Report: Bush-era surveillance went beyond wiretaps

la times ^ | Today | Josh Meyer

[jessduntno]

Report: Bush-era surveillance went beyond wiretaps

A government report raises new questions about how the Bush White House kept key Justice officials in the dark about the post-Sept. 11 program.

By Josh Meyer July 11, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- The Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 surveillance efforts went beyond the widely publicized warrantless wiretapping program, a government report disclosed Friday, encompassing additional secretive activities that created "unprecedented" spying powers.

The report also raised new questions about how the Bush White House kept key Justice Department officials in the dark as it launched the surveillance program.

In a move that it described as "extraordinary and inappropriate," the report said the White House relied on a single, lower-level attorney in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel for assessments about the programs' legality.

The attorney, John Yoo, a young George W. Bush appointee with close ties to the president's inner circle, wrote a series of memos legally blessing the program even though his superiors and most top officials were uninformed about it.

[jessduntno]

If this were true, wouldn't Yoo be described in the Obama administration as a "Covert Czar?"

Not saying this crap is true about the Bush WH...but it certainly makes a fine point about the danger of CZARS, and most especially Czars with powers that can circumvent protocols and are answerable to only the President dunt it?????

WHAT SAY YOU, POtuS?

[GeronL]

Well thank God for that

[Gaffer]

If anyone thinks one of these new Czars, administration officials, or connected ACORN operatives haven’t directed the US intel agencies to start monitoring ‘subversives’ I have a bridge to sell you.

[cranked]

Matters not to me how the LATimes wants to play the ‘protect Barry’ game; more than 7 years without a single major terrorist attack on U.S. soil speaks volumes...

[YHAOS]

"Report: Bush-era surveillance went beyond wiretaps"

I certainly hope so.

[PGR88]

Obama’s numbers must be down - time for the MSM to bring back the bogey-man Bush again.

[elpadre]

at the time this occurred, the nation was short on reliable information, and the methods used were justified, IMHO.

Justice had tied one hand behind the back of the FBI (the wall) and CIA under Clinton was notoriously impotent.

[ETL]

'Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,' he [Ayers] said."
August 2001, Chicago Magazine (article: No Regrets)
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/
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"Today, Ayers and his wife -- fellow former Weather Underground fugitive Bernardine Dohrn -- live in Hyde Park, where they moved after surrendering in 1980. Federal charges against the two were dropped because of improper surveillance, so they avoided prison.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/902213,CST-NWS-ayers18.article

[jessduntno]

Hell, wasn’t Ayers “just a guy in the neighborhood?”

[Prince of Space]

So is the Justice Department trying to say they were once again fooled by Dubya....wait, I thought he was supposed to be stupid....and if so, how smart does that make them?

[jessduntno]

"So is the Justice Department trying to say they were once again fooled by Dubya....wait, I thought he was supposed to be stupid....and if so, how smart does that make them?"

Seriously, in one article they point out that they are a collection of doofuses who have no idea about how to conduct proper oversight and then they admit it to the world, making us look even weaker, then they demand that we crack open our playbook for EVERYONE to read, and then they try to explain how it happened by blaming it on some sort of a "Czar" in the Bush office, while they are creating 35 or so in the Obammy Admin...

HELP! I'm being held in an asylum and the inmates are in charge!

[NavyCanDo]

Everyone of us expected 9/11 to just be the first wave of attacks. And it would of been if not for the Bush policies. I'll give Bush low scores on some issues, but keeping the country safe, he Rocks!

[ETL]

Lol! Yep, just another guy in the neighborhood...

"This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English..."

YouTube Video:
The O'Reilly Factor confronts Bill Ayers:
October 24, 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP3uvK9gTIY
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From Investor's Business Daily (IBD), August 27, 2008:

"Ayers, now a tenured distinguished professor of education at UIC, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.

One of Ayer's descriptions for a course called 'Improving Learning Environments' says prospective K-12 teachers need to 'be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and ... be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation.

The Annenberg papers are quite extensive — 132 boxes containing 947 file folders with 70 linear feet of material. They undoubtedly contain more surprises regarding Obama's relationship with Ayers, one of many relationships Obama has sought to hide.'..."

Article: Annenberg Papers: Putting On Ayers?
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=304729375940845
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REVOLUTION: Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA [Maoist]
[Revolution] Interview with Bill Ayers, Revolution #63, October 1, 2006:
"On Progressive Education, Critical Thinking and the Cowardice of Some in Dangerous Times"
http://rwor.org/a/063/ayers-en.html
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The RCP calls for the armed overthrow of the U.S. government...

From the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party (revcom.us or rwor.org) :

"Create Public Opinion, Seize Power: We are preparing minds and organizing forces for the time when there is a major crack in the system, whenever it comes and wherever it comes from: an opening that makes it possible to bring the future Revolutionary Army of the Proletariat (R.A.P.) into the field and wage a revolutionary armed struggle that actually has a chance of winning.

And we have said that building our party itself is the most important part of organizing forces for revolution. This is true now, and it is true looking forward to the creation of that future R.A.P. and the waging of that armed struggle.":

http://revcom.us/a/v20/1000-1009/1000/barw.htm
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[muawiyah]

Just can't get it out of my mind. The LA Times cheated on their postage calculations; they cheated on their advertisers; they cheated......

Why is it I can't believe anything they print.

[Melchior]

Notice that the article states that survellance went beyond wiretaps and then provides no substantive evidence to prove the point. It would be like me stating that Obama is covering up the fact that he is a moron, and then not providing the evidence.

[YHAOS]

We did experience successive waves of attacks. It’s just that they were not successfully carried out within our borders. We really have no idea how many attacks were frustrated, or how deadly were their nature (perhaps someday we will come to know those details). And for that failure I credit Bush and Cheney.

[YHAOS]

Yes, I did notice. Hence the ‘in your face’ nature of my response. And, all one needs to do to demonstrate that the Kenyan Pretender is a moron, is to point.

[Wuli]

They are still after Yoo, as if he was a criminal for saying what the law said at the time - water boarding may be harsh, may be extremely harsh, but it does not meet the standard tests for torture. He’s a lawyer, and its a legal opinion. Of course leave to the left to criminalize a legal opinion they don’t like.