Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - 11:30 AM CST

Where was the outrage when Clinton was doing the same thing?

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - 1:15 PM CST

P(ee), if I may call you that, if you're going to make assertions like this then you are obliged to provide evidence. Simply assuming that there are no criminal acts not commited by President Clinton is sufficient I'm sure for the wingnutty asshat crowd, but here in the reality-based community we require you to support your claims with facts.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - 2:48 PM CST

Yeah, served by Farkas!

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - 3:25 PM CST

The "Effective Anti-Terrorism Tools for Law Enforcement Act of 1996."

It would "expand the powers granted to the FBI to engage in multi- point (roving) wiretaps and emergency wiretaps without court orders, and to access an individual's hotel and vehicle and storage facility rental records. It also relaxed the requirements for obtaining pen register and trap and trace orders in foreign intelligence investigations."

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - 3:57 PM CST

Wow, that's totally not the same thing whatsoever.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - 5:11 PM CST

From Newsmax.com:
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 domestic 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.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi confessed late Saturday that she signed off on President Bush's decision to have a top intelligence agency conduct "unspecified activities" to gather intelligence on possible terrorists operating inside the U.S. in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid also admitted he kept silent about the controversial program, even though he was briefed on its existence "a couple of months ago."

I think if you are going to comment on something take the time and get all the facts from multiply sources not just the mainstream media.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - 5:40 PM CST

That Newsmax story has already been debunked as false.

Here's what George Tenet said under oath in 2000:
"I’m here today to discuss specific issues about and allegations regarding Signals Intelligence activities and the so-called Echelon Program of the National Security Agency…

There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the FBI scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of U.S. persons are involved, whether directly or indirectly. We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department."

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/20/the-echelon-myth/

And this is from Wikipedia:
"Many people oppose NSA's presumed collection operations, assuming that the NSA/CSS infringes on Americans' privacy by spying on the United States' own citizens. However, the NSA's United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibits the interception or collection of information about "...US persons, entities, corporations or organizations..." without explicit written legal permission from the Attorney General of the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that intelligence agencies cannot conduct surveillance against American citizens."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency#ECHELON

You can read USSID 18 here:
http://cryptome.org/nsa-ussid18.htm

I'm stunned that any American would defend any President who deliberately tapped into the private conversations and correspondence of American citizens without following the letter of the law and obtaining a legal warrant. The reason Bush didn't get a warrant is obvious: he knew FISA wouldn't give him one, because he knew he was spying on someone he wasn't supposed to be.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - 6:12 AM CST

My point is it doesn't matter which side your on they are it's all the same.

I am stunned that any American would not what your President to do all he could to protect you.

Wikipedia was just in the news news because someone had posted a fraudulent entry about the assassinations John and Robert Kennedy.