(Bob) Graham shares details of his wiretap "briefing" (Miami Herald)

Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham reiterated Tuesday that the Bush administration never briefed him, as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, about a covert domestic wiretap program -- and suggested the possibility that it grew out of ``a creep of presidential authority.''

Rather, Graham recalled being summoned to a classified briefing by Vice President Dick Cheney in late 2001 or early 2002. He was informed about a presidential directive that let the National Security Agency eavesdrop on overseas calls that moved through U.S. communications lines -- not people speaking on the phone inside the United States.

President Bush said in a national radio address Saturday that he had approved the secret NSA program more than 30 times under a law that required authorization every 45 days.

''I don't know whether these 35 findings represented a repetition of the first or whether they represented a creep of presidential authority,'' Graham said in a lengthy telephone interview with The Miami Herald.


http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13453234.htm

its not a "a creep of presidential authority"

i believe the correct phrase is "a creep WITH presidential authority"

Either way, it's an eerie reminder of CREEP, Committee to Re-elect the President (Nixon)

Which was used to describe the Cambodian bombings during the Vietnam days, which were never authorized by congress....

He chose well.

And I'm sure the reporter knew as well, which is why that segment of the quote was so high up in the story.

...the Senate about this (as Jay Rockefeller has also proven). EAT SHIT Pat Roberts!

from those so called "breifings" the worse the chimp looks. I would like everyone to see this

that fisa-less wiretaps were okayed = 4 years and 3 months, presuming that the "more than 36 times" stated in the NYT is a good approximation. This would suggest that this has been going on nonstop since 911. In some articles it sounds like there were just "over three dozen cases" - which is not the case. Each approval is a blanket okay for as many extra-constitutional searches as can happen in a 45 day time period, at the end of which bush signs an okay for another 45 days.

If this Tyrant Bushit doesn't go down on all these revelations, then it proves to me that OUR government is REALLY BROKEN.

now there's a phrase that I'd love to see mentioned every time someone talks about *. Has a nice negative ring to it. Very Nixonesque.

creeping presidential authority. It would be scary if it weren't so, well, creepy. And it's scary anyway.

remember how much fun they made of him for writing everything he did down in his little notebooks?

for doing that.

What's wrong with a man who wants to remember details of conversations?

if you saw David McCullough on The Daily Show the other night, he said that many, many soldiers during the old days did just that. It used to be common to keep journals and write everything down in them. That is where much of our knowledge of those times comes from. Bob is just carrying on an old tradition, probably taught to him by HIS father.

Where the farmers would write down the times and angles of the sun and all that stuff. I rarely leave home without a pen and notebook in my pocket.

He said nat. security briefings were classified and he would never have diaried that meeting.

I love that guy!

At least in Florida

The guy from South Carolina...Lindsay Graham. He's wierd.

I always liked Bob Graham. But I wish he'd stayed in the Senate. We could have kept his seat Dem.

Welcome to DU!! :toast: