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President Bush Defends Domestic Spying Program, Claims Leak Causes Great Harm to U.S. SAN ANTONIO - President Bush on Sunday strongly defended his domestic spying program, saying it's a limited program that tracks only incoming calls to the United States. Bush spoke to reporters at Brooke Army Medical Center where he was visiting wounded troops. He said the fact that someone leaked information about the secret order to eavesdrop on Americans with suspected ties to terrorists causes great harm to the nation. "It's seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated with al-Qaida or an...

A top Senate Republican accused the New York Times on Sunday of carrying out a campaign to compromise national security by continuing to reveal top secret information about the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program. Asked about the prospect of public hearings into the counterterrorism program, Sen. Mitch McConnell told "Fox News Sunday": "We're already talking about this entirely too much out in public as a result of these leaks and the New York Times continuing to write about it - and it's endangering our efforts to make Americans more secure." Citing anonymous sources, the Times reported on Sunday that former...

WASHINGTON - The investigation into leaks about a domestic spying program should determine whether the motivation was damaging security or revealing a potentially illegal activity, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday. "There are differences between felons and whistleblowers, and we ought to wait 'til the investigation occurs to decide what happened," said Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y. On Friday, the Justice Department opened an investigation into who divulged the existence of President Bush's secret domestic spying program. The New York Times reported last month about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since...

Much noise is being made about the recent revelations that the Bush Administration did some intelligence gathering on persons in the US, who had ties to terrorists, without seeking warrants from the FISA Court. But one must filter out the cacophonous din and deconstruct the issue to arrive at a true understanding. The first filter: The partisan prime directive of the dems to bring down the Bush Administration at all costs. They're going to milk anything which has even a hint of scandal for all it's worth to the detriment of the Administration. Expect this. Filter out the party line...

Went to work the other dayDidn't get blown up.Think it might have something to do with George Bush? Think it might have something to do with the measures that the president is taking to protect the country from terrorist attack? Couldn't be. What kind of fool would fall for this line of thinking? Well, I would fall for it, fool that I am. The above question was posted recently by a poster at freerepublic.com, and I believe it is spot-on. Let me be the first to say it. I am delighted -- yes, delighted -- that President Bush has the...

HEARINGS BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE NINETY-FOUR CONGRESS FIRST SESSION VOLUME 5 THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY AND FOURTH AMENDMENT RIGHTS OCTOBER 29 AND NOVEMBER 6, 1975 TESTIMONY OF LT. GEN. LEW ALLEN, JR., DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, ACCOMPANIED BY BENSON BUFFHAM, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NSA; AND ROY BANNER, GENERAL COUNSEL, NSA ... Between 1967 and 1973 there was a cumulative total of about 450 U.S. names on the narcotics list, and about 1,200 U.S. names on all other lists combined. What that amounted to was that at...

Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said. The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available...

Jan. 9, 2006 issue - The talk at the White House in the days and weeks after 9/11 was all about suitcase nukes and germ warfare and surprise decapitation strikes. Every morning, as they crossed West Executive Drive on their way to work in the West Wing, Bush administration staffers recall seeing a plain white truck with a galvanized metal chimney. Sensors sniffing for pathogens or radioactivity, they guessed, though they couldn't be sure. Like just about everything else at that spooky time, the purpose of the truck was a secret. Such chilling sights are not likely to inspire thoughtful...

op Bush officials should testify on NSA: Democrat By Eric Beech 23 minutes ago Top White House and Justice Department officials should be called to testify before a U.S. Senate committee investigating a secret domestic eavesdropping program, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record) said on Sunday. Schumer's comments followed a report in Sunday's New York Times that James Comey, a deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, was concerned about the legality of the National Security Agency's surveillance program and refused to extend it in 2004. White House aides then turned to Ashcroft while he was hospitalized for gallbladder...

HOW THE NYTIMES IS RINGING IN 2006 By Michelle Malkin   ·   December 31, 2005 10:45 PM Yes, it's New Year's Eve. And since there's no rest for the NYTimes, I'm not taking it easy tonight either. You see, NYTimes' reporter James Risen has been a busy bee over the holidays. The co-author of the infamous Chicken Little opus exposing the NSA special collection program to monitor international communications between suspected al Qaeda operatives and their contacts will be launching his new book, State of War, on January 3. Turns out the publisher of Risen's new book, which includes a discussion...

