White House Gives Details on Surveillance

[quaoar]

Here's the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5603679,00.html

By KATHERINE SHRADER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — After weeks of insisting it would not reveal details of its domestic eavesdropping, the White House reversed course Wednesday and provided a House committee with highly classified information about the program.

< snip >

At least one Democrat left the four-hour House session saying he had a better understanding of legal and operational aspects of the anti-terrorist surveillance program being conducted without warrants but still had a number of questions.

“It’s a different program than I was beginning to let myself believe,” said Alabama Rep. Bud Cramer, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee’s oversight subcommittee.

“This may be a valuable program,” Cramer said, adding that he didn’t know if it was legal. “My direction of thinking was changed tremendously.”

[feelthebreeze]

1. Could this be why Senselessbrenner is now all gung ho to ...

investigate? http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Senior_House_Republican_wants_answers_on_0208.html
Man oh man I am smelling something very rotten here. Must be a new set of lies justifying the destruction of our Constitution. I do not trust any actions taken by these people.

[FormerRepublican]

2. Uh oh. Propaganda or truth? And doesn't it still need to be legal?

[twaddler01]

4. Good question

:shrug:

[TomInTib]

3. They must have shown "Bud" the pics.

You know, 'those'.

[phoebe]

5. Cramer's votes on bills - looks to be something of a DINO

http://irregularbin.com/house/CramerAL5.html
snip


Progressive Action Score: 7 Regressive Conservative Score: 50
A score of 7 means that Rep. Cramer has acted to support 7% of a slate of progressive policies in the 109th Congress.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Progressive, forward-looking actions Rep. Cramer has taken to merit a PAS of 7:
The Patriot Act is a betrayal of the great American tradition of liberty because it encourages the government to spy on the legal, personal activities of Americans who have not broken the law. The Bush Administration is using that power to grab information out of commercial and public databases and assemble them into a single giant computer database through which the private affairs of every American citizen can be tracked by government officials. Although the Patriot Act reauthorization passed, Rep. Cramer took a brave stand by voting NO, protecting traditional American liberties. We need more Americans in government like Rep. Cramer.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Progressive political actions that Rep. Cramer could have taken but unfortunately chose not to take:

By voting "no" on the Farr Amendment, Rep. Cramer voted to keep Section 102 in H.R. 418, giving a Bush administration bureaucrat the ability to nullify any law without judicial review of that decision. Where I come from, they call that dictatorship.


By voting "no" on the Scott Amendment, Rep. Cramer voted to keep language in H.R. 27 that allows organizations to engage in government-funded religious discrimination in hiring. We had thought that bigotry was old hat, and that the separation of church and state was secure. With this vote, Rep. Cramer has helped to weaken the constitution and bring bigotry back in style.



Rep. Cramer has not yet cosponsored H.R. 2412, which would provide more information to the public about contacts between lobbyists and politicians, and which would slow down the revolving door of politics in which politicians move into cushy corporate jobs after they retire in exchange for favors. What is Representative Cramer's problem with ethics?

Rep. Cramer has not yet cosponsored H.R. 550, a bill which would sensibly require the establishment of a backup paper record of votes for those times when electronic voting machines fail. Why is Rep. Cramer unwilling to protect the bedrock of democracy, Americans' faith that every vote counts?


Rep. Cramer has not yet cosponsored H.R. 952, which would put an end to the practice of "extraordinary rendition," in which Bush Administration officials send people into the custody of certain nations, knowing full well (some would say intending) that they will be tortured there. Extraordinary rendition is another stain on the moral clarity of the United States. It is a horrible irony that in a "War on Terror," the United States government would allow the use of terror as a tool. Why is Rep. Cramer unwilling to stand against American complicity in the use of torture?


Robert (Bud) Cramer has not yet signed on as a cosponsor to H.R. 1157, which would keep government agents from riffling through your bookstore receipts and library records without your permission or knowledge. Why is Rep. Cramer standing against privacy, against individual liberty, and with Big Brother? That's not a rhetorical question.


