Make No Mistake-This Is A COVER-UP Of Illegal Surveillance Of American Citizens

Echoes of Watergate, 2001-2007
by drational
Sat Jul 28, 2007 at


The investigations into the Prosecutor Purge scandal have all along been about more than firing US Attorneys. At the hidden core of the investigations has been an opportunity to explore the most significant illegality and cover-up our country has seen since Watergate.


Analysis:

In the end, I think there was no "TSP" until it was defined out of necessity on 1/27/05; The Administration was compelled to address the NSA leak, so split the all-encompassing NSA program into TSP and all else, and issued marching orders to everyone in the administration "in the know" that the TSP would be the only part of the NSA program acknowledged, discussed and analyzed. This was a cover-up.
Comey, et al were likely objecting to the single existing "NSA program" that almost certainly included domestic-domestic and foreign-domestic (later known as the TSP) surveillance, bundled together into a single authorization package. I argue that Comey, et al. would not consider resigning over anything less egregiously unlawful than domestic-domestic warrantless surveillance.

The Bush Administration (Including Gonzales) has refused to answer questions about other (controversial) aspects of the NSA warrantless wiretap program as it existed in March 2004 under the grounds of mission-critical secrecy. The secrecy however is almost certainly to cover-up the controversial portion of the program that existed prior to Comey’s issues with it.
Mueller did not use the TSP terminology because he knows the "TSP" did not exist in 2004- it was a made up term to dissemble the December 2005 leak. Mueller was being honest and refusing to become entangled in the administration ambiguation, knowing full well that "TSP" is an artificial construct in which the administration has invested heavily, but which is not the full truth. He knows the extent of the NSA-surveillance programs and why they were controversial, and is not getting dragged into the cover-up.

...................

More observations on the call for a Special Prosecutor:

On 2/6/06 in Gonzales SJC appearance to discuss NSA surveillance, Schumer raised the issue of Comey’s objection to the program. Schumer needed to wait for the November, 2006 Democratic electoral victory and the Prosecutor Purge scandal to finally have the opportunity to lead Comey through his May 15, 2007 SJC testimony. This was a monumental date.

The other 3 Senators calling for a Special Prosecutor- Whitehouse, Feingold, and Feinstein- are all on the Select Intelligence Committee, and have likely been most fully apprised of the NSA programs (and understand the lies) at this point. Make no mistake: The Special Prosecutor will not be targeting only Gonzales, but also the architects of the NSA surveillance programs and the massive cover-up of probably illegal surveillance of American Citizens, communicating exclusively on American soil.


more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/28/72254/3793

also a good read:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/25185

'policy' that 'justifies' the program was developed AFTER THE FACT. It was to cover their asses for criminal activity, not the defense of our poor country.

Thanks.

and those who oppose your agenda.

kick & rec'd

The big cover-up is stealing 2000 from Al Gore. The very foundation of Bush being installed as President is corrupt.

There are too many scandals/cover-ups to count. This thread list many of them and links to compilation threads for many of them:

Yesterday was a GREAT DAY for Falwell TO DIE. Or, the Buffalo Jump to Hell.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x899312

Regarding the illegal and legal spying on Americans, here are two archived threads:

Campaign 2004: Were Bush / Cheney / NSA illegal wiretaps spying on Dems?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x925247

DIA SPYING: NGIA collecting data, 133 U.S. cities, ID everyone, nationality, political affiliations
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x983282

political advantage.

This question needs to be asked.

It takes big-time blackmail for a totally corrupt enterprise like Bu$hco to stay in business as long as it has.

So who is keeping straight who is blackmailing whom so as not to let the cat(s) out of the bag?

There are so many scandals in this administration, yet for 6 years who has come forward to squeal? No one...heck, we still don't know who put the U.S. attorneys on the list to be fired.

And more than one or two are in jail. Rep. Cunningham and Rep. Ney have prisoner numbers. Abramoff is talking, his co-conspirators are talking, Doolittle's staff is talking.

