[update]
Photo by Spoof
Too much is being made about this "supposed" illegal act of spying on US citizens. As Madam Secretary Rice points out,
"Tim, again, I'm not a lawyer, but the president has constitutional authority and he has statutory authorities."
I mean could it be any clearer than that? She does not pretend to be a lawyer. She does not need to know the law to understand that the President is well within his right approving this type of activity. She will not yield to any far-fetched old-timer law like The Federal Information Security Act. My god people we are in a post-911 world now. Your liberty and rights could cost the rest of us our lives.
We are fighting a mobile enemy;
"we are fighting a new kind of war." We need access to information quickly. Don't bother her with the Constitution or Congressional oversight. We have to bridge the gap between local surveillance and international. We can't just have anyone hiding behind the civil liberties granted to our citizens.
Meanwhile people are calling outside the US and going unchecked? This surveillance has already saved hundreds of lives and the hundreds of man-hours it would have taken terrorists to dismantle the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches.
REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, (R) CALIFORNIA: "No. What's really bad is the fact that we have an evil opponent who wants to blow us up and that six months after 3,000 of our American citizens were slaughtered right in front of our eyes, that we were confronted with this challenge. I'm really sorry that we have this kind of evil enemy that wants to slaughter us, but I'm very happy that we have a president that, six months after they slaughtered 3,000 of our citizens, he decided to follow up on a lead that was given to our people by breaking up an al Qaeda cell in Pakistan, and followed through on that to make sure that there wasn't another imminent attack, and thus probably saving many thousands of American lives. (The Pakistani cell was reportedly going to attack the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. Information turned out to be false.) We can be proud of President Bush for protecting us."
Well I have had the unique opportunity of looking at some of this NSA intelligence and I have made a list of things you may or may not know. Trust me, this is being done for our protection.
You might be a terrorist if God tells Bush you are.
You might be a terrorist if after 14 months of torture you admit you are.
You might be a terrorist if you live in the US.
You might be a terrorist if you're Muslim and live in Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, etc, etc.
You might be a terrorist if you're dating someone in a foreign country.
You might be a terrorist if you are calling anyone outside the US.
You might be a terrorist if you own a bank account that has overseas transactions.
You might be a terrorist if you are a Quaker opposing the war.
You might be a terrorist if you are any race and object to the war.
You are a terrorist if you protest the war.
You might be a terrorist if you are Muslim and live anywhere (except Iraq, then you are an insurgent)
You might be a terrorist if you question any part of this administrations intentions.
You are a terrorist if you question the above vocally.
You might be a terrorist if you have ever visited a website from the Middle East.
You might be a terrorist if you have ever talked to a Muslim person.
You might be a terrorist if you object to the violations of your civil liberties.
You might be a terrorist if you have ever .......well let's admit it we probably all are terrorists, it's just that the Pentagon hasn't gotten around to starting a file on us yet.
As you can see there really is no way to know without cutting a few constitutional corners. I will leave you with this thought. It has only come to light just recently that spying on Americans has been taking place now for the last few years. We are being told this from our Secretary of State and former National Security Advisor as justification for these programs.
"We have to remember that the President looks at many many many pieces of intelligence about coming attacks. Frankly almost none of them specific enough to act upon."
As you can see this program is yielding some very impressive results, but nothing he can act upon.
All hail King Bush.
Could this group be any more criminal????
*Please feel free to leave your own You Might be a Terrorist If.....in the comments section. We had a really funny string of them going in the Mid Day Open Thread*
_(as a side note I have never seen any classified NSA intelligence held by the Pentagon or any other branch of the government)_