Robert (Bud) Cramer has not yet cosponsored H.R. 1440, which would keep members of the Federal Communication Commission from using their appointed positions to censor cable, satellite or internet programs they consider to be indecent. These "narrowcast" programs are accessed only by those who specifically request them, so why should the government make it their business to keep people from seeing what they want to see? Why has Rep Cramer not yet lent support to this sensible, freedom-defending bill?

Robert (Bud) Cramer has not yet cosponsored H.J. Res 37, which would amend the United States Constitution to simply state the following: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification." It's simple, it's obvious, and it's about time something was done to enshrine this principle in the Constitution for men and women alike. When will Rep. Cramer step out of the Stone Age and take this important stand for equality?


Rep. Cramer has not yet cosponsored H.R. 567, which would preserve and protect the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from short-sighted, unnecessary development.



with reference to his not wishing to have paper records for voters to verify - seems he took money from the now infamous Nichols Research Center allied closely with Diebold and the whole electronic voting machine saga..back in 1997 98

http://www.opensecrets.org/1998os/detail/N00003042.htm

snip

Nichols Research Corp $5,500 - one of his heftiest donations..

[quaoar]

12. Cramer is a conservative Dem for sure

But if he wasn't in that district it would likely go Republican -- and we only have two Dem congressmen, Cramer and Artur Davis, who represents the black-majority district. Cramer's district covers north Alabama, including Huntsville.

[roguevalley]

6. so he thinks its good even though he KNOWS its not legal? What

kind of chimp brain does this guy have? for god sake. don't carry water for the asshole. he could be showing them manipulated crap and probably is.

[central scrutinizer]

7. and why would anybody think they are telling the truth this time?

It's taken a few weeks to cook up some plausible sounding bullshit to deflect criticism from what they were really doing.

[stop the bleeding]

8. something's not right here n/t

[Rose Siding]

9. Cramer's one of the founding members of the Blue Dogs

They help bush with their votes a greater % of the time than any other dem faction, including the dlc.

http://cramer.house.gov/HoR/AL05/Issues/Blue+Dogs/

Here's a breakdown of the defections.

snip>
....I then added up the number of times they defected from the Democratic majority in the 109th Congress when the Democratic majority was different from the Republican majority on an actual piece of legislation. The results were staggering.

Out of the nine votes (the child interstate notification abortion act has since been added to the original eight) and the one proxy vote (I have also added Social Security to the totals via the Fainthearted Faction and Conscience Caucus collected by TPM) here are the current levels of party loyalty among different groups in the House:

All Democrats: 82.5%
All Republicans: 96.1%
DLC: 79.0%
Democrats, non-DLC: 83.3%
Blue Dog Democrats: 54.3%
Non-Blue Dog Democrats: 88.3%
Bingo. Caucus disunity has a name-o. Outside of the Blue Dogs, Democratic Party loyalty on the important, party differentiating votes in the House is comparable to Republicans: 88.3% to 96.1%. Further, Blue Dog Party loyalty, 54.3%, is massively lower than that found either in the DLC, 79.0%, or among non-Blue Dog Democrats, 88.3%. Overall, the thirty-five members of the Blue Dog coalition account for 44.9% of all Democratic Party defections over these ten votes / issues, even though they only make up 17.2% of the caucus.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/4/28/122920/723

[WePurrsevere]

10. I don't care if BushCo SPINS & does the Hokey Pokey. Sans a WARRANT it's

UNCONSTITUTIONAL and ILLEGAL to spy on an American citizen. :nuke:

[Rex]

11. Well dam, since when did people start listening to Dems?!

My my my

[rodeodance]

15. umm.. twas Conzalas and Hayden who did the briefing.

....The shift came after Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., chairwoman of a House Intelligence Committee subcommittee, broke with the Bush administration and called for a full review of the NSA's program, along with legislative action to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

``I think we've had a tremendous impact today,'' Wilson said at a news conference as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Gen. Michael Hayden, the nation's No. 2 intelligence official, briefed the House panel on technical and tactical intelligence.

