For all we know, Bush might have asked right after 9-11. Then again, maybe they didn’t know exactly what they were going to do until a little time had pssed.

Democrats suck.

That much is certain.

Right after 9/11, Congress received a briefing of very secret matters, and details were almost immediately leaked to the press. Bush actually had to remind them very firmly that classified means something.

After the President discussed war plans with Congress, Senator Rockefeller immediately went and discussed them with Saudi Arabia, Syria, and others.

I still don’t know why he wasn’t tried for treason.

Well for starters we don’t even have a declaration of war.

LevStrauss on December 22, 2008 at 4:25 PM

Yes we do.

I mean we should have withdrawn from the treaty. Treaties which commit us to future wars are insane.

lodge on December 22, 2008 at 3:48 PM

So our membership in NATO, SEATO, etc is by definition insane? All of these relationships require to come to the defense of a fellow member that is attacked?

FISA already had a retroactive warrant 72hrs after the fact for emergency situations.

LevStrauss on December 22, 2008 at 3:51 PM

And if the judge fails to rule in that 72 hours, they are required to pull the tap until the judge gets around to ruling.

Then why do we usually ask for a warrant in the first place? Shouldn’t we just take the cops word for it?

LevStrauss on December 22, 2008 at 3:38 PM

Still thinking that war is a police matter I see.

We should have rescinded the treaty then.

lodge on December 22, 2008 at 3:34 PM

We did. With the first bomb.

How else are they going to communicate? They still have to communicate that way, they don’t have much of a choice.

LevStrauss on December 22, 2008 at 3:25 PM

Are you serious? There are many ways to communicate.
Only communicate one on one, not in large groups.
Maybe if they know they are being investigated, they should stop all illegal activity?

The possibilities are endless.

Because too much information would have to be given to too many people?

crosspatch on December 22, 2008 at 2:29 PM

Seeking approval of such a program from congress as a whole would have risked exposing the programs.

MarkTheGreat on December 22, 2008 at 2:29 PM

It must be nice to just make crap up when you don’t have a real answer.

LevStrauss on December 22, 2008 at 2:38 PM

Right after 9/11, Congress received a briefing of very secret matters, and details were almost immediately leaked to the press. Bush actually had to remind them very firmly that classified means something.

So it’s a long-standing principle that all of Congress doesn’t need to know everything. We see from the given quotes that members of Congress were consulted. Presidents as a matter of necessity limit classified information, even for people who have the needed clearance, to those who have an actual need to know. In the case of Congress, generally those committees of Congress that have related oversight.

Must be nice to have no memory of events you’re discussing.

Tamm admitted that he did not fully know what the program did when he went to the press instead of following chain of command:
http://patterico.com/2008/12/14/leaker-of-nsa-eavesdropping-program-revealed-shocka-hes-a-big-bush-hater/#more-19609

(via patterico)

And Isikoff’s story reinforces my view strongly. Because the article (together with other research I have done on Tamm, set forth below) shows him to be an anti-Bush partisan who didn’t even know the details of the program, but notified reporters in part because of an anti-Bush bias, and a disagreement with other actions by the Bush Administration, some of which were indisputably legal. Isikoff tells us:
Tamm concedes he was also motivated in part by his anger at other Bush-administration policies at the Justice Department, including its aggressive pursuit of death-penalty cases and the legal justifications for “enhanced” interrogation techniques that many believe are tantamount to torture.

But even if his motives were bad, at least he was disclosing something that he knew to be illegal . . . right? Wrong. For all he knew, the program was perfectly legal — because he didn’t really know anything about it:
But, he insists, he divulged no “sources and methods” that might compromise national security when he spoke to the Times. He told reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen nothing about the operational details of the NSA program because he didn’t know them, he says. He had never been “read into,” or briefed, on the details of the program. All he knew was that a domestic surveillance program existed, and it “didn’t smell right.”

Wow!!
disclosing classified information that is being used to thwart terrorist attacks because he wanted to score political points against Bush.

WHERE HAVE I HEARD THIS BEFORE??:

Democrats Mull Politicizing Iraq War Intelligence
Wednesday, November 05, 2003

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,102206,00.htmlget_a(300,250,”frame1″);

Among other things, the memo recommends that Democrats “prepare to launch an investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the [Senate] majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration’s use of intelligence at any time — but we can only do so once … the best time would probably be next year.”
The last paragraph of the memo reads, “Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public’s concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq.”

democrats selling out their country for political advancement.
“YES WE CAN”

Of course programs they yelled and screamed about like this
NSA wiretapping program were so terrible,just ripping up the
Constitution for crying out loud,that they drew a line in the sand….AND VOTED FOR IT AGAIN!(with immunity for the telecoms)

Congress backs FISA, hands victory to Bush
Bill eases eavesdropping rules
S.A. Miller (Contact)
Thursday, July 10, 2008
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/10/congress-backs-fisa-hands-victory-to-bush/?page=1

Ending more than a year of wrangling between the White House and the Democrat-led Congress over modernizing the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the measure lets the government intercept foreign calls without court approval and gives phone companies legal immunity for aiding the administration’s warrantless wiretap program enacted after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The 69-28 Senate vote that sent the bill to the president’s desk divided Democrats and spurred criticism of the party’s likely presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, for switching his position to support the bill.

Bush was right.

oops wait, that’s torture. Let’s do what other countries do, pull out their toenails and incisors with pliers.

So as long as both parties agree, then it’s ok.

Well both branches agreed that it was legal.

The judicial branch isn’t the only branch that can interpret the Constitution.

They may have the final word; but not the only one.

I suggest you look up Project Echelon, then maybe you wouldn’t have to talk with your nether regions. How else do you think they taped Newt and the other Repub’s??? Oh, thats right, some Dem couple somehow mysteriously picked it up on their radio in thier car and were somehow able to record it as they were driving in Florida…. riiiiiight.

Got it.

Apparently rights aren’t really rights. I was confused, I guess.

How do we prevent the Administration – future ones – from misusing this authority?

We may all agree (those on one side) that this authority is a necessary application of government power during a time of war. But what is to prevent the next President from abusing this authority and using it not to go after Islamist terrorists but against his domestic political opposition?

Are the existing oversight measures sufficient to prevent that from happening?

If we weed out the over-the-top rhetoric, eventually there’s a pony. What do we do with it?