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TechnoratiBush Surveillance Program Was Massive
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration built an unprecedented surveillance operation to pull in mountains of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, a team of federal inspectors general reported Friday, questioning the legal basis for the effort but shielding almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal.
![[Former President George W. Bush addresses a Fourth of July crowd at the Let Freedom Ring 2009 festival at Crystal Beach Park Arena in Woodward, Okla., Saturday, July 4, 2009. (AP Photo)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/bush-july-2.jpg "bush-july-2.jpg")
The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the IGs pointedly say that any continued use of the secret programs must be "carefully monitored."
The report says too few relevant officials knew of the size and depth of the program, let alone signed off on it. They particularly criticize John Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general who wrote legal memos undergirding the policy. His boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, was not aware until March 2004 of the exact nature of the intelligence operations beyond wiretapping that he had been approving for the previous two and a half years, the report says.
Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."
The inspectors general interviewed more than 200 people inside and outside the government, but five former Bush administration officials refused to be questioned. They were Ashcroft, Yoo, former CIA Director George Tenet, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and David Addington, an aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
According to the report, Addington could personally decide who in the administration was "read into" - allowed access to - the classified program.
The only piece of the intelligence-gathering operation acknowledged by the Bush White House was the wiretapping-without-warrants effort. The administration admitted in 2005 that it had allowed the National Security Agency to intercept international communications that passed through U.S. cables without seeking court orders.
Although the report documents Bush administration policies, its fallout could be a problem for the Obama administration if it inherited any or all of the still-classified operations.
Bush started the warrantless wiretapping program under the authority of a secret court in 2006, and Congress authorized most of the intercepts in a 2008 electronic surveillance law. The fate of the remaining and still classified aspects of the wider surveillance program is not clear from the report.
The report's revelations came the same day that House Democrats said that CIA Director Leon Panetta had ordered one eight-year-old classified program shut down after learning lawmakers had never been apprised of its existence.
The IG report said that President Bush signed off on both the warrantless wiretapping and other top-secret operations shortly after Sept. 11 in a single presidential authorization. All the programs were periodically reauthorized, but except for the acknowledged wiretapping, they "remain highly classified."
The report says it's unclear how much valuable intelligence the program has yielded.
The report, mandated by Congress last year, was delivered to lawmakers Friday.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Ca., told The Associated Press she was shocked to learn of the existence of other classified programs beyond the warrantless wiretapping.
Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made a terse reference to other classified programs during an August 2007 letter to Congress. But Harman said that when she had asked Gonzales two years earlier if the government was conducting any other undisclosed intelligence activities, he denied it.
"He looked me in the eye and said 'no,'" she said Friday.
Robert Bork Jr., Gonzales' spokesman, said, "It has clearly been determined that he did not intend to mislead anyone."
In the wake of the new report, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, renewed his call Friday for a formal nonpartisan inquiry into the government's information-gathering programs.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden - the primary architect of the program_ told the report's authors that the surveillance was "extremely valuable" in preventing further al-Qaida attacks. Hayden said the operations amounted to an "early warning system" allowing top officials to make critical judgments and carefully allocate national security resources to counter threats.
Information gathered by the secret program played a limited role in the FBI's overall counterterrorism efforts, according to the report. Very few CIA analysts even knew about the program and therefore were unable to fully exploit it in their counterrorism work, the report said.
The report questioned the legal advice used by Bush to set up the program, pinpointing omissions and questionable legal memos written by Yoo, in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The Justice Department withdrew the memos years ago.
The report says Yoo's analysis approving the program ignored a law designed to restrict the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime, and did so without fully notifying Congress. And it said flaws in Yoo's memos later presented "a serious impediment" to recertifying the program.
Yoo insisted that the president's wiretapping program had only to comply with Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure - but the report said Yoo ignored the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, which had previously overseen federal national security surveillance.
