From: "Mark" 

Ultimately, this story will be a non-story, but in the short term it allows
the Times to get the Iraqi election overshadowed and gives a bunch of
senators some bird cage liner to wave around the senate floor and vote
against cloture on the Patriot Act renewal.

"Gary Britt"  wrote in message
news:43a2f2f5$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> Monitoring international communications has been lawful and COMMON for
> decades.  That's how Jim Wright and others got caught calling their commie
> buddie Daniel Ortege to advise on how they were supporting him against USA
> interests.
>
> The big story here is that this story is another example of CIA and State
> Department current and former employees compromising illegally the USA
> national security interests because they don't like the public's choice in
> President.
>
> This and other leaks compromise USA security for real.  Unlike the
> bullshit
> Plame affair which did not.
>
> Gary
>
> "Adam"  wrote in message
> news:43a2e82e$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4534488.stm
>>
>> Tut tut tut. I remember some NSA type giving me a whole long speil about
>> them having to stop taps if there was an american on one end of the line
>> etc....
>>
>> "President Bush allowed security agents to eavesdrop on people inside
>> the US without search warrants after 9/11, the New York Times has
> reported.
>>
>> Under a 2002 presidential order, the National Security Agency has been
>> monitoring international communications of hundreds in the US, the paper
>> says.
>>
>> Before, the NSA had typically limited US surveillance to foreign
> embassies.
>>
>> Officials cited by the paper said the Bush administration saw the scheme
>> as necessary to disclose terror