I could go on at lenght, but I have better things to do.
Do your research. Your despair is misplaced, and should not be spread about.

If they are being blackmailed - there is power in numbers. *Co can't possibly blackmail all Dems & Repugs that come out against them because: 1. there would be too many to do in at once and 2. if they did try to blackmail all who come out against them - it would just be proof that *Co was spying on them and holding blackmail over them - *Co would in fact incriminate themselves in the process.

blackmailed. Blackmail, in itself, is a crime.

:kick::kick::kick:

They cast the net as far and wide as they could cast it.

Nixon with Watergate writ large.

that the Republics were spying on Dems and that the possibility exists that the reason Congress seems to be so hamstrung is because they're being blackmailed into compliance.

I think you should move this out to the main board.

into line if they ever tried to stray off the reservation.

(Oh, and to blackmail Dems, too, obviously.)

spying on Americans who had nothing to do with terrorists. It was political and I'd bet money on it!

It reeks of Karl Rove. How else can Rove wield so much control over so many politicians?

both are evil

I also suspected they were spying on Dems.

since we all first heard of it. DU has been so far ahead of the curve on everyone else it would be cause for celebration if it weren't so damn tragic.

at the run up to the 2000 election - is proving to be true. You indicated that DU has been far ahead of the curve on everyone else. This begs the question of the involvement of this group in 9/11.

groups that did not agree with the wannta be king. I think that is how they found out what democrats were doing, trying to get elected, they monitored all their conversations, and emails.

Was -- and still is -- 9/11.

EVERYTHING else, including monitoring US citizen communications, is predicated on the official version of those events being true -- although less evidence has been provided to support those contentions than was provided to prove Iraq had WMD. Keep in mind the events in the first years after 9/11 -- including the still "unsolved" anthrax attacks, the death of Paul Wellstone, the struggle to get any 9/11 inquiry, the unanswered question 'what did they know and when did they know it?' that got Cynthia McKenny ousted from Congress, Bush/Cheney's refusal to testify before the 9/11 commission under oath (and no records kept), etc., etc. This is the most criminal administration in the history of this country and it ALL is predicated on their unsubstantiated version of 9/11 being true.

You are right - BUT - THIS is what will bring them down - and they are going to go down, one by one, slowly but surely. I BELIEVE!!!

is highly effective in creating awareness and motivating actions to countermand these criminals. Thank you kpete.

However, the 9/11 lie, if not exposed, allows the "war on terror" and the MIC/OIL consortiums to retain their power. WORSE, it allows for the possibility of another, potentially far more lethal false-flag event. No. I think if we're going to have a "war on terror" then we must go after the real terrorists -- the ones that exist within our own government, military and covert agencies. We can't do that if the truth of 9/11 continues to be covered up and hidden from the American people else we remain vulnerable to another attempt by the fascist oligarchy to overthrow our republic. As it is, I and many other people I know have lost complete faith in this system at every level. If you don't dig out the root and expose it to the light of truth, it will continue to fester and grow back stronger again -- even if you do chop off its shoots today.

power grab. But it wasn't JUST this administration: it was the entire republiCON party and republiCON congress we were stuck with that stole elections, took over the media, shut out the Dems, and passed laws allowing fascism to gain its foothold.

That is why, IMHO, that the entire republiCON party needs to be revealed in their participation, as well. 9/11 truth has made great headway into the belief systems of at least half of all Americans. Foreign countries knew it from the git-go. The only reason it hasn't gotten more "media" attention, is due to the fact that the media is a wholly owned subsidiary of the republican party.

:kick:

When you get away with killing the president of the USA in plein aire you can guess that there is going to be more to come --

That's why so many have worked at investigating the JFK coup -- same people, same agenda.
Oil, war profiteering, world conquest, highest hill in space


And, as Huey Long said long ago, our journalists are working for the "thieves of Wall Street" --

Just a gut feeling but:

I think that we will someday learn that communications of broadly selected categories of Americans have been recorded and stored for future analysis. Meaning that they were not looked at, listened to, or analyzed now. Therefore not subject to privacy and rights laws and regulations in accordance with some back bending definition of the law. This would all be defended on the basis of anonymizing the content of communications from the communicator until the time that bringing the two together is allowed. Like part A and part B in some chemical or biological weapon. It does not work or be allowed to work until brought together under certain controlled circumstances. Data anonymizing techniques can be proved to be as effective in control of data (until needed or allowed for use) as separation of parts of chemical and biological weapons. (Probably in theory, maybe in fact or at least in fact as believed (or fixed) by those controlling it.)

