[snip two explanations]
Here's a third: President Bush is at war (unlike the other three Presidents) and NEEDS to tap these conversations to protect Americans.
Posted on 01/04/2006 4:05:09 PM PST by bigsky
It seems the Bush administration -- being a group of sane, informed adults -- has been secretly tapping Arab terrorists without warrants.
During the CIA raids in Afghanistan in early 2002 that captured Abu Zubaydah and his associates, the government seized computers, cell phones and personal phone books. Soon after the raids, the National Security Agency began trying to listen to calls placed to the phone numbers found in al Qaeda Rolodexes.
That was true even if you were "an American citizen" making the call from U.S. territory -- like convicted al Qaeda associate Iyman Faris who, after being arrested, confessed to plotting to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge. If you think the government should not be spying on people like Faris, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
By intercepting phone calls to people on Zubaydah's speed-dial, the NSA arrested not only "American citizen" Faris, but other Arab terrorists, including al Qaeda members plotting to bomb British pubs and train stations.
The most innocent-sounding target of the NSA's spying cited by the Treason Times was "an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden." Whatever softening adjectives the Times wants to put in front of the words "ties to Osama bin Laden," we're still left with those words -- "ties to Osama bin Laden." The government better be watching that person.
The Democratic Party has decided to express indignation at the idea that an American citizen who happens to be a member of al Qaeda is not allowed to have a private conversation with Osama bin Laden. If they run on that in 2008, it could be the first time in history a Republican president takes even the District of Columbia.
On this one, I'm pretty sure Americans are going with the president.
If the Democrats had any brains, they'd distance themselves from the cranks demanding Bush's impeachment for listening in on terrorists' phone calls to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (Then again, if they had any brains, they'd be Republicans.)
To the contrary! It is Democrats like Sen. Barbara Boxer who are leading the charge to have Bush impeached for spying on people with Osama's cell phone number.
That's all you need to know about the Democrats to remember that they can't be trusted with national security. (That and Jimmy Carter.)
Thanks to the Treason Times' exposure of this highly classified government program, admitted terrorists like Iyman Faris are going to be appealing their convictions. Perhaps they can call Democratic senators as expert witnesses to testify that it was illegal for the Bush administration to eavesdrop on their completely private calls to al-Zarqawi.
Democrats and other traitors have tried to couch their opposition to the NSA program in civil libertarian terms, claiming Bush could have gone to the court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and gotten warrants for the interceptions.
The Treason Times reported FISA virtually rubber-stamps warrant requests all the time. As proof, the Times added this irrelevant statistic: In 2004, "1,754 warrants were approved." No one thought to ask how many requests were rejected.
Over and over we heard how the FISA court never turns down an application for a warrant. USA Today quoted liberal darling and author James Bamford saying: "The FISA court is as big a rubber stamp as you can possibly get within the federal judiciary." He "wondered why Bush sought the warrantless searches, since the FISA court rarely rejects search requests," said USA Today.
Put aside the question of why it's so vitally important to get a warrant from a rubber-stamp court if it's nothing but an empty formality anyway. After all the ballyhoo about how it was duck soup to get a warrant from FISA, I thought it was pretty big news when it later turned out that the FISA court had been denying warrant requests from the Bush administration like never before. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the FISA court "modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined."
In the 20 years preceding the attack of 9/11, the FISA court did not modify -- much less reject -- one single warrant request. But starting in 2001, the judges "modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for court-ordered surveillance by the Bush administration." In the years 2003 and 2004, the court issued 173 "substantive modifications" to warrant requests and rejected or "deferred" six warrant requests outright.
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack. Also, perhaps as a gesture of inclusion and tolerance, hold an Oval Office reception for the suspected al Qaeda operatives. After another terrorist attack, I'm sure a New York Times reporter could explain to the victims' families that, after all, the killer's ties to al Qaeda were merely "dubious" and the FISA court had a very good reason for denying the warrant request.
Every once in a while the nation needs little reminder of why the Democrats can't be trusted with national security. This is today's lesson.
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-snip-Why don't we trust Democrat's with National Security?
OK, since nobody else seems willing to say it, I will: the modern Demoncrat party is made up of TRAITORS who think America is the problem, not the SOLUTION.
That's why it should need to be renewed by Congress voting on it again every two or four years.
bump
Bump Ann Coulter... A hot conservative babe!
On this one, I'm pretty sure Americans are going with the president.
If the Democrats had any brains, they'd distance themselves from the cranks demanding Bush's impeachment for listening in on terrorists' phone calls to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (Then again, if they had any brains, they'd be Republicans.)
Right on Ann!!!!
Thanks for the PING! You know, Ann's original statement is surely the way to long-term peace.
I wish some of the conservatives on TV would dispute the rubber stamp label that the FISA court has from liberals. They rejected 179 of Bush's requests. Hardly a rubber stamp.
If they had brains AND morals, they would be conservatives!
"Clinton fired all the FISA court members and replaced them with partisan Democrats. But according to Wikipedia, FISA judges are appointed by the U.S. Chief Justice (who was Rehnquist). So Clinton never had the power to politicise the FISA court."
Robertson, a Clinton appointee, just resigned from the FISA court.
The rats don't need a patriot act they will just break the law, then say the law needs to be strengthened so others won't break the law. Remember Clinton and CFR.
[snip two explanations]
Here's a third: President Bush is at war (unlike the other three Presidents) and NEEDS to tap these conversations to protect Americans.
Ok. Here's one I haven't seen before: 
I don't know. Terrorists flew two commercial aircraft into the World Trade Towers. To me that says that we are fighting a new enemy. That would call for new tactics.
I have a feeling that if we waited for the legal system to catch up to the new rules of war, we could have nukes going off once a week here in this country.
No nukes have gone off. Something must be working.
What's it worth to you not to be living within 50 miles of a nuclear wasteland?
A growing percentage of what is laughingly called "the leadership" within the Dem'crat party do not regard themselves as citizens of the US, but as "world citizens". Their concept of patriotism revolves around "the world", as opposed to that troublemaker country in which they had the misfortune to be born.
Nationalism has no place in their intellectual view, and is probably what they consider to be the #1 problem in the world today, leading to endless conflicts over "sovereignty" and ethnic differences.
"Terrorists" are just "world citizens" trying to break up this fixation with nationalism, and as such, they are noble warriors in the war on US nationalism. "World citizens" cannot, by definition, exclude terrorists from their circle of camaraderie.
Whoa...!
Yawn...that the best you can do? You forgot to add "eat a cheeseburger."
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