Cheney, In "Nightline" Interview Tonight, Misleads About Surveillance

Vice President Cheney says that if the U.S. had surveillance capability before Sept. 11, 2001, perhaps there wouldn't have been terrorist attacks that day.

It's a false claim.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires a warrant or court order to conduct electronic surveillance. And from 1979 to 2002, the FISA court did not reject a single warrant, issuing 15,264.

President Bush's secret, warrant-less domestic surveillance program, which during his Saturday radio address he admitted to personally authorizing, did not give the National Security Agency any new capability. It just circumvented the rules, which say the NSA must obtain a warrant before proceeding.

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But that doesn't stop Cheney from spinning things.

"And, in fact, it is a program that is, by every effort we've been able to make, consistent with the statutes and with the law. It's the kind of capability , if we'd had before 9/11, might have led us to be able to prevent 9/11," he said to ABC's Terry Moran, for a Nightline broadcast to air tonight.

Moran twice asks Cheney whether the administration needs permission from a court to "eavesdrop on communications in America."

Cheney sidesteps in his answer, in an effort to justify the Bush Administration's sidestepping of FISA rules. He twice indicates the Bush program has been reviewed by the Justice Department. He make a vague reference to the program being consistent with the USA Patriot Act. He offers that it has been "signed up to by the attorney general of the U.S."

And that the administration has "briefed Congress on it — just a few members, the leadership — on over a dozen occasions." In other words, the Republican leadership was in the know, and the rest of us were in the dark.

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So why mislead?

Perhaps Cheney is spinning because he wants to give the conservative noise machine another reason not to blame the Bush Administration for 9/11. The 9/11 Commission placed blame on both the Bush and Clinton administrations, but that's not good enough for most conservatives -- they just want to blame Clinton.

A couple of weeks ago, conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham asked listeners what Clinton did to fight terrorism. "Nothing," she answered rhetorically, then corrected herself to say that Clinton did "bomb an aspirin factory." Then she made a reference to Monica Lewinsky, and laughed.

While that sort of ignorance fuels conservative talk radio, no doubt Cheney's interview tonight will only provide the Ingrahams of the world with more ammunition.

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This item first appeared at Journalists Against Bush's B.S.

Vice President Cheney says that if the U.S. had surveillance capability before Sept. 11, 2001, perhaps there wouldn't have been terrorist attacks that day.

Perhaps if I'd gotten a bike for christmas when I was 10, PERHAPS there wouldn't have been all of this unrelenting bullsh*t.

Perhaps we're getting f**ked by these nutjobs.

From another post, "They hate us for our freedoms" applies to this administration doesn't it??

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Only illegal wiretaps can catch such evil-doers.

Legal ones, not so much.

The White House reporter for the Boston Globe said on Countdown on Friday that Bush could have asked for this in the Patriot Act, and probably would have gotten it. But he forgot to ask.

Maybe Cheney forgot that Bush forgot to ask?

9/11 was caused by BushCo purposefully not doing anything for nine months amidst documented pleadings of people in the intelligence community, the outgoing administration and their own ranks begging them to start paying attention to the reams of intelligence warnings coming in that both a major attack on the US was in the offing and that basic defensive measures were not being instituted. They did nothing, and it wasn't for the want of an illegal wiretap.

now, will anyone do anything about Bush breaking the FISA Act?

My guess is that Arlen will rebuff them but there won't be any charges filed. They'll stop, but there won't be any penalty beyond political. Kind of like if you robbed a bank and they catch you and tell you not to do it again.

It's far less important to my mind than 9/11 was and is. If the media had held Bush accountable for his at-best extreme, but I'm absolutely certain intentional, negligence leading up to the terrorist attacks in 2001, we wouldn't even be in Iraq now, let alone half a trillion in debt, let alone 15,000 wounded, let alone 2200 dead. Let alone illegal wiretaps.

It's bad, unethical and illegal, but it's not even close to the the worst that these people have inflicted on this country.

interview.

Any numb skull can read a list of questions...if takes a real journalist to take a response to the question and search for particulars in a follow-up.