I can hear it now: We control the atom bomb for our defense don't we......etc. etc. we can safeguard the privacy of our citizens communications.....etc, etc. The trouble is that the government can't make that argument now and has to take pre-emptive action to defend us through retention of our communications while building a case to defend the action in the future and hoping that the cat does not escape the bag until the public will buy the reason for what they are doing. Hoping for the next big attack to make the revelation and also showing how it immediately got the bad guys (before or after) that otherwise we would not get? (And adding that if we had this before 9/11.......) "We had to do it for your safety, etc." (You could not have handled the truth if we told your before...)

At some future time when current laws and regulations permit (probable cause legally applies) these stored records of past communication (maybe not stored on government files but contractor files) will be de-anonymized and analyzed to find information on a targeted person. Who is making big bucks in the data storage business today (and what are they storing and who is paying?

J Edgar Hoover kept files. He knew what was in the files. In this case it is like keeping files on likely suspects (being some category of citizen most likely to be "bad guys" by some (somebody's) definition of criteria.

BUT: Nobody looks at the retained records of anonymized communication until it is legally permitted to put part A and part B together. Nicely controlled by a legal process?

Wrong in my opinion, at least fundamentally dangerous in any circumstances, but so many wrong things are being done because we have violated or allowed violation of some basic rights.

A vast amount of information to be stored. The capability to feed that store exists and and capability to store (holographic?) might be the best kept secret of the government. If so, it can't be kept secret much longer because the laws of data storage will demand that business be able to use what the government might now be using as data storage methods but considered storage technology theory by the public although a fact in government surveillance.

It is the new atom bomb. Great value or great harm? How is it to be controlled and used?

"Republicans stole thousands of Democratic documents from a shared Justice committee server....."

And, the Senators have been itching for the OVERSIGHT moment. To their great surprise, it arrived 2 years prematurely.

FROM: Campaign 2004: Were Bush / Cheney / NSA illegal wiretaps spying on Dems?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x925247

=======================================
Dems: Stolen memo case should go to DOJ
by kos - Tue Feb 10, 2004 at 02:02:22 PM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/2/10/17222/9423

.... Senate Dems are now demanding a criminal investigation from the Department of Justice
after Republicans stole thousands of Democratic documents from a shared Justice committee server.

From the registration only Roll Call:

   Key Senate Democrats predicted Monday that the internal investigation into the 
   Judiciary Committee's leaked memos would be turned into a full-blown criminal investigation.

   Exiting a 90-minute briefing about the probe with Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Pickle, a 
   quartet of senior Judiciary Democrats declared that what they had heard led them to believe 
   a criminal inquiry, most likely with the Justice Department handling it, should occur.

   "Eventually, this has to be looked at as a criminal matter," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)...

   Leahy sat in on the Senators-only briefing with Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein 
   (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), all of whom declined to speak of the details of where Pickle 
   stands in his three-month investigation ......

Republicans, in defending the theft, refer to the matter as a "technical glitch" and deny that the stolen memos amount to criminal wrongdoing .....

". . .there was no "TSP" until it was defined out of necessity on 1/27/05 . . .he TSP would be the only part of the NSA program acknowledged, discussed and analyzed."

The thing that concerns me is this: at the rate we are going, this administration may be able to run out the clock. Could Gonzales be setting himself up for a lengthy investigation, with the idea of keeping the big fish (Bush, Cheney, etc.) out of the spotlight?