"The notion that basically one person at the Justice Department, John Yoo, and Hayden and the vice president's office were running a program around the laws that Congress passed, including a reinterpretation of the Fourth Amendment, is mind boggling," Harman said.
House Democrats are pressing for legislation that would expand congressional access to secret intelligence briefings, but the White House has threatened to veto it.
51 Comments so far
Show AllTreason is Treason, no matter how you want to spell it.
The Bush administration _did_ commit Treason.
bornfreemen sez: "All right wing republican corporations have singed loyalty oaths under bush regime."
***
I think it may be the other way around. The majority of federal-level politicians (both parties) behave as if they have signed loyalty oaths to the corporations they serve. Oaths which, apparently, supercede their oaths of office.
The so-called 'Warrantless Wiretapping' program, said to be far more massive than we even know about, was justified constantly by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, yet had been implemented long before those attacks. What was its purpose, if not to catch Al Qaeda terrorists?
I've read in some places that it was happening before Bush 'took' his office as president. If this was implemented under the watch of Bill Clinton, was it done with his knowledge and consent? If not, then who cooked it up, authorized, and deployed it? And for which reasons?
The more time goes by the more I want to see an audit of, not just the FED, but of the Pentagon and of the NSA/CIA. It is time to put away some criminals who've exploited our national security apparatus to cover for their treason and other crimes. It's time to create some kind of protection for whistleblowers, and remove their gags. I'm amazed that Mr. Ashcroft had limits to the level of corruption he would consent to being a part of, but I do wish he would have blown his whistle. There is some high stench coming from D.C. and Wall St. (from which are drawn most of our high intelligence officials). If anyone can still look back to 9/11 and believe the official excuses for the lack of defense and investigations then I am at a loss for any faith even in a grass roots level drive for justice.
Not was, is massive. All right wing republican corporations have singed loyalty oaths under bush regime.
Employees of cable company's,phone company's, other nation wide company's that deal with dissemination of propaganda for the extreme christian republican right have been given DHS warrant less surveillance authority.
The more suspects you can create more money you get. Unchecked surveillance abuse to the max to build a fear mongering Natzi Germany style cointel pro stazi spy network.
WTF !!!!! The supreme court and are willing elected officials ( if they knew ) are guilty of treason, and failing to protect the constitution.
Instead, with reckless abandonment, they suspend Habeas corpus, put into law the Patriot Acts , and render the constitution as fart in the wind gone bye-bye.
The level of treason was evident that it was a 5-4 supreme court vote , not a 9-0 vote,to re-instate Habeas corpus. What about blanket immunity for abuses in warrant less surveillance. No one has a right to sue for damages caused by slander , libel,loss of earnings or business, or psychological damages from stress that might be caused by improper investigations without probable cause.
PROBABLE CAUSE,,, THE BACKBONE TO ISSUING A SIGNED COURT WARRANT ACCORDING TO THE 4TH AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION.
How convenient is that, a get out jail free card for those that would abuse warrant less surveillance power
AND THEY KNOW IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND ARE LAUGHING THEIR ASSES OFF WHILE HIDING BEHIND IMMUNITY.
WHAT GOOD ARE OUR CONSTITUTIONAL LAWS IF THEY HAVE NO TEETH.
FLY THE AMERICAN FLAG UPSIDE DOWN SOUND THE ALARM, EXPOSE ALL SURVEILLANCE PROGRAMS NOW!!!!!!!!
INCLUDING THE GANG STALKING COMMUNITY WATCH GROUPS, AND ALL THEIR LEADERS AND FINANCIERS.
Perhaps it's time to, IDK, rethink our old notions of "Intelligence"--because it seems to me the intelligence folks have done so already and have come to the conclusion that it's no longer about an enemy's strengths and whereabouts or to advance the knowledge of a diplomatic mission. They can't or won't even find Osama. But what they do want...telepathic soldiers, every communication on the planet and, hey, why not some robotic bees. Congress should strip the sheets off this bed to see what monsters are lying under the covers. The CIA and friends have gone batshit crazy. This country doesn't need any more black op paramilitary freaks accountable to nobody.
