Bush Wants Terrorism Law Updated

DEB RIECHMANN
AP
Sunday July 29, 2007

President Bush wants Congress to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists.

"This law is badly out of date," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, provides a legal foundation that allows information about terrorists' communications to be collected without violating civil liberties.

Democrats want to ensure that any changes do not give the executive branch unfettered surveillance powers.

Bush noted that terrorists now use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate, recruit operatives and plan attacks; such tools were not available when FISA passed nearly 30 years ago. He also cited a recently released intelligence estimate that concluded al-Qaida is using its growing strength in the Middle East to plot attacks on U.S. soil.

"Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country," Bush said. "Congress needs to act immediately to pass this bill, so that our national security professionals can close intelligence gaps and provide critical warning time for our country."

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Bush was trying to exploit the threat from al-Qaida to push the bill. Feingold said the measure was an "egregious power grab that includes broad new powers that have nothing to do with bringing FISA up to date."

The 1978 law set up a court that meets in secret to review applications from the FBI, the National Security Agency and other agencies for warrants to wiretap or search the homes of people in the United States in terrorist or espionage cases.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush authorized the NSA to spy on calls between people in the U.S. and suspected terrorists abroad without FISA court warrants. The administration said it needed to act more quickly than the court could. It also said the president had inherent authority under the Constitution to order warrantless domestic spying.

After the program became public and was challenged in court, Bush put it under FISA court supervision this year.

The national intelligence director, in a letter Wednesday to the House intelligence committee, stressed the need to be able to collect intelligence about foreign terrorists overseas. Mike McConnell said intelligence agencies should be able to do that without requirements imposed by an "out of date" law.

"Simply put, in a significant number of cases, we are in the unfortunate position of having to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located overseas," he wrote the committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

Reyes said Saturday that the committee is intently focused on the issue.

"If changes to the law are required, we are prepared to do so," Reyes said. "We are actively working with the administration on any emergency requirements they may have. However, we want to avoid repeating the mistakes made by rushing the Patriot Act into law."

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, contends the White House is asking for more power to conduct warrantless domestic and international surveillance.

"The administration claims the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must be 'modernized.' Actually, it needs to be followed," she said. "The reality is, their proposal would gut FISA."

The ACLU said the legislation backed by the administration would give immunity from criminal prosecution and civil liability for the telecommunication companies that participate in the NSA program. The ACLU urged lawmakers to find out the full extent of current intelligence gathering under FISA before making changes.

"The only thing more outrageous than the administration's call for even more unfettered power is a Congress that would consider giving it to them," Frederickson said.

The House Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, said Democrats are delaying necessary changes.

"Rather than learning the lessons of September 11 _ that we need to break down the bureaucratic impediments to intelligence collection and analysis _ Democrats have stonewalled Republican attempts to modernize FISA and close the terrorist loophole," he said Saturday.

Clinton heckled during speech

CNN
Monday July 30, 2007

Speaking before an audience of college Democrats on Saturday, Senator Hillary Clinton was interrupted by a heckler. An older woman carrying a sign that read, “She doesn’t care, all she wants is the power” yelled at Clinton as she spoke. Several Clinton supporters in the audience returned shouts to the protestor and pushed her out of the room.

“One of the things I love about politics, you never know what the day will bring,” Clinton said.

Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, delivered remarks to the College Democrats of America National Convention. It was held on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina.

Fellow competitors for the Democratic nomination, Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel also addressed the group Saturday.

And Then There Was One, The Final Holdout: 9-11

Reggie, Contributing Editor
TvNewsLIES.org
Monday July 30, 2007

Not to worry, this is not about truth seekers or conspiracy theories. It’s not about the long list of anomalies and discrepancies in the official story of 9/11. It’s not even about the undeniable fact that the events of 9/11 gave George Bush and his handlers the keys to the neocon kingdom of empire. It really is not.

What it’s about is the strangest phenomenon I can recall in my entire adult life. It’s about what I perceive to be an extraordinary lapse in the logic of millions of otherwise sensible Americans. And it’s about something I cannot wrap my mind around, no matter how I try. Maybe someone out there can help me understand what’s going on.

In preface, let me also say that this is not about being uninformed. Granted, the corporate media have suppressed any discussion, debate or investigative reporting about the attacks on the United States that purportedly ‘changed everything.’ That reality aside, even the most fawn-like pundits on the airwaves understand that the ship of state is sinking, and that it is time to challenge the lies of this administration. But, it seems that lie after lie has become fair game for disclosure, or at least for some discussion at this point. As a result, each day, the American people in larger and larger numbers understand that they have been taken for a terrible and costly ride by the lies they were told by this President and his cohorts.

That is, every lie but one.

Finally, nearly seven years after a stolen election that was itself based on lies, greater numbers of Americans are no longer blindly accepting the talking points emanating from the White House as the Gospel truth. In more and more media outlets the Bush lies are openly being identified as such, - rather than by every other euphemism meant to soften the ugliness of a government lying to its people. If people are not totally convinced, at least they hear debates and discussions and competing viewpoints. If nothing else, they are beginning to have doubts about the daily mantras that had them mesmerized for so long.

So let’s take a look at just the short list of these lies, so as better to understand my dilemma about the lone holdout: 9/11. Bear with me:

At this point in time, many, if not most Americans know that the men and women in the Bush White House clearly and deliberately LIED to them, both by omission and commission about:

- The Bush connection to the bin Laden family.

- Escorting dozens of members of the bin Laden family out of US after 9/11

- The Patriot Act having been written decades before 9/11

- The call for a ‘new Pearl Harbor’ by the neocons who orchestrated the wars

- A totally invalid and false connection between Iraq and the ‘War on Terror

- Regular, politically timed terror alerts

- Toxic air quality at Ground Zero after 9/11

- The ‘junk science’ of Global Warming and its effects around the globe

- WH orders to suppress and politicize reports on by the Surgeon General

- Plans for wars with Iraq and Afghanistan that were made before 9/11

- Saddam Hussein’s possession of WMD

- Saddam Hussein’s connection to Al Qaeda

- Saddam Hussein’s involvement in 9/11

- Saddam Hussein’s threat to the US or his neighbors

- Having NO plans for an extended occupation of Iraq or for keeping the peace

- Inadequate armor and supplies for our men and women in uniform

- Supposed ‘progress’ in Iraq, time after time

- Fudged numbers of civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq

- The staged ‘toppling’ of Saddam’s statue

- The staged rescue of Jessica Lynch

- The lies about Pat Tillman’s death by friendly fire

- Illegal warrantless spying on US citizens

- Torture at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan

- Rendition of detainees to other countries for torture

- Outing Valerie Plame as a CIA operative

- White House involvement in the firing of federal prosecutors…

There are so many more lies to list, but I think you get the idea.

Am I wrong to believe that in any other life situation there would be a different reaction to a series of important lies? If you became aware that your plumber or your neighbor or your doctor, or anyone at all in your life lied to you over and over and over about issues that were relevant to your well being, would you ever again believe ANYTHING that person said to you? I really don’t think so.

So, after becoming aware of lie after lie after lie by Bushco, why would anyone in his or her right mind FULLY EMBRACE THE OFFICIAL STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED ON 9/11 WITHOUT A SINGLE QUESTION? Why would anyone in the United Sates of America conclude that the official version of the most important event in recent American history AS TOLD BY PROVEN LIARS is true?

Help me out here, please.

It makes no sense to me at all. Especially, since the most telling part of all this illogic is this: NONE OF THE LIES ON THE ABOVE LIST WOULD HAVE BEEN NECESSARY OR EVEN POSSIBLE WERE IT NOT FOR AN UNSWERVING ACCEPTANCE BY MOST AMERICANS OF THE OFFICIAL VERSION OF 9/11.

Bottom line: I fully understand how difficult it is to believe anything other than the official government story of 9/11. The editor of TvNewsLIES.org has examined the reasons behind the refusal of so many Americans to believe the mounds of evidence that challenge the credibility of the story we have been told. Fine and good.

But, frankly, for the purpose of this article, your personal opinion about who was responsible for 9/11 is irrelevant. It makes no difference at all. What matters is that we examine the strange illogic that stops millions of Americans from questioning a possible lie – one that may matter more than any other. These same Americans now seem willing to openly question many of the lies that are told and repeated ad nauseam by the President and his clan. They are now for more skeptical about their messages and far more hesitant to believe anything George W. Bush tells them in his speeches and press conferences.

But they still will not consider for a moment that the official story of 9/11 as told by this lying government may also be a lie. Ergo, the illogic I cannot understand..

The official story of 9/11 has been told by professional, experienced, and successful liars.
Think about that as you try to explain the need to believe it.

Maybe it will take another 9/11, as we’ve recently been warned may happen very soon, to convince Americans that the most egregious and damaging of all the lies told by the Bush administration must not remain off limits.

We really have few choices left. We have to reach that logical moment when we can openly discuss and debate and examine the available information about 9/11, no matter what the outcome may be. We have to retrieve our collective abilities to examine the events of that day. Perhaps, then, we finally can say about the lies we have heard….:

…and then there were none.

Soltz: Bush Needs To Resolve Whether Pat Tillman Was Killed For His Political Views

Think Progress
Monday July 30, 2007

Yesterday, Iraq war veteran Jon Soltz wrote on ThinkProgress about Pat Tillman: “Was the man the White House used to promote the war ordered to be killed because he was becoming increasingly critical of the war in Iraq?”

Last night on MSNBC’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann noted that “Corporal Tillman held a number of personal views that were unpopular within the context of the Bush administration, perhaps also within the Army.” Tillman reportedly favored John Kerry in the presidential election, opposed the invasion of Iraq, and had plans to meet with Noam Chomsky.

The Associated Press reported that in the last moments before Tillman died, another soldier was hugging the ground at Tillman’s side, and Tillman said, “Would you shut your [expletive] mouth? God’s not going to help you; you need to do something for yourself, you sniveling –”

The question of whether Tillman was killed for his political views lingers greater than ever. Appearing on MSNBC’s Countdown, Soltz said:

We know he was a free thinker. But it leads you to think was this guy killed possibly by people that didn’t like his political views or was he killed accidentally? We had a time in the war when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in April 2004 in Iraq; we had basically the Iraqi Tet offensive where the Shiite militias rose up and the contractors were burned at the stake; the President was facing the election and he decided not to go into Fallujah for six months. Did they use him to justify, politically, bad policy in Iraq?

Watch it:

The confluence of these factors intensify the need for openness. Despite being warned that Tillman may have died by friendly fire, Bush referenced Tillman in a 2004 speech but made no reference to how he died. The White house has cited executive privilege in refusing to turn over records that would verify how much Bush knew.

Soltz wrote on ThinkProgress that the longer this case lingers, the more damaging it will be to the military: “Those already in the military will lose faith that the leadership actually gives a damn about them, as the Tillman case becomes a hot topic in chow halls. Morale and confidence in the institution will crumble.”

UPDATE: Some commenters incorrectly understand Soltz’s argument to be that the White House had some involvement in or prior knowledge about the death. That is not what is being alleged. Rather, the question is whether Tillman’s political views played any role in motivating the person who shot him. And did the administration subsequently cover up the motive for Tillman’s death?

Administration looks to push through surveillance changes

CNN
Monday July 30, 2007

The Bush administration is looking to speed through a “significantly narrowed” group of changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act before Congress leaves Washington for its August recess.

One of them would ensure U.S. authorities could intercept on communications between suspected terrorists overseas without a warrant when those communications — due to modern technology — may travel through a switch in the United States.

According to a letter obtained by CNN, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell informed House and Senate leaders Friday that the administration is willing to temporarily shelve the broader FISA reform plan it’s been advocating for months in order to immediately push through a smaller package of changes that would “close the critical gaps in our intelligence capability in the short-term.”

The letter describes an “urgent” need for the intelligence community to provide warnings.

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told CNN this month that the United States has seen increased activity by al Qaeda and knows al Qaeda wants to launch an attack on the United States. He also noted that the group has launched attacks in various countries during the summer months. But intelligence officials have also told CNN there is no evidence suggesting a specific threat, and none suggesting the group is more likely to strike in the summer than at any other time.

McConnell wrote in his letter, “Although my strong preference is the immediate adoption of the proposal I transmitted to Congress in April, in light of the urgency of the situation, I offer the attached significantly narrowed proposal focused on the current urgent need of the Intelligence Community to provide warning.”

It was addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.