Posted on 12/28/2005 8:37:00 AM PST by MNJohnnie
More Freepers doing the Job the Failed Media refuses to do. Free Republic Gold Medal of Merit to Sam Hill for digging this up.
FISA Court Prevented Al Qaeda Taps Before 9/11 N/A
Posted on 12/27/2005 6:32:49 PM PST by Sam Hill
How soon (and conveniently) the media forget.
Behold this passage from the May 2002 issue of the DNC organ, Newsweek:
US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth
WHAT WENT WRONG
The inside story of the missed signals and intelligence failures that raise a chilling question: did September 11 have to happen?
By Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff May 27/02
...NEWSWEEK has learned there was one other major complication as America headed into that threat-spiked summer.
In Washington, Royce Lamberth, chief judge of the special federal court [the FISA Court] that reviews national-security wiretaps, erupted in anger when he found that an FBI official was misrepresenting petitions for taps on terror suspects. Lamberth prodded Ashcroft to launch an investigation, which reverberated throughout the bureau.
From the summer of 2000 on into the following year, sources said, the FBI was forced to shut down wiretaps of Qaeda-related suspects connected to the 1998 African embassy bombing investigation.
“It was a major problem,” said one source familiar with the case, who estimated that 10 to 20 Qaeda wiretaps had to be shut down, as well as wiretaps into a separate New York investigation of Hamas.
The effect was to stymie terror surveillance at exactly the moment it was needed most...
And yet elsewhere Judge Lamberth has bizarrely cited the African embassy wiretaps as proof of the importance of his job:
An Interview with Judge Royce C. Lamberth
Judge Royce C. Lamberth, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was appointed to the federal bench in 1987. Before joining the Judiciary he was a U.S. Army Captain in the JAG Corps, an assistant U.S. attorney, and Chief of the Department of Justice Civil Division. He recently completed a term as presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Q: You've called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "the least known, but probably most important court in the war on terrorism?" Why?
A: The FISC has nationwide jurisdiction to authorize the United States government to conduct electronic surveillances and physical searches for national security purposes when the target is a foreign power or the individual is acting as the agent of a foreign power. Major international terrorist groups may be targeted by the FBI, CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies. Since 9-11, invaluable intelligence information has been sought and obtained as a result of warrants and orders issued by this court.
There's no question that every judge who has ever served on this court has thought it was the most significant thing they've ever done as a judge. When I did the hearings on the embassy bombings in Africa, we started the hearings in my living room at 3:00 in the morning. And some of the taps I did that night turned out to be very significant and were used in the New York trials of the people indicted for the bombings.
These wiretaps were so "significant" that Lamberth stopped them and any others like them in the year and a half prior to 9/11 -- just because of a personal snit.
Something to bear in mind when we hear it bewailed how Bush neglected to go to the FISA courts for permission to monitor al Qaeda phone calls.
http://www.wabcradio.com/
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com
http://950kprc.com/audio.html
Not a Rush Ping again....
RL bump
Consider the source when reading Lamberth bashing.
Wait, lemme get this straight . . . you have a thread on a rerun?
Why not just resurrect the thread from the day the show was originally aired?
Exactly. Lamberth was, if I remember right, one of the most fair and respectable judges involved with the entire set of Clinton scandals, and the left's never forgiven him for not covering for the Stainmeister.
Plus, if the FBI was "misrepresenting" wiretaps, they SHOULD have gotten slapped. The President has the authority to not need the FISC, that I don't dispute, but if the FISC *is* going to be in the loop, the FBI had better come correct.
}:-)4
Thanks for the post.
Good Morning,
Back at work today, No Rush Day :^(
Give em' Hell Rush BUMP!!
Hello Johnnie, thanks for the ping.
Is it going to be Bellingham again today?
Not a rerun, a guest host.
Areafiftyone just posted this. Please all go over to this thread and make your perdictions for 2006. Great fun
Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation!
Geez... excellent info MN. Thanks.
It will likely be a guest host... not a rerun.
Mark Belling is the only guy I like. Think the rest suck, especially one of those guys from CA.
Guest host, rerun. Hard to decide which would be better. Frankly I miss Rush.
There was one guy a few weeks ago who rocked. He was almost as good as Rush for the one show. I've have to search my posts to find his name.
Roger Hedgecock is okay . . . do I recall incorrectly, or did Tony Snow used to fill in for Rush? I adore Tony! (To whom courtesy ping.)
Is that the real Tony Snow?
I've been told that it is.
Gee I wonder if any of the "Journalists" read the post World War 2 history of Europe? What is going on in Iraq happened before.
bttt
I searched his posts, and it looks like it is.
Nice
I can assure you that it is the real Tony Snow.
Great stuff on the African wiretaps MNJ, sounds like another AD disaster.
Oh yeah, ditto.
Me too.
I have an archive of Rush's shows from the day that he started "podcasting". I'm reviewing the 12/20 show now. (and I never download the subs.)
MB is getting to the REAL story on the spy crisis, FINALLY!!
This is the neat thing about Freeperdom - even the big guys know about us and often lurk here (although Tony posts under his own name).
Exactly.
There hasn't been a successful attack on US soil since 9-11. The Dems can't have that continuing.
December 26-27, 2005
Should the National Security Agency be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States?
Yes 64%
No 23%
RasmussenReports.com
Is President Bush the first President to authorize a program for intercepting telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States?
Yes 26%
No 48% RasmussenReports.com
December 28, 2005--Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Americans say they are following the NSA story somewhat or very closely.
Just 26% believe President Bush is the first to authorize a program like the one currently in the news. Forty-eight percent (48%) say he is not while 26% are not sure
The President made a statement in his most recent press conference that one of the things the terrorists wanted to do on 9/11 was disrupte the continuity of the federal government. In other words, congresscritters, they wanted to kill you. I was out of town. The dems had best be careful what they wish for.
Work n Lurk mode ... ON
Listening to NOT Rush now lol
Great post. You and MB are right on. Listen up all you other talkie subs.
If those folks on that plane that went down in PA hadn't stopped the terrorists, some of those Dems might not still be around to give aid and comfort to the enemy. What a fine way the Dems have in honoring the memory of those passengers.
Merry Christmas Tony
And BTW, the Constitution isn't a suicide pact, junior.
Nuff said.
Mark is kicking *SS and taking names today!!
God Bless Him.
Liar. Liar. Liar. Caller is a FRAUD. What was your MOS stoodge? Typical Hysterical liar Democrat. Make an accusation and then fillbuster. Hey Jackas@, WHERE were you when Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter did this SAME thing? Wasted too much time on this looser
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