Hess sez: "Rep. Jane Harman, D-Ca., told The Associated Press she was shocked to learn of the existence of other classified programs beyond the warrantless wiretapping."
***
Am I the only one who read this and flashed back to Claude Rains striding through Rick's Cafe?
There is no privacy on the internet.
This cannot be stressed enough.
The title of the article suggests that the government's massive surveillance of US citizens is in the past.....
"....{the] program WAS massive."
Does any seriously believe it has ceased?
Read a now-posted CD article by Timothy Karr, about the Iranian government's interest in using DPI (deep packet inspection) technology to to trace the identify of recent Iranian protesters from their cell phone Twitterings.
As one observer put it: DPI spying technology is the Internet equivalent of the Post Office opening and reading your regular mail.
DPI has been in expanding use the by US National Reconnaisance Office for at least 4 years.
NRO's use of DPI and other Internet user-tracing technology has never been -- and never will be-- officially acknowledged, but its use is fairly common knowledge among both industry and government lawmakers.
Even the Democrats who're now pretending it would be a good idea to have a congressional investigation of current US government spying on its own citizens, know very well that no useful info of "our" government's illegal spying practices will ever be revealed to the public.
The 4th Amendment was long ago effectively repealed by the National Secrets Act and similar legislation -- which is no doubt why Obama & Co. have no intention of supporting any kind of real investigation.
We are in dreamland if we think otherwise.
And soon, too, probably even our sleeping dreams will come under techno-surveillance.
The Bush Administration? Massive illegal surveillance? That's about as surprising as it being hot in Albuquerque this time of year.
Well, book the lot of them.
I hate to say it though. It'll cost me my entire readership.
It is easy to forget the vulgar criminality of The Decider.
Or the Evil of Cheney, his Assassination teams.
It is easy to forget the GOP tried to privatize social security, put it in the hands of wall st. It is easy to forget where this macro program of torture began.
But I don't. I'm sorry as hell I voted for Obama, but saying the dims are the same as the thugs is another kind of Kool-Aid.
Evil, banality, viciousness come in degrees. Lessers & Greaters. Obama is a pig.
But dick & george make him and biden look like beginners in the world of hurting the poor, helping the rich, and hurting & torturing Arabs. The Kings Should Not Be Forgotten.
Don't forget the little birdies and a senator--we can not allow this to go unpunished!
"But I don't. I'm sorry as hell I voted for Obama, but saying the dims are the same as the thugs is another kind of Kool-Aid."
No need to be sorry. You tried to do the best you could in a bad situation. Help build the Green Party for the next election!
And so the Kabuki theater continues .... What can we make of such investigations when these Bush-era crimes were excused ex post facto by Congress and Obama?
Reading between the lines in this article, it seems that the illegal domestic surveillance continues, but we just get feigned concerns from Congress members - no action.
The USA PATRIOT Act is still in effect, passed by our Congressional representatives. The Act nullifies whole parts of the Constitution. So, we have another big gap there, but no discussion of it.
The good news: U.S. voters are witless. They voted for Obama in droves as he ripped apart the Fourth Amendment. The majority of people are just too stupid to understand their own interests. So plutocrats everywhere can relax.
The sheep bleat as they're fleeced, but that's about it.
-TIA
"The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday." - NYT
Who in their right mind can EVER trust this so called government again?
Who is the government? Is it the civil service or the elected/appointed people?
Anyway, I believe CommonDreams.org is being monitored.
They can monitor CD all they want. We're a pretty harmless lot. I just hope someone is keeping tabs on FoxNation and worse. Some of those guys ARE domestic terrorists.
bbr-001 says: "We're a pretty harmless lot."
Speak for yourself. If Amerika does become a full-fledged fascist police state, I will do EVERYTHING I can to overthrow the government.
