favor a three-month extension of the expiring law to allow time for a long-term compromise.

The legislation has cleared the House but Senate Democrats have blocked final passage and its prospects are uncertain in the final days of the congressional session.

On another issue, Bush acknowledged that a pre-war failure of American intelligence - claiming that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction - has complicated the United States' ability to confront other potential emerging threats such as Iran.

"Where it is going to be most difficult to make the case is in the public arena," Bush said. "People will say, if we're trying to make the case on Iran, 'Well, if the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we trust the intelligence on Iran?"'

Bush �Doing the Right Thing�

Author and commentator Tammy Bruce said President Bush is "doing the right thing� in Iraq and his recent campaign of speeches and press conferences should help Americans realize the country is on the road to victory.

Appearing on Fox News Channel, Bruce said the Bush Administration is finally realizing that major media will not give him credit for any success � particularly the remarkable success of elections in Iraq. The White House, she says, has correctly gone on the offensive to get their stories out regardless of potential criticism in newspapers and broadcast media.

"The media blitz is working,� Bruce said. "Each time the president gives a speech on Iraq, his [poll] numbers increase. His arguments - his context of what�s going on in Iraq � is not being covered by mainstream media. Bush wants to be heard, and the only way to be heard is to make speeches and call press conferences, to lead the news cycle.�

Bruce said the recent elections in Iraq are a tremendous success and a testament to the bold and decisive allied effort to liberate that country from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. She said the White House should not hold its breath waiting to get credit for this success from the likes of the New York Times.

"[The White House] needs to look for credit with the American people, not with media,� she said. "No matter what this administration accomplishes, it�s not going to matter to mainstream media.
"Instead of trying to convince them [reporters and editors], he just needs to convince America that he�s doing the right thing.�

Clinton Used NSA for Economic Espionage

During the 1990s, President Bill Clinton ordered the National Security Agency to use its super-secret Echelon surveillance program to monitor the personal telephone calls and private email of employees who worked for foreign companies in a bid to boost U.S. trade, NewsMax.com has learned.

In 2000, former Clinton CIA director James Woolsey set off a firestorm of protest in Europe when he told the French newspaper Le Figaro that he was ordered by Clinton in 1993 to transform Echelon into a tool for gathering economic intelligence.

"We have a triple and limited objective," the former intelligence chief told the French paper. "To look out for companies which are breaking US or UN sanctions; to trace 'dual' technologies, i.e., for civil and military use, and to track corruption in international business."

As NewsMax reported exclusively on Sunday, Echelon had been used by the Clinton administration to monitor millions of personal phone calls, private emails and even ATM transactions inside the U.S. - all without a court order.

The massive invasion of privacy was justified by Echelon's defenders as an indispensable national security tool in the war on terror.
But Clinton officials also utilized the program in ways that had nothing to do with national security - such as conducting economic espionage against foreign businesses.

In his comments to Le Figaro, Woolsey defended the program, declaring flatly: "Spying on Europe is justified."

"I can tell you that five years ago, several European countries were giving substantial bribes to export business more easily. I hope that's no longer the case."

During hearings in 2000 on the surveillance flap, Woolsey told Congress that in 1993 alone, U.S. firms obtained contracts worth $6.5 billion with the help of timely intelligence information.

"We collect intelligence on those efforts to bribe foreign companies and foreign governments into awarding an airport contract to a European firm rather than an American firm," Woolsey said in a 1994 speech, in quotes picked up by the New York Post.
Predictably, European officials were outraged by what they regarded as a massive abuse of the NSA's spying capacity.

"[This is] an intolerable attack against individual liberties, competition, and the security of states," complained Martin Bangemann, then-European commissioner for industry.

But the complaints went unheeded in Washington.

In 1996, President Clinton signed the Economic Espionage Act, which, according to the Christian Science Monitor, authorized intelligence gathering on foreign businesses.

"The Clinton administration has attached especial importance to economic intelligence, setting up the National Economic Council [NEC] in parallel to the National Security Council," the Monitor reported in 1999.

"The NEC routinely seeks information from the NSA and the CIA," the paper continued, citing anonymous officials. "And the NSA, as the biggest and wealthiest communications interception agency in the world, is best placed to trawl electronic communications and use what comes up for US commercial advantage."

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Clinton NSA Eavesdropped on U.S. Calls

During the 1990's under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon.

On Friday, the New York Times suggested that the Bush administration has instituted "a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices" when it "secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without [obtaining] court-approved warrants."

But in fact, the NSA had been monitoring private telephone conversations on a much larger scale throughout the 1990s - all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.

In February 2000, for instance, CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft introduced a report on the Clinton-era spy program by noting:

"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency."

NSA computers, said Kroft, "capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world."

Echelon expert Mike Frost, who spent 20 years as a spy for the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, told "60 Minutes" that the agency was monitoring "everything from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs."

Mr. Frost detailed activities at one unidentified NSA installation, telling "60 Minutes" that agency operators "can listen in to just about anything" - while Echelon computers screen phone calls for key words that might indicate a terrorist threat.

The "60 Minutes" report also spotlighted Echelon critic, then-Rep. Bob Barr, who complained that the project as it was being implemented under Clinton "engages in the interception of literally millions of communications involving United States citizens."

One Echelon operator working in Britain told "60 Minutes" that the NSA had even monitored and tape recorded the conversations of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond.

Still, the Times repeatedly insisted on Friday that the NSA surveillance under Bush had been unprecedented, at one point citing anonymously an alleged former national security official who claimed: "This is really a sea change. It's almost a mainstay of this country that the NSA only does foreign searches."

