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“Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.” George Bush April 20, 2005
On December 16, 2005, The New York Times printed a story asserting that following 9/11, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States without the court-approved warrants required for domestic spying as part of the War on Terror.
The President assured us that only calls made internationally and made by suspected terrorists were monitored and that it was perfectly legal. Turns out Christiane Amanpour got caught up in that sweep. She’s an award winning correspondent to CNN covering the Middle East. She made numerous phone calls from Iraq to the US, no doubt a great many to her husband. Her husband is an ex-ambassador and an advisor to the Kerry Edwards 2004 campaign. I don't suppose Dubya found any of those conversations interesting, do you?
Last Thursday Yahoo reported that since 9/11 the NSA has collected phone records from AT&T, Verizon and Southern Bell. Every call, local, long distance, international, all of them. Don't worry we’re told, it was only a list of phone numbers, not actual conversations. Just lookin' for patterns. Besides it was completely legal.
Hmmm. Not according to the Telecommunications Act of 1934 which provides for a $1000 fine per violation. Verizon is facing a $50 billion class action law suit over their complicity in the matter. Well, they must have thought it was legal, right? Three of the four largest telecom providers rolled over and gave the NSA what it asked for but Qwest refused. Now, if it were legal doesn't it make sense that the NSA would have forced Qwest to provide its data as well? They didn't, they just quietly went away and didn't bother Qwest further.
Well, what damage can come from a list of four billion phone numbers? ABC just reported that Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, two of ABC’s best investigative reporters, were informed by one of their sources (in a face to face conversation) that, “the government is tracking the phone numbers you call in an effort to root out confidential sources. It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source said.
“If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," George Bush, CNN December 18, 2000. Damn that pesky Constitution and it’s irritating Bill of Rights.
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