"When people fear the government, that is tyranny.
When government fears people, that is democracy."
Good mourning, Amerika.
How do you like living in a fascist police state, with NO Constitutional guarantees of free speech, Habeus Corpus, warrantless search & seizure, indefinite imprisonment with no access to an attorney or trial, torture as official state policy?
Der Fuhrer is alive and well in the 21st Century.
No snark
cynical July 11th, 2009 11:51 am
I live in a small Maine town and we do have paper ballots. Before we vote we elect election officers usually from both sides of the issue. Everybody knows the true count.
We are organizing to be the third town in Maine to "not recognize" corporations as a "person". Two towns in NH have done it and I think 11 in Penn.
Nothing beats small and local. But organizing to get people out to stand up is time consuming.
Abe Winken July 11th, 2009 1:15 pm............A great idea and I wish you the best.
So thankful for folks like you who give a damn. Impossible in my area and under my particular circumstances, but I may use it in the future.
Wake the flock up! It's not enough to be outraged that they were spying on "innocent" Americans or that the spying was ineffectual in our FABRICATED "war on terror." The question is WHO were they surveilling!!!! By avoiding the FISA court, we know they didn't want anyone to know who they were surveilling!!!! They were likely surveilling their enemies and keeping tabs on their lackeys...Remember the Bushtapo is a CRIME SYNDICATE!
How about this article?!?!
"Report: Too few officials knew of surveillance"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090711/ap_on_go_co/us_domestic_surveillance;_ylt=AlXv3_wCIKzm4HZTKJfnxXQD...
The Bush Crime Syndicate was spying on some people and they didn't want outsiders to know about it...Who WERE they spying on?!?!? What DID they do with there information??? Those are additional questions for their criminal and unconstitutional actions.
Bookem', Dano.
I think they were spyin on me .... as usual.
OOps, Maybe there is hope for us after all.
And they still are!
At least now I know I am not alone anymore.
AnnT July 11th, 2009 1:13 pm...And how about this article that is an absolute mind blower concerning the Bush crime syndicate and MANY other criminals.....long read, but please do not miss it..............
http:/www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/
Collateral_Damage_911.pdf
Fact: massive illegal spying for 8+ years on American citizens - and not a single terror plot thwarted, not a single real terrorist arrested, not a single 'sleeper cell' exposed.
Fact: massive illegal spying for 8+ years and not a single drug king nailed, not a single Ponzi schemer/inside trader/thieving bankster caught... hell, 'they' didn't even know who the hell Palin really was until after they popped her from the cake.
Now, 'they' were not spying illegally and massively for no reason. So, conspiracy theories aside, what was their real agenda? Their real goals? 8 years is enough time to compile dossiers on every one of us.
Why?
Perhaps now we know how Bush got reelected.
I believe the real goals were to test capabilities and to push the boundaries of the law in order to see what they could get away with should (or should I say WHEN) the US Government declare a National Emergency and the declaration of Martial law.
Whoops, re-posted to proper thread for correct context.
An observation -------- Decades ago the Right was demanding law and order for the poor.
Now the Left is demanding law and order for the rich.
Bring America Back !!!!......!...The answer is in the very last paragraph, where it says The White House threatens to Veto legislation giving congress more access to secret intelligence briefings !!
**That's why Obama does not want to look back ! In fact Democrats like Pelosi, Reid and Leahy were facually aware of Bush' war crimes, constitutional violations, and illegal operations.
**Obama now owns the Third Term of Bush and has inherited all crimes and being continually perpetrated. Obama and his Team is a one-term phenomenon.
**Absolutely nothing involving National Security is hiding behind secret data classifications, but what is hiding is personal embarrassment, illegalities, treason, and every constitutional violation known to our Nation !!!!
In only 6 months, we now know Team Obama must not and does
not deserve a second term in Office !!
You better get moving with a third party right now, because all the Repubs have to offer is pretty boy neocon sock puppet Mitt Romney.