``I don't think the White House would have made the decision that it did had I not stood up and said, 'You must brief the Intelligence Committee,''' she said.

When asked what prompted the move to give lawmakers more details, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino the administration stated ``from the beginning that we will work with members of Congress, and we will continue to do so regarding this vital national security program.''

[rodeodance]

13. Cramer still wondering why it took so long for WH to inform Congress.

......Still, Cramer said, some members remain angry and frustrated, and he didn't know why the White House waited so long to inform Congress of its actions.

Lawmakers leaving the briefing said it covered the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Justice Department papers outlining legal justifications for the operations, limited details on success stories and some highly sensitive details.

The White House has insisted that it has the legal authority to monitor terror-related international communications in cases in which one party to the call is in the United States.

For more than 50 days, senior officials have argued that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were within the law when they chose to brief only the eight lawmakers who lead the House and Senate and its intelligence committees.

[Child_Of_Isis]

14. “This may be a valuable program,”

They got the goods on this pansy.:eyes:

[rodeodance]

16. Rep. Jane Harman........also sounded a positive note.

and this from Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060209/pl_nm/security_eavesdropping_dc;_ylt=AsvDjCifxb7gym8aGTwK6CSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

.......FIRST STEP

House intelligence committee's Republican chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, described the briefing as a positive first step and said the classified discussion had avoided only certain technical issues.

"While the briefing did not, and could not, cover the full operational aspects of the program, it will allow for increased committee oversight going forward," Hoekstra said.

The panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (news, bio, voting record) of California, also sounded a positive note. "The ice is thawing," she told reporters. "The administration sees that it's better to work with Congress on this issue."

But in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans continued to question Bush's legal authority and called for a full inquiry.........

[rodeodance]

17. Rockerfeller wrote the WH a letter today--wants more information.

Sen. John Rockefeller (news, bio, voting record) of West Virginia, ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, wrote to Bush on Wednesday asking that Gonzales and Hayden be allowed to brief the Senate panel on the full facts about the program.

"Sen. Rockefeller has not received a response from the White House, and will continue to press for the full committee to have access to all operational and legal details of the program," said Rockefeller's spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi.

The administration claims the program is authorized by Bush's Constitutional powers as commander-in-chief and by a congressional authorization for the use of military force passed in the days following the September 11 attacks.

But critics say the program violates both the Constitution and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which requires warrants for all electronic eavesdropping.

[superconnected]

18. All I've ever heard from bushco is lies.

Why would I believe busco would tell this man the truth. Expecially since they could get indited over it.

gee tough choice..... I choose not to believe bush co.

[land of the free]

19. If this administration is in charge of what information they'll release

we won't have a clue of whether this program is necessary, much less legal.

I can't believe that more people aren't calling for an independent investigator to be assigned to this. Perhaps the Dems have to go through the motions first before getting enough support to call for a special prosecutor.
(On a related note, I saw a great ad by Moveon.org today calling for an independent investigation of the wiretapping situation. I often think their ads go a bit too far, but this one was very well designed to not appear like a higly partisan ad. I think it will capture the attention of a lot of moderates, which may really help the cause.).

[OneBlueSky]

20. well, we can be damn sure of one thing . . . whatever was disclosed . . .

was not "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" . . . BushCo doesn't even know the meaning of the words . . .

[HuffleClaw]

21. ``It's a different program than I was beginning to let myself believe,''

...said Alabama Rep. Bud Cramer, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee's oversight subcommittee.

``This may be a valuable program,'' Cramer said, adding that he didn't know if it was legal. ``My direction of thinking was changed tremendously.''

this cramer guy must be some kind of moron if he's so easily swayed by what was certainly a litany of lies told under a veil of secrecy.

[EFerrari]

22. Nice try, criminals. No dice. n/t

[leesa]

23. They are falling for the lies. God these people are dumb!