Posted on 12/18/2005 11:43:05 AM PST by wagglebee
Sen. John McCain disappointed Democrats on Capitol Hill on Sunday by defending the Bush administration's decision to use the National Security Agency to monitor a limited number of domestic phone calls in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Saying that Sept. 11 "changed everything," McCain told ABC's "This Week": "The president, I think, has the right to do this."
"We all know that since Sept. 11 we have new challenges with enemies that exist within the United States of America - so the equation has changed."
McCain said that while the administration needs to explain why it didn't first seek approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, he suggested that the Patriot Act might have superseded the 1978 FISA Act, allowing "additional powers for the president."
McCain said the fact that congressional leaders - including top Democrats - were consulted on the NSA authorization "is a very important part of this equation." He suggested that any congressional hearings into the Bush decision focus on that aspect.
"I'd like to hear from the leaders of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, who, according to reports, we're briefed on this and agreed to it," he told "This Week." "They didn't raise any objection, apparently, to [whether] there was a, quote, violation of law."
Asked about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's claim that she "raised concerns" about granting the NSA new powers during one meeting with White House officials, McCain said: "I don't know about any meetings, but I certainly never heard complaints from anyone on either side of the aisle.
"When this process was being carried out I would imagine that the leaders of Congress would be very concerned about any violation of law as well," he said. "Apparently [those concerns have] not been raised until it was published in the New York Times."
McCain also warned that any congressional investigation should take care not to force additional disclosures from the White House that could help the enemy, saying: "I don't see anything wrong with congressional hearings but what kind of information are you going to put into the public arena that might help the al Qaida people in going undetected."
Yes, objectivity is useful at times isn't it.
The fact that Pelosi knew about it and didn't say anything to the other lawmakers sinks that whole Democrat trap. The fact that she started complaining immediately after the article came out, before people realized that she knew, makes her look like the dishonest partisan hack that she is.
Great picture!
It will be interesting to see what McCains political base says about this.
The MSM normally would rip any republican to sheds, saying something like that, but since it's McCain, his base, the MSM media, are in quite a dilemma now.
Ot Oh...now what is the media party going to do. Their flackey has gone to the dark side!
I won't let you ruin my day with such thoughts! ;-)
The law allows for the President to authorize warrant-less wiretaps if certain conditions are met and as long as the Justice Department is notified and Congress is briefed on the action. The preferred method is to go through the FISA court but sometimes time is of essence and that is why certain Presidential Authorities were expanded to include the above situations. No one has even checked to see if the FISA court was notified after the fact and they probably won't find out since that information would be classified. Where did the calls originate from, overseas? Without an individual complainant is there a possible violation of ones individual civil liberties? Other than the truck driver that pled guilty, who are the complainants? The congress can't lodge complaints about civil liberties violations on behalf of person(s) without having the person(s) identity? Are they American "Citizens" or "people in America" or does it even matter if the call originated with terrorist outside the US? If the ears in the sky targets keywords such as bomb, attack, kill, etc. does it trace back automatically to the number or country ID?
I posted this on another thread, but I read this one and wanted to repost it here also:
IMHO,( and I have my asbestos suit and tin foil hat on as I type this) mclame will be queen hillary's VP. A mclame and j f'n k ticket wouldn't have worked because they would have constantly tried to out "war-hero" each other, instead of working together.
queen hillary NEEDS mclame to cover her behind on the "weak on defense" portion of her resume, it'll be a "kum-bay-ya" ticket, with the MSM and all the "mclame-iacs" (ie squishy rino middle-of-the-road voters) running to embrace it.
When mclame FINALLY figures out that he ain't NEVER gonna be the 2008 Rep candidate for POTUS,(his last REAL chance) he'll go for "revenge"and accept the queen's "offer". VP is better than nothing, and mclame can play his "I'm a war hero so I'm right until death" before every camera in the MSM while queen hillary goes almost invisible all the way to the White House.
Again, IMHO......I could be wrong, but I bookmarked my other post in case I'm right ( so I can show my wife that I'm not wrong All the time....)
No way, Not gonna happen.
Don't you just love how Newsmax worded that? A Slap at McCain, because he's expected to tickle the ears of Democrats. And McCain thinks he'll be elected President on a Republican tocket. Seems everyone is picking up now what a loser this guy is.
Oh, BTW, it's easy enough to read Mccain here. He's ticked off at his Democrat friends that set him and Specter up to look like fools denouncing the admin by not revealing their knowledge of these phone interceptions to him. That's why McCain's talking about wanting answers from them in this piece.
he's still pushing for Congressional hearings, though, that he can use to make another necessity in the WOT illegal. he just wants to wait until some of the heat from our side in fury at his terrorist Bill of Rights Subsides. he's planning to wait us out and quietly work to eliminate this too.
Groom all 'they' want -- he has to win the primaries and that is where we all come into play.
McCain must be marginalized and should have been marginalized long ago (When Dubya should have vetoed McCain's CFR), but since then he's arguably been allowed to set the agenda of the GOP.
He even admitted to Chris Wallace that he went to Syria and Iran before we invaded Iraq and 'warned' them we were going to do this.... granted, he's been trying to backpeddle on that admission ever sense, but tie that to the information that was gleened out of the senate intelligence committee where the dems were plotting to undermine the administration and make them look bad -- something about 'we'll only get one shot at this' -- and I think there is some members of that committee who bear investigating.
Somebody needs to go down for this! NO MATTER WHO IT IS!!
Republican or Democrat, this is unnacceptable! Is the reporter under the heat lamp yet? Who was his source?
He's just following BJ Klintoon's lead: he sticks his finger in the air and goes whichever way he thinks the wind is going, and it doesn't make a bit of difference if it is in conflict with what he's said in the past.
You can torture me all you want, but I'll NEVER vote for McCain.
You know if it was a high-ranking dem this reporter will go to jail rather than tell.
I wouldn't bet against it. I know others swear it could never happen, and perhaps they are right. I don't share that view.
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