It must have been ineffective. All Fox news had on Obama during the election was crazy exaggerated and made up stuff about ACORN, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah W.
Or maybe this completely vetts Obama. All the dirt in Chicago politics and they couldn't add anything to the above. You can bet they were snooping everywhere. The RNC and Fox would have run him through the mud with anything and everything.
Or maybe.... the PTB knows where the bodies are buried and if BHO gets outta line... just like Marion Barry. Peter Jennings, Roger Mudd, Mike Wallace,Katherine Graham, Cokie Roberts, upper FBI and CIA all used to go to the same parties where ol' Marion was snortin' up a good time in the corner for at least 5 years before the story broke. I worked in DC hair salons at the time and we had the dirt on all of them in 1982. It was only when Marion started pressing for full representation in both Senate and HR that they hauled out the tapes and informants on him. No, I don't/ didn't like Mayor Barry, but by the time I moved away and the story broke, I could tell the yokels that MSM was not Holy Writ. Those hypocrites aren't here to give us the scoop unless it's the rotted manure from the storehouse they want us to smell today. Very rarely is it the fresh stuff, which is just the latest in a long chain of events already known by the press.
I'm guessing the taps are a roaring success and did exactly what they were meant to do by those that instigated them. The ferretting out of "turrists" is just the cover story for true ops. Which is why I knew not to vote for Mr Constitutional Scholar after he went ahead and voted for FISA revamp and anything IPSO FACTO; well good on me, I'm suffering the consequences nevertheless.
Did you notice how this AP article described David Addington: "an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney." Sure, and Karl Rove was just a campaign worker for George W. Bush.
Why doesn't the AP want to report David Addington's full title: Chief of Staff to the VP, and his longtime principal legal advisor. The title of a July 3, 2006, article by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker tells the real story: "The Hidden Power: The Legal Mind Behind the War on Terror."
Big Telco and Congress joined right in to massively violate our human rights to privacy.
Never forget this treason. Remember in November!
The Dubya, Cheney, & Co. surveillance program combined the two worst aspects corporatism and totalitarianism: incompetence without rebuke and lack of accountability. In a quite sad and eerie parallel to the former East Germany, they snooped on a massive scale but their tragicomic efforts were less than useless. But as any casual student of the various forms of fascism knows, the point of the exercise is because they can. The Bush clan are the USA's first family of fascism.
Look at that shithook in the above photo with his sleeves rolled up like he's "of the people". Bottled water and bunting. What's The Wanker telling the Okies? "God Bless 'Murka. Our best days is ahead. Git that nigger outa the White House in 2012. Vote for Glenn Beck, a true 'Murkan genius. Kill 'em all an' let God sort it out."
Isn't that MoFo dead yet? Why doesn't he die already?
There are "Image Concultants" who very likley advised GW BUsh as to how to implement the "Man of the people" strategy via things like "Roll up your shirtsleeves"
They are very likely paid a salary more then most of us will ever see. This speaks to what a given "Society" values. Image consultants to the President make more in salary then does a fireman.
Supply and demand dont you see. There a HUGE demand for men of power wanting to improve their Image. And a very small "supply" of people that can do it.
Secret government, wth no oversight by our eleced officials or the courts is dangerous.For example torturing the enemy without benefit of a trial makes a mockery of our preachings to other countries about the importance of democracy.
odoco + Cynical-
Simply we have become colonized by corporations and our government.We have factionalized ourselves and our movement.We fight all these little battles. While we fight an environmental issue corporations are screwing the environment some where else.While we fight one war they start another.
Corporate strategy leverages their power. Their effects reinforce and magnify each other.
We take lawyers and experts to a public meeting and you can call me in a decade and nothing has happened.
Our government stands up for them between us and them.We need to change the law governing corporations or die trying.
The basis of our law is we the people. We can not be denied if we are the majority and can change the law as our constitution allows.
