WASHINGTON -- Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter declared yesterday that Congress would launch hearings to investigate a report that President Bush secretly authorized warrantless spying on US citizens following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Boston Globe
''There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania. He added that the hearings would be ''a very, very high priority" when Congress returns from its winter break in January.
Thankfully, there is at least one or two sane republicans left in the Senate. Best of all, Arlen Specter is in a position to be able to do something about this as chair of the senate judiciary committee.
And Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said: ''This is Big Brother run amok. . . . With these new developments, we must take a step back and not rush the Patriot Act, further risking our civil protections."
The New York Times reported yesterday that Bush had secretly ordered the National Security Agency to intercept international phone calls and e-mails by US citizens. The report said Bush authorized the NSA to spy on as many as 500 citizens at a time without obtaining warrants.
Posts
5 comments:
hahahah Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did the same thing. This is hypocrasy at it's best. Besides, you don't have anything to worry about if you aren't dabbling in terrorism. If you have secrets you'd be scared the government would find out, perhaps you need a lifestyle change. I'd actually like the government to look into me...they could see how good a citizen I am.
I'm sure Jimmy and Billy are behind George 100%.
No, Clinton *didn't* do it.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/20/the-echelon-myth/
But what kind of a poor excuse is that? Ooooh, but Clinton did it!!! Seriously, that's almost childish.
Furthermore, Joe, the fact is the government has a history of listening into anti-war movements and using tactics against them. It has a history of coming out against peace and justice movements such as the Southern Freedom Movement.
How about this... there was a UMASS Student who was investigated by the FBI - without a warrant, mind you, becuase he had a research paper on communisim and used the inter-library loan to take out "the Little Red Book."
Don't be niave, the government is likely listening into people who it has no business listening to people. If they truly deserved to be spied on, it is INSANELY easy to get a FISA warrant - and if its a matter of urgency, the government is allowed to spy now and get a retroactive warrant up to 72 hours later.
You, sir, have no ground to stand on in this issue.
Besides the fact we haven't been attacked in going on 5 years...
And where are all the people the government spied on? Why haven't they come forward? Probably because it's clear they had terrorist connections.
AS far as being childish, government officials are constantly talking about precedent regarding some executive order or another, so the fact that Cliton (whom may or may not have, I will concede) did it is perfectly relevent.
FBI: a kid at my school got investigated by the FBI while writing a paper for an Assassinations class...they're fanatical about what they do, but I hardly believe that George ordered those agents to look into a little red book thing...that was probably the beaurocracy failing to put two and two together.
I think both sides have a lot of ground ot stand on regarding this issue, but if people's lives are saved by it, I say go for it. If it is being abused, I would agree that something needs to be done. Frankly, we the people aren't being told any specifics on it, and are being left to make judgements made on broad generalizations.
You could be right, I could be right, we both could be wrong, who knows. We don't really know anyhting..........yet!
"You could be right, I could be right, we both could be wrong, who knows. We don't really know anyhting..........yet!"
Which is precisely why more legislation needs to be made on this subject. If the already existing laws weren't good enough to protect America, fine, let's refine the system... but we can't trash it. We need to maintain our laws so we can protect our rights and protect our country.
Refining the system is the best idea I've heard on this issue to date. But it would seem politicians (both on the right and left) are more worried about getting elected than whether our lives and rights are safe.
The only reason I even consider domestic spying viable under some circumstances is simple: just because you're a citizen doesn't mean you aren't capaple of atrocities.
I really would like to know what these people did to get on the government radar though...to me, that's going to be the deciding factor on how history veiws this.
Post a Comment