Cheney Says Eavesdropping `Critical' to Security (Feingold disagrees)

[papau]

Russ Feingold (D-WI) .... that is "the kind of argument people like to make sometimes when they're trying to cover their tracks."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/economy/usgovernment.html

Cheney Says Eavesdropping `Critical' to Security (Update4)

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said the Bush administration's authorization of eavesdropping inside the U.S. without court approval has helped prevent terrorist attacks in the last four years and suggested that similar surveillance might have prevented the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon.
<snip>``If we'd been able to do this before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon,'' Cheney said. ``We didn't know they were here plotting until it was too late.''
Senator Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, expressed skepticism about Cheney's assertion that tapping phones without court approval could have stopped an attack on Sept. 11.
``That's the kind of argument people like to make sometimes when they're trying to cover their tracks,'' Feingold told reporters on a conference call. He said that while President George W. Bush didn't have the authority to order the wiretaps, hearings should be held before a decision on what action, if any, should be taken against him.
``We ought to have a dignified process,'' he said.

[papau]

1. Washington Post's Jim VandeHei/Dan Eggen challenge VP Cheney's assertion

The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei and Dan Eggen challenge Vice President Cheney's assertion to the Heritage Foundation yesterday that warrantless monitoring may have averted 9/11.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010400973.html

Cheney Cites Justifications For Domestic Eavesdropping

Secret Monitoring May Have Averted 9/11, He Says

By Jim VandeHei and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 5, 2006; A02

Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks might have been prevented if the Bush administration had had the power to secretly monitor conversations involving two of the hijackers without court orders.
As part of an effort to sell Americans on the administration's recently disclosed program to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications between the United States and people overseas without a warrant, Cheney told a small group of conservatives at the Heritage Foundation that instead of being able to "pick up" on the terrorist plot "we didn't know they were here plotting until it was too late."
But Cheney did not mention that the government had compiled significant information on the two suspects before the attacks and that bureaucratic problems -- not a lack of information -- were primary reasons for the security breakdown, according to congressional investigators and the Sept. 11 commission. Moreover, the administration had the power to eavesdrop on their calls and e-mails, as long as it sought permission from a secret court that oversees clandestine surveillance in the United States.
The bigger problem was that the FBI and other agencies did not know where the two suspects -- Cheney's office confirmed that he was referring to Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar -- were living in the United States and had missed numerous opportunities to track them down in the 20 months before the attacks, according to the Sept. 11 commission and other sources.<snip>
Cheney's apparent reference to Alhazmi and Almihdhar is also incomplete, leaving out the fact that several government agencies had compiled significant information about the duo but had bungled efforts to track them….Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert who heads Rand Corp.'s Washington office, said it is unclear what communications could have been intercepted if the FBI and other agencies did not know where Alhazmi and Almihdhar were.<snip>

[C_U_L8R]

2. Eavesdropping is not the issue...

ILLEGAL eavesdropping without any warrant whatsoever IS THE ISSUE.
The fact that President Bush broke the law and continues to break the law
IS THE ISSUE.

You wanna eavesdrop??? Get a warrant.
No warrant - but still eavesdropping??? Then go to jail.
What part of the law don't these idiots understand??

[Richardo]

3. Bingo. Get a fucking warrant.

:thumbsup:

[HereSince1628]

4. I'll second that.

The ends DO NOT justify the means. When Cheney is in jail he'll have time to work that out.

[jobycom]

5. "Eavesdropping" is a crime "security" should protect us against.

The whole point of government is so that we the people can protect ourselves from ALL forms of rights violations. Eavesdropping by a runaway government that believes it is above the people rather than an extension of the people is EXACTLY the type of abuse we wrote laws to prevent.

The law was created to stop YOU, Dick, from doing what you and your trained monkey did. No matter how you squirm, you broke a law meant specifically to protect US from YOU. You belong in a jail cell with other rapists and murderers and terrorists and thugs.

[gizmo1979]

6. This from a man who won't

let his residence show up on goggle satellite.maybe he won't mind if we listen in on a couple of his phone calls.Seeing how he has killed more americans than the bad guys.

[NanceGreggs]

7. Similar surveillance might have prevented the Sept. 11 attack ...

Hmm, let's see what else might have prevented the Sept 11 attack ...

Paying attention to the already-in-place intelligence people, who warned the then-new Bush administration about the threat of Osama Bin Laden ...

Listening to people like Richard Clarke, instead of focusing on 'other matters' ...

READING AND GIVING HEED TO THE AUGUST 6TH BRIEFING: "BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN THE UNITED STATES," instead of 'clearing brush' ...

But we're supposed to believe that while they IGNORED all of the information they were getting from career professionals in the intelligence field, they would have PAID ATTENTION to random phone calls (which may or MAY NOT HAVE ever even occurred) ...

If you believe any of this BS, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you at a real good price - but you have to buy it QUICK, because according to Cheney, it could be destroyed by a single guy with a blow-torch any day now ...

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

9. Damn Straight...

Trash the Patriot Act -- ALL OF IT -- because everything the U.S. needed to protect ourselves from terrorism was in place on January 20th, 2001. Everything except for the moron currently occupying the Oval Office.

During the transition, Clinton's NSA team turned over a thick dossier on Bin Laden and Al Queda to Condi Rice, telling her that Bin Laden was the nation's top security threat. The dossier was tossed into a drawer and didn't see the light of day until sometime on the morning of September 12th.

Gary Hart and Warren Rudman delivered the results of a Blue Ribbon Commission that studied airport security -- it gave virtually a blow-by-blow account of how the September 11th hijackers would breach security at Logan Airport. The report was tossed into the same desk drawer, but we were told that the Vice President would soon convene a panel to study the issue. The panel has yet to meet.

The FBI's chief expert on counter-terrorism, John O'Neill, tried for months to get a meeting with the President to discuss the link between Al Queda and the Saudi Royal Family, and the increasing reports that Al Queda was planning another attack. Frustrated by months of being put off, O'Neil resigned from the Bureau in July, 2001 and became (ironically) the chief of security for the World Trade Center. He died in the September 11 attacks.

Throughout the summer of 2001, every major security organization on the planet (both foreign and domestic) was screaming that Al Queda was planning to strike in the United States. Bush is even given a memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

Rather that call an emergency meeting of the various law enforcement and intelligence agencies -- which might have resulted in the wide circulation of the Phoenix Memorandum, an FBI field office communication that noted several "persons of interest" had been enrolling in domestic flight schools, Bush continued on his vacation in Texas.

All of the electronic surveillance in the world is no substitute for real leadership.

[NanceGreggs]

11. Talk about a great bumper-sticker ...

"All of the electronic surveillance in the world is no substitute for real leadership."

:applause:

[frylock]

8. able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the pentagon

YOU HAD A FORTY-FIVE-FUCKING MINUTE HEAD START AND YOU COULDN'T EVEN DO THAT, YOU MISERABLE FUCKSTAIN!!! FUCK ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gratuitous]

10. How does Crashcart figure that?

After all, Stupidhead had a memo on his desk for a month before 9/11 saying that bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States. His month-long vacation after six months on the job was far more important to him, though. So the Twin Towers fell, and the Pentagon was attacked for the first time ever on his watch.