We have the right in the town we live in to bring a majority vote to not recognize corporations as people and stand up for our issues and our environment.
It takes time and organization but it is legal and non-violent.
It is the corporation use of regulatory and agency law that robs us of our power. We can not sue or control corporations because government stands in our way through agency or regulatory law. We can not sue a corporation for polluting because our government regulates that industry for us.Allowing so many parts per million of whatever that still destroys our health or kills us. Of course corruption of government allows corporations to do what ever they want. We have to brake that cycle.
We have to on the local level vote as a majority to not recognize corporations as people so they can be regulated and sued by we the people.
Check out CELDF.org
Abe Winken July 11th, 2009 11:35 am...Before any of this...and to make any of it COUNT......we need a massive movement to initiate a PAPER BALLOT......One copy goes to the voter....another to an INDEPENDENT tallying center (manned by We the People....and another to the "official" tally center...and yet another to a "mail center"...secure and guarded.....and used only in the case of a recount if the other two figures are not equal.
odoco
I will anxiously await criminal prosecutions as there is no longer any doubt that a subtantial case can be made against Bush and his Fascist thugs. But - if that does not happen - then I would say:
President Obama - if you do not move on this you will have depleted all your excuses for not exercising your constitutional powers to uphold and defend the Constitution.
You will have become one of THEM. Which is it? It is that simple. It is that black and white. There are no shades of grey. You are either an elected official who performs your duties according to law, or you are a member of the criminal class that now runs this country.
Your smiles mean nothing. Your verbiage has grown tiresome. Your measured, vapid and evasive speech patterns no longer mesmerize. It is either time for you to act on these law and order/constitutional issues - or to openly and honestly declare that you support and defend the fascist corporate state instead of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and our collective political heritage.
odoco July 11th, 2009 8:55 am.......Or start the impeachment proceedings OR a national recall and get a team in there with some INTEGRITY AND BALLS. We can wait NO LONGER.........NO LONGER...........
odoco
Impeachment will never happen. Dems would never willingly give up power, and the Corporatists who actually run things would quietly support Obama as many of his policies (secrecy, big coal, signing statements, ambassadorial appointments, economics favoring the entrenched as the expense of the taxpayers, continually denying accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity) have actually benefited the elite. Do note, however, that a couple of his signing statements have been totally rejected by Congress.
To change the system you have to change the composition of Congress. That means getting true progressives to run in the primaries, then educating and motivating a broad spectrum of the people to believe that true and meaningful change is needed to save this country.
But the real key is to find an alternative way to educate our children.
I hope you did not miss Bill Moyers' show this week. His guest was a former medical insurance insider who now agrees with Michael Moore about the tactics his industry is using to block meaningful health care reform in this country. We currently have Wall Street-run health care, he said, that is denying coverage to existing policy holders who become seriously ill. And people are dying as a result.
odoco July 11th, 2009 9:45 am...........We have as much chance as breaking through the system to get true progressives in CONgress as we do impeachment. They have rigged the system before and SCOTUS and will rig it again when it suits their needs. We need visceral action...the system is forever rigged in their favor.
Cynical - you may be correct, but the evolutionary political process is still the method I will support. "Visceral" action will be responded to by 'visceral' reaction from the system. Since the corporations control the press, and the military, and a large percentage of Congress, and the extreme right wing religious fundamentalists who believe they were chosen by God to lead (Christian Jihadists) I see little chance of a revolutionary uprising having any chance to succeed.
You know as well as I do that they are already prepared for this contingency. The population at large is not.
odoco July 11th, 2009 10:06 am...I understand your point, but I must say that I honestly do not know WHAT their reaction may be. Consider that vast millions have never really taken to the streets in the numbers of which I speak.....Could be that the foot soldiers may side with their family and friends.I'm not too concerned about the rest of the government, who are for the most part, cowards, and will be hiding in their caves. AND, when I say visceral, I do not necessarily mean violent...just PASSIONATE and steadfast.