Justice Department To Review Domestic Spying

orgelspieler writes, "According to the New York Times, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has opened a review of his department's role in the domestic spying program. Democrats (and some Republicans) have been requesting an all-out investigation into the legality of the so-called 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' since it was made public. But this new inquiry stops short of evaluating the constitutional legitimacy of the program." From the article: "The review, Mr. Fine said in his letter, will examine the controls in place at the Justice Department for the eavesdropping, the way information developed from it was used, and the department's 'compliance with legal requirements governing the program'... Several Democrats suggested that the timing of his review might be tied to their takeover of Congress in this month's midterm elections as a way to preempt expected Democratic investigations of the N.S.A. program."

They'll Still Be Remembered For What They Did

[eldavojohn]

"I'm sorry Senator, I cannot comment on the program due to an ongoing Justice Department investigation" - Alberto Gonzales, speaking to the new Democrat controlled congress sometime next year

He sure isn't afraid to speak his mind now [cnn.com]. And I think that's been his stance since the beginning [cnn.com].

Regardless if they're doing this to prevent a congressional hearing, I think all of Bush's cabinet are in up to their necks with this thing. They've promoted it, publicly praised it & even publicly defended it--I'm excited to see it publicly scrutinized & watch revisionist history write them all off as enemies of the constitution. I mean, my grandfather tells me about the horrible things the president authorized against Japanese-Americans during World War II & my father tells me the horrible things that Nixon did. I'm sure there will a time when I'm a haggled old coot that keeps telling my kids how lucky they are not to have a president that's pushing for government archival of their phone & internet records--and that's the only part I knew about which mean it must be twice as worse! So I put an onion in my pocket which was the style at the time ...

Re:What the Program Actually Is

[Qzukk]

so they could take over the Iraqi Oilfields

I seem to recall a few years back when Bush was claiming that the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil. Of course, now that the cost of the war is expected to pass one [msn.com] or maybe two [guardian.co.uk] trillion dollars, Iraqi oil couldn't pay for it, so it's easy to backpedal on that claim.

You are correct sir.

No, he is wrong, there are two programs. One which tapped calls internationally as the grandparent posted, and a second one that collected phone records on nearly every single American's domestic calls. [usatoday.com] Did you call in for pizza? Did a terrorist call in for pizza (God forbid that terrorists actually run the pizza delivery place, mafia style)? Does it matter? Who knows! Nobody knows what the NSA is going to use such an enormous block of data for, since the vast majority (99.999999999999%?) of the calls have nothing to do with terrorism. Google other articles about Qwest's refusal to participate to see the millions in juicy taxpayer dollars they passed up that the other telecoms were apparently all too happy to suck out of your tax dollars for this service.

is infested with many of the same moonbat types

It's a shame the infestation hasn't managed to drive out the infestation of ignorant Bush supporters who can't even keep track of what their president is doing. Maybe we need to swallow a cat to get the spider now?

Re:"Domestic"?

[Red Flayer]

but isn't the spying program we're talking about calls that original foreignly and only terminate domestically?

No. The program involves surveillance of purely domestic activity as well -- the program is 'limited' to people who are suspected of having contact with foreigners with links to al Qaeda. Once the connection with a foreign person of interest is established, the administration feels that the domestic person is then an OK target for surveillance. The program isn't/wasn't limited to wiretaps -- it also involved field teams doing surveillance, mail sniffing, etc.

Re:What the Program Actually Is

[lawpoop]

It has publicly come out that they are wiretapping domestic calls.

From the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy article [wikipedia.org] article at wikipedia:

"On May 22, 2006, it was reported by Seymour Hersh and Wired News that under this authority, the NSA had installed monitoring and interception supercomputers within the routing hubs of almost all major US telecoms companies capable of intercepting and monitoring a large proportion of all domestic and international telephone and Internet connections, and had used this to perform mass eavesdropping and order police investigations of tens of thousands of ordinary Americans without judicial warrants. " [Emphasis mine]

Here [newyorker.com] is the link to the Hersh article, and here [wired.com] is the link to the Wired article.

Please, wake up.

Posse Without a Warrant

[Doc Ruby]

The NSA warrantless wiretapping is already officially illegal [blogspot.com].

Bush violated the FISA [wikipedia.org]. The FISA is an exception to basic Constitutional guarantees of protection from government privacy invasion and arbitrary searches, within an extended compromise with rare, extreme cases where the government claims extraordinary necessity for speed and secrecy that the normal due process cannot accommodate.

Bush violated the FISA exception that requires him to get a warrant. Therefore he violated the Constitution. Many times, over many years. As a matter of policy, with a large staff behind him. Bush is a criminal of the highest order. That means impeachment. You or I would go to Federal prison for years and be bankrupted [wikipedia.org]. Bush will clear brush at his ranch.