It is always worse than you think:
President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program, the summary said. It describes the entire program as the "President's Surveillance Program."
The report describes the program as unprecedented and raises questions about the legal grounding used for its creation. It also says the intelligence agencies' continued retention and use of the information collected under the program should be carefully monitored.
I suppose that is AP-speak for "the report basically had a whole page that said SERIOUSLY GUYS WHAT THE SEVEN HELLS?" And I love this paragraph:
Many people think it was great, except the FBI, CIA, NCC, NSC, all three branches of government, the military, the SEIU, Donald Duck, some dude in a tinfoil beanie waving a sign around, your mom, Paris Hilton, and Bo the First Dog. Other than that, it was universally praised.
AFTER THE NEW YORK TIMES EXPOSED THEM FOR THE LIARS THEY ARE. It wasn't like Bush got up one day, went out into the Rose Garden, stretched, belched, and said, "Just so you all know, I've been breaking the law for years heh heh heh."
Five former Bush administration officials refused to be interviewed, including former CIA Director George Tenet and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The others: former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card; former top Cheney aide David Addington; and John Yoo, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general.
Perhaps they can address questions for Yoo to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The report suggests Yoo ignored an explicit provision in the FISA law designed to restrict the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime. And it said flaws in Yoo's memos later presented "a serious impediment" to recertifying the program.
SO AWESOME. Way to be, PI!
Dodd hasn't weighed in on this yet, according to his site, but Feingold, who back during the FISA immunity fight said basically, "I know all this stuff and trust me, it's worse than you think," has beseeched the rest of Congress and the White House to BITE HIM SO HARD:
A.
After the NYT finally got around to exposing, etc., more than a year after they began sitting on the story and just a few days before its publication in James Risen's "State of War" in early 2006.
Posted by: Fleas correct the era | July 12, 2009 at 10:49
Further, the NYT sat on the article for a year because a congresswoman who had been illegally wiretapped under the very same unconstitutional program was blackmailed into putting pressure on the Times to keep it zipped.
Following this story is like being on a giant calliope designed by M.C. Escher.
Posted by: El Gato Negro! | July 12, 2009 at 14:43
Everytime the "warrantless wiretapping" program and the NYT come up, I can only remember that the MSM all knew about the program from their anonymous sources and sat on it throughout and entire Presidential election!
An election the Chimperor reportedly won by some 3 million votes!
Why did all those reporters think those "anonymous" sources were telling them about blatant, illegal Presidential actions? For the access to the vaunted NYT?
Jeebus wept.
SP
PS -- and if still cannot get a decent, independent criminal investigation after all of this probable cause, then we are truly lost as a representative republic.
Posted by: ServingPatriot | July 12, 2009 at 15:14
The SOB, the criminal, the traitor in charge of all of this was George W. Bush. The media seem determined to lay the blame for much of this at Cheney feet, and at the feet of several underlings in the White House. Anything to avoid the obvious - we had a criminal SOB in charge of our country for 8 very long, and very tragic years. And, that would not have happened if, back in 2000, the media had done their duty and reported on what Bush was instead of making jokes about what they wished Gore was.
Also, Bush gets full blame for the crimes committed by his administration in large part because he did nothing about them, even when he knew about them. He never once fired or even publicly chastised an upper level member of his administration, no matter what they did. Fast forward: Our current president is "looking ahead" to avoid seeing the obvious right behind him. The longer he does this, the more he assumes responsibility for the crimes of Bush. My respect for our current president is dropping with each day he does this.
If Obama would simply go on national TV and acknowledge what happened, that our country was run by criminals from 2000-2008, and that he will never tolerate crime in his administration. Then, he can say that the problems the country faces today are so severe and so difficult, that he has decided not to prosecute the crimes of the Bush administration for now. With that my respect will grow back.
Posted by: hoppy | July 12, 2009 at 15:20
Well hoppy, I hope you're not holding your breath on that.
Posted by: Duckman GR | July 12, 2009 at 17:30
Considering the he said, she said, I said, I didn't say statements (d.g. - Panetta), the only way I see of getting our arms around the scope of this monster is to have sworn depositions.
We already know that rather than limiting this information gathering (illegal search and seizure)to overseas calls and known terrorists, the activities extended to at least one congresscritter (supposedly above reproach - so why spy on them ?). There is pretty good evidence that the information was used with at least one congressman for blackmail (as listed above). We know that this extended to news media personnel.
Knowing the connections of business and the Bush WH, what business decisions were guided by this information ?
Posted by: MapleStreet | July 12, 2009 at 20:05
i wanna know how many congresscritters georgee did this to.
Posted by: pansypoo | July 12, 2009 at 21:50
Yo, Russ, I'm sure they'll get right on that.
Sigh.
Posted by: Lex | July 13, 2009 at 16:01