:hi:

special Pros. because the president has the last say. Clement will not go against the president or his job is gone. Just like a whole bunch of US Atnys. Impeachment is the only ans and the dems have to warn the republicans that they will look bad if they don't vote for it.

Ashcrofts deputy thought very highly about him, said he wouldnt meet with Gonzo again without a witness, and he would contact Clement. AS though he trusted Clement.

Can't get any work done around the house because I'm so busy reading your posts today. KPete you're "Tony the Tiger" grrrrreat!

program. The journalists were being bugged too! There's NO DOUBT those rat bastards spied on the Democrats. They HAVE to keep this covered up or they'll ALL be in prison!


Congressmembers write White House to ask if reporters were bugged

RAW STORY

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Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and 22 other House members sent a letter to President Bush today requesting that he provide a range of information concerning the controversial warrantless surveillance program by the NSA, RAW STORY has learned.

In light of recent disclosures by NBC that CNN Reporter Christiane Amanpour's telephone calls may have been intercepted by the Bush Administration -- a fact caught by AmericaBLOG's John Aravosis. The Democrats asked for information regarding whether any reporters or other members of the media have had phone calls intercepted under the NSA program.

The congressmembers also asked the President to propose statutory language that would specifically authorize the program so that it could be considered as part of a possible extension of the USA PATRIOT Act scheduled to sunset Feb. 3.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Congressmembers_write_White_House_ask_if_0105.html

It was in March of '04 that Gonzo worked so hard to get the
program through.

in the context that some in the NSA were worried that if Kerry was elected, and details of the NSA program became known to him, that some NSA members would be jailed over what they were doing.

My 'Chertoff-gut feel' is that Bush was spying on reporters and politicans, including Kerry (in addition to American citizens).

Disclaimer: my gut feel is just that, I have no sourced information other than the Risen NYT article.

The pre-election flurry isn't about the threat from anywhere but the election.

That was the data mining program set up by (convicted Iran-Contra felon) John Poindexter in 2001 after 9/11. The program had a logo--the pyramid with the big eye in the center--so creepy that we all found it laughable. It was also considered so egregious (even by the likes of Dick Armey) that Congress banned it in 2003, leaving some exceptions. But it was well documented that some aspects of the program--it was never known exactly what--were continued even after the ban:



http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2006-07-19-data-mining_x.htm

Was some illegal version of TIA still an unacknowledged part of the surveillance program in 2004? Of course, we all know that Bush didn't call it the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" until later (more than a year after the now famous 2004 reauthorization contretemps), and that Gonzales only said the discussion was not about the TSP "as the president described it." Well, doh. This is all about semantics, and I believe the TIA activities are indeed at the heart of the illegalities that were being disputed within the administration.

like motorcycle helmet laws, handgun laws & random sobriety checkpoints, it is in the best interest of the American people and for their safety? :sarcasm:

Oh, but a group that runs on honesty and has, well, a few, only a few SCANDALS involving SELLING THEMSELVES would sell information they gain from TAX-DOLLAR-PAID surveillance. (/End sarcasm)

"I have nothing to hide"
BULL, because the guys running your retirement fund do.

What if there is a far worse program and is it that? Yeah that puts me giving Gonzales some slack--not my intention to give that scumbag any cover I assure you; but it wouldn't matter anyway. He would have his finger deep in this pie.

I don't come at this out of the blue. It is and has been something that the FISA court, the Patriot Act, and 2-3 executive orders dealt with. "Sneak and peak" -- the nomenclature.

I got to thinking about this in an interesting way--check the so-called voluntary reauthorization that the Bushies said they were doing (emphasized during the Comey testimony). That they had to go the AG after X period to reauthorize, but by their own design. That period matched the old FISA laws, previous to the reauthorization of the Patriot Act where X got longer. (Sorry I'm not being specific but it's friggin' late and if I google anything I may die, heh. But really check it out. Would like confirmation and will check back later.)

Essentially, I posit: does the FBI break into mosques and who knows what? Or worse, the CIA/military does same, who until very recently weren't supposed to ever do that shit (Posse Comitatus, Chruch etc.).