The New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency. For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months after 9/11...

Asserts Bush should be investigated for lying to Americans, breaking law Posted: December 30, 2005 5:00 p.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Accusing President Bush of breaking the law and lying to the American people, the American Civil Liberties Union today condemned a Justice Department investigation into the leak of the National Security Agency's operation to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists. The Justice Department announced the investigation today of disclosures to The New York Times about surveillance conducted without warrants on calls between U.S. citizens and terrorists in foreign countries since the Sept. 11 attacks. Administration officials argue the president had the...

Justice probes leak on intercepts By Bill Sammon THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published December 31, 2005 The Justice Department has begun an investigation into an illegal leak that allowed the New York Times to disclose that the National Security Agency was intercepting al Qaeda conversations.     "The leaking of classified information is a serious issue," White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy told reporters near the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas.     "The fact is that al Qaeda's playbook is not printed on Page One. And when America's is, it has serious ramifications. You don't need to be Sun Tzu to understand that,"...

  WAR AND TREASON AND THE NEW YORK TIMES by Mia T, December 29, 2005       inch Sulzberger rushed to the C-SPAN confessional booth mere days after 9/11. He had to make certain no one would blame The New York Times for that. The Times' '96 endorsement of bill clinton1 was the problem. The endorsement, you may recall, was contingent on clinton getting a brain transplant--specifically of the character lobe.2 How could The Times square that shameful, irresponsible endorsement with this monstrous failure3? Sulzberger quickly explained that The Times was able to endorse clinton by separating clinton's "policies"...

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department has opened another investigation into leaks of classified information, this time to determine who divulged the existence of President Bush's secret domestic spying program. The inquiry focuses on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials said. The newspaper recently revealed the existence of the program in a front-page story that also acknowledged that the news had been withheld from publication for a year, partly at the request of the administration and partly because the newspaper wanted more time to confirm...

FBI and Justice Department finally investigate a real leak Jim Kouri December 30, 2005 The US Department of Justice has directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct an in-depth investigation in order to determine who disclosed a secret National Security Agency intelligence operation to a reporter from the New York Times. "We are opening an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified materials related to the NSA," said DOJ spokesperson Trent Duffy during a press conference earlier today. When the New York Times suddenly broke the story about the NSA top secret operation Bush conceded that he indeed authorized...

Government Opens “Leaks” Investigation – ( I have a Possible Lead ) I see by the TV the government is finally opening an investigation as to who has been leaking highly confidential information to the Media –(and thereby to any interested party –friend or foe in the entire world.) I ran an informal inquiry of my own when a Communist website began publishing articles about “CIA Torture Planes” – complete with aircraft descriptions, tail numbers,and names of registered owners – described as “CIA front companies”. My reasons for doing so were quite simple: First,anyone traveling on one of these planes...

When a story is too good to be true The story of the UMass Dartmouth undergrad who lied about being questioned by agents for the Department of Homeland Security had everything. It played directly into the split between Red and Blue states. It was made for the Internet and Fox television and talk radio. And it was timed perfectly because of the firestorm that erupted two weeks ago when The New York Times broke the news that the Bush administration had authorized federal agents to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens calling abroad. Critics of the Bush...

2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has finally broken her silence on the Bush administration National Security Agency program that conducts surveillance on suspected terrorists based in the U.S. - saying that she opposes spying on "Americans."

Leak double-standards By Linda Chavez Dec 29, 2005 Within days of the leak of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, Sen. Chuck Schumer was demanding a full-scale investigation into the incident, and others soon followed suit. So where are Sen. Schumer and his fellow Democrats in demanding a similar investigation and prosecution of a far more egregious leak of classified material involving the National Security Agency? Instead of demanding to know who leaked information that could jeopardize both sources and methods for intelligence gathering that will protect American lives, Democrats -- and some Republicans -- are busy accusing the president...