SADDAM GIVES NEWSPAPER INTERVIEW

IRAQI tyrant Saddam Hussein has made a series of astonishing claims � giving a glimpse of his state of mind.

The once-feared despot broke his silence in an interview with The Sun from his cell.

In it he ranted how he:

HOPED to flee by motorbike just minutes before he was nabbed by US combat forces.

PRAISES cowardly French President Jacques Chirac as his �longtime friend�.

BRANDED our sensational scoop pictures of him in his pants an insult to Iraqi people.

Speaking through his lawyer, Saddam told how his escape plan was botched and claims he was gassed by American troops.

He revealed: �I came out of the house where I was hiding by this hole. I went through the trap door. I went down the hole, through the tunnel then lost consciousness.�

Saddam hoped to emerge unnoticed in nearby bushes � before staging a Steve McQueen-type great escape riding a motorcycle.

But he added: �I believe I was betrayed. I have been set up.�

His lawyer Ramsey Clark, 78, a former US Attorney General, revealed: �Saddam thinks he was gassed in the tunnel.

�He tried to get to the exit of the tunnel. But he did not have time to get away. He told us he spent maybe minutes in this tunnel � not hours or days.

�When he started to get out there were soldiers around that area. There was supposed to be a motorcycle there. It was gone.

�Saddam knew the person who owned the house wasn�t there. He knew he had been betrayed.�

In fact deluded Saddam�s hiding place was a dirty rathole that led nowhere.

The revelations shed new light on the astonishing operation which led to Saddam�s capture on a farm near al-Dawr, near Tikrit in December 2003.

The cowering despot was nabbed underground with two AK47s and �420,000 by the US 4th Infantry Division�s 1st Brigade Combat Team who acted on a tip-off.

Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist

While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.

These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co?author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.

The results appear in the latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which will become available in mid-December.

President Bush Asserts U.S. Is Winning Iraq War


President Bush asserted Sunday night the United States is winning the war in Iraq but acknowledged violence and setbacks and the doubts of some "that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day."

He pleaded with Americans to ignore "defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right."

The president held out hopes for withdrawing American forces as Iraqi troops gain strength and experience. "As these achievements come, it should require fewer American troops to accomplish our mission."

The president spoke from the Oval Office, where in March, 2003, he announced the U.S.-led invasion. Nearly three years later, more than 2,150 U.S. soldiers have died, Bush's popularity has plummeted and about half of Americans think the war was a mistake. Yet a strong majority oppose an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces.

"I know that some of my decisions have led to terrible loss and not one of those decisions has been taken lightly," he said. "I know that this war is controversial, yet being your president requires doing what I believe is right and accepting the consequences."

Arguing against withdrawal, Bush said that "to retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor and I will not allow."

But, he said, "Not only can we win the war in Iraq � we are winning the war in Iraq."

He said there were only two options for the United States � victory or defeat.

"And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party because the security of our people is in the balance. I do not expect you to support everything I do but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair and do not give up on this fight for freedom."

Text of President Bush's address:Click here

Presidential Power and the Surveillance of Foreign Powers Conspiring with United States Citizens

by Hugh Hewitt

Overlooked in most of the commentary on the New York Times article is the simple, undeniable fact that the president has the power to conduct warantless surveillance of foreign powers conspiring to kill Americans or attack the government. The Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures has not been interpreted by the Supreme Court to restrict this inherent presidential power. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (an introduction froma critic of the Act is here) cannot be read as a limit on a constitutional authority even if the Act purported to do so.

"Further, the instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country."

That is from the 1972 decision in United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan et al, (407 U.S. 297) which is where the debate over the president's executive order ought to begin and end. The FISA statute can have no impact on a constitutional authority, and more than an Act of Congress could diminish the First Amendment protection provided newspapers. Statutes cannot add to or detract from constitutional authority. (They can influence the Supreme Court's interpretation of the president's authority, as discussed by Justice Jackson in his famous opinion in the Steel Seizure Cases.) The 1972 decision contains a colloquy from the Senate floor between Senators Hart, Holland, and McClellan on that illustrates the correct understanding of this crucial principle:

For the rest of the article click here

John McCain: Bush Right to Use NSA

Sen. John McCain disappointed Democrats on Capitol Hill on Sunday by defending the Bush administration's decision to use the National Security Agency to monitor a limited number of domestic phone calls in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Saying that Sept. 11 "changed everything," McCain told ABC's "This Week": "The president, I think, has the right to do this."

"We all know that since Sept. 11 we have new challenges with enemies that exist within the United States of America - so the equation has changed."

McCain said that while the administration needs to explain why it didn't first seek approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, he suggested that the Patriot Act might have superseded the 1978 FISA Act, allowing "additional powers for the president."

McCain said the fact that congressional leaders - including top Democrats - were consulted on the NSA authorization "is a very important part of this equation." He suggested that any congressional hearings into the Bush decision focus on that aspect.
"I'd like to hear from the leaders of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, who, according to reports, we're briefed on this and agreed to it," he told "This Week." "They didn't raise any objection, apparently, to [whether] there was a, quote, violation of law."

Asked about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's claim that she "raised concerns" about granting the NSA new powers during one meeting with White House officials, McCain said: "I don't know about any meetings, but I certainly never heard complaints from anyone on either side of the aisle.

"When this process was being carried out I would imagine that the leaders of Congress would be very concerned about any violation of law as well," he said. "Apparently [those concerns have] not been raised until it was published in the New York Times."

McCain also warned that any congressional investigation should take care not to force additional disclosures from the White House that could help the enemy, saying: "I don't see anything wrong with congressional hearings but what kind of information are you going to put into the public arena that might help the al Qaida people in going undetected."