Bush started off the New Year with what may be his first lie of 2006.
Is he moving the goalposts again ?
Now he says it's INCOMING CALLS ONLY, and 'If Al Qaeda is calling you, we want to know why.'
This is the first I've heard about it being INCOMING calls only. So if in his mythical example, an American citizen called AQ, then that would be okay ?
Also - when he said in 2004 that wiretapping was not being down without warrants, he sez he was talking about the Patriot Act wiretapping, not NSA wiretapping.
And: paradoxically, Bush himself continues to reveal new details when he talks like this!
Bush Defends Domestic Spying Program
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
3 minutes ago
SAN ANTONIO - President Bush on Sunday strongly defended his domestic spying program, saying it's a limited initiative that tracks only incoming calls to the United States. . . .
MORE . . .
. . . He said the leak of information about the secret order to eavesdrop on Americans with suspected ties to terrorists causes "great harm to the nation."
Asked how he responds to Americans worried about violations of their privacy, he responded, "If somebody from al-Qaida is calling you, we'd like to know why."
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"This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America and, I repeat, limited," he said. "I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy's thinking."
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Bush, who called the program "vital and necessary," dodged a question about whether he was aware of any resistance to the program at high levels of his administration and how that might have influenced his decision to approve it.
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"The NSA program is one that listens to a few numbers called from the outside of the United States of known al-Qaida or affiliated people," he said, adding that he believes that he is acting within the law.
"The fact that somebody leaked this program causes great harm to the United States," he said. "There's an enemy out there."
Many Democrats and some Republicans in Congress have questioned whether Bush's actions have gone beyond the constitutional powers and congressional resolution he has cited in defense of his actions authorizing the secret program.
Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has called for hearings into the program.
In 1978 Congress established a secret court to handle requests for surveillance and to issue warrants -- a system the Bush-authorized program bypassed.
The president was asked whether he misled the American people in 2004 when, during an event promoting the Patriot Act, he said that any wiretapping required a court order and that nothing had changed. He made the statement more than two years after he approved the NSA program.
"I was talking about roving wiretaps, I believe, involving the Patriot Act," Bush said. "This is different from the NSA program."
FULL STORY