Database Of U.S. Phone Calls.

[Art Sandusky 0]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/11/nsa...ords/index.html

 

Bush says U.S. not 'trolling through personal lives'

USA Today reports NSA building massive phone records database

 

Thursday, May 11, 2006; Posted: 3:02 p.m. EDT (19:02 GMT)

 

President Bush said the NSA was not "trolling through personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."

 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Thursday the government is "not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans" with a reported program to create a massive database of U.S. phone calls.

 

"Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates," Bush said. "The privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities."

 

Bush was responding to a USA Today report Thursday that three telecommunication firms provided the National Security Agency with domestic telephone call records from millions of Americans beginning shortly after the attacks on September 11, 2001.

 

Bush did not specifically mention the newspaper's report.

 

In response to the USA Today article, NSA spokesman Don Weber issued a statement saying, "Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no information to provide.

 

"However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law."

 

Lawmakers concerned

Members of Congress expressed concern Thursday about the report.

 

"It's our government, government of every single American -- Republican, Democrat or independent," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "...Those entrusted with great power have a duty to answer to Americans what they are doing."

 

In the House, Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, "I'm concerned about what I read with regard to the NSA database of phone calls. ... I'm not sure why it's necessary to us to keep and have that kind of information."

 

Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, said he would call on representatives from the companies named in the USA Today story; AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth; to testify.

 

However, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, told reporters he "strongly" agrees with Bush, and said, "We'll discuss whether hearings are necessary."

 

The president said in his statement that the intelligence activities he authorized "are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat."

 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said she had been briefed on the NSA program during a closed subcommittee hearing.

 

She said it's "fair to say that what was in the newspaper this morning is not content collection. ... Nonetheless, I happen to believe we're on our way to a major constitutional confrontation on Fourth Amendment guarantees of unreasonable search and seizure."

 

Conservatives defend program

However, during a morning session, Republican members of the committee defended the legality and necessity of such a database.

 

The USA Today report said the program did not involve the NSA "listening to or recording conversations," a point that Sen. Jeff Sessions touched on.

 

"No recordings and no conversations were intercepted here, so there was no wiretapping here," Sessions said.

 

"The president after 9/11 told the American people he was going to use the powers given to him to protect this country. ... It's not a warrantless wiretapping of the American people."

 

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona also faulted the revelation of the program as harmful to national security.

 

"This is nuts," Kyl said. "We are in a war and we've go to collect intelligence on the enemy and you can't tell the enemy in advance how you are going to do it. And discussing all of this in public leads to that."

 

But Leahy, a vocal critic of the wiretapping program, praised the USA Today report, saying "it's a sorry state" that the committee will have to call on the telecom companies for the information.

 

"We have to do that because our own government won't answer questions," Leahy said. "Neither this committee nor any committee in the House or in the Senate has gotten adequate answers. ...

 

"The press is doing our work for us and we should be ashamed."

 

Hayden nomination to proceed

The report comes at an awkward time for CIA director nominee Gen. Michael Hayden, whom President Bush named this week to replace Porter Goss as head of the spy agency. Hayden, whose confirmation hearings begin next Thursday, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005.

 

The White House intends to go "full steam ahead" with Hayden's nomination, despite the controversy, Reuters reported.

 

"I think General Hayden has had a really good start to his confirmation process. He's met with several members, the feedback is positive and we're full steam ahead on his nomination," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters while traveling with President Bush to Mississippi.

 

Feinstein -- who supports Hayden's nomination -- said the information will "present a growing impediment" to his confirmation, a development she said she regretted.

 

Facing Senate confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee on May 18, Hayden's meeting today with Sens. Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, were canceled.

 

The meeting with Santorum has been tentatively rescheduled for Tuesday afternoon, said Santorum aide Robert Traynham. "But the White House called it very tentative," Traynham said.

 

The report comes months after the Bush administration came under criticism on Capitol Hill for ordering an NSA surveillance program, that allowed communication to be monitored between people in the United States and terrorism suspects overseas without a court order.

 

Hayden headed the NSA when the wiretapping program was launched in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

 

President Bush has argued that the resolution authorizing military action after the 9/11 attacks, along with his authority as commander-in-chief of the military, give him the power to initiate the program without a court order, as a 1978 law requires.

 

Investigation dropped

The Justice Department has been denied security clearances for access to information, which prompted it to drop an investigation into the program. (Full story)

 

The Democrats' No. 2 member of the Senate, Sen. Richard Durbin, called the development "evidence of a coverup."

 

"The fact ... that the Department of Justice has abandoned their own investigation of this administration's wrongdoing because there's been a refusal to give investigators security clearances is clear evidence of a coverup within the administration."

 

Last month, a former AT&T technician said in a sealed court document filed in federal court that the company cooperated with NSA to install equipment for "vacuum cleaner surveillance" of e-mail messages and Internet traffic, according to his lawyer.

 

Attorney Miles Ehrlich of Berkeley, California, told CNN that his client, Mark Klein, said there is a special room inside an AT&T building in San Francisco that is entirely controlled by NSA personnel and contains equipment that can sift through large amounts of Internet traffic.

 

Man, he doesn't get it, does he. I'm starting to feel sorry for anyone who was duped into voting these people into office.

[Guest Felonies!]

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, told reporters he "strongly" agrees with Bush, and said, "We'll discuss whether hearings are necessary."

NAW

 

They just keep fumbling this. Sad.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah, that George W. Bush is surely a great conservative president, isn't he? This doesn't smack of big government at all...

[bobobrazil1984 0]

we really need to get Hillary into office so the Republicans will suddenly realize what's so bad about this and maybe do something.

[Guest JustPassinBy]

I could use that database. I've lost a few numbers of ex-gfs I'd like to still talk too.

[SuperJerk 0]

we really need to get Hillary into office so the Republicans will suddenly realize what's so bad about this and maybe do something.

 

What? You mean the Republicans only care about certan issues when they're not the one's in charge?!?!!?!? That's just crazy talk.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans

 

 

Guess who said it!

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Your terrorist surveillance program at work:

 

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling

 

May 15, 2006 10:33 AM

 

Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

 

A senior federal law enforcement official tells us the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

 

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

 

We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

 

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

 

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/0...al_source_.html

[EricMM 0]

If you ask one conservative at the Pit, its officially impossible to track phone numbers anyways (then why do it at all if it can't do anything??)

 

If you ask an average american voter (a 60 something at my workplace) there is no problem with this as long as it keeps us "safer" which is such a lovely term.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

If you ask an average american voter (a 60 something at my workplace) there is no problem with this as long as it keeps us "safer" which is such a lovely term.

 

"Based on what you have heard or read about this program to collect phone records, would you say you approve or disapprove of this government program?"

 

 

 

Approve 43

Disapprove 51

Unsure 6

 

5/12-13/06

 

Source: USA Today/Gallup

 

http://www.pollingreport.com/terror.htm

[NoCalMike 0]

It has already been speculated that phone numbers will eventually be matched to SSN numbers, which will open the door to medical records etc....

 

So how would you like to not be able to get a job because through the click of a mouse button, it is determined you are too expensive for the company to insure?

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Freedom means having all your information known by the government at all times (at least according to the neo-cons, apparently).

[snuffbox 0]

Is Invader3k turning a new leaf?

[Guest Felonies!]

It has already been speculated that phone numbers will eventually be matched to SSN numbers, which will open the door to medical records etc....

 

So how would you like to not be able to get a job because through the click of a mouse button, it is determined you are too expensive for the company to insure?

It's just for safety! We want to keep you safe!

 

Is Invader3k turning a new leaf?

Wouldn't shock me. Even I'm getting pissed off at this crew, and I've traditionally supported the Republicans (odd for a high schooler/college student.)

[Dobbs 3K 0]

No, see, you guys don't get me. I HATE the current administration. I did support going to war when Iraq supposedly had WMDs, but since they obviously didn't, President Bush should be punished for his mistakes and lies. That's why I voted for John Kerry.

 

I don't like the Democrats all that much because they have no coherent agenda, and Howard Dean was a terrible choice to be DNC chairman.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I don't like the Democrats all that much because they have no coherent agenda, and Howard Dean was a terrible choice to be DNC chairman.

 

I couldn't disagree more. Love Dean or hate Dean, his 50 state strategy and energizing the party at state and local levels is exactly what the party needs. Dean doesn't want to ignore huge swaths of the country like the party has been doing for decades now.

[snuffbox 0]

Plus, he doesnt sound nearly as mindlessly spineless as most of this party brethren.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

No, but he's too far on the left to attract most middle class Americans, IMO. This is the guy that said "the Republic party is basically just a bunch of Christian white guys." As a Christian white guy, this makes me question whether or not I should vote Democrat again in the future.

[jesse_ewiak 0]

Dean got a A rating from the NRA, had a balanced budget in Vermont, and by all accounts, aside from civil unions, was a moderate with a universal health care fetish. As a side note, the Republican Party is a bunch of Christian white guys. Have you looked at the makeup of the GOP lately?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

2004 Exit Polls:

 

White Men:

Bush: 62%

Kerry: 37%

 

Whites:

Bush: 58%

Kerry: 41%

 

White/Evangelical/Born-Again:

Bush: 78%

Kerry: 21%

 

They don't have a category for white/male/evangelical/born-again, unfortunately. I'm guessing it'd be about 95-5.

 

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/res...0/epolls.0.html

[Maztinho 0]

Dean got a A rating from the NRA, had a balanced budget in Vermont, and by all accounts, aside from civil unions, was a moderate with a universal health care fetish. As a side note, the Republican Party is a bunch of Christian white guys. Have you looked at the makeup of the GOP lately?

 

^True.

 

The republicans have that one black guy though don't they?

 

I'm getting sick of people raping what rights we have in the name of security. And I hate mindless Bush bashing as well. Sure pointing out the fact that he lied, and screws up a lot is fine, but Bush is dumb because he says lots of malaprops, that bugs me. Not that I'm offended. I'm just sick of the joke that wasn't funny since the word "Strategry."

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Dean got a A rating from the NRA, had a balanced budget in Vermont, and by all accounts, aside from civil unions, was a moderate with a universal health care fetish. As a side note, the Republican Party is a bunch of Christian white guys. Have you looked at the makeup of the GOP lately?

The republicans have that one black guy though don't they?

 

Not in Congress.

[snuffbox 0]

Allen Keyes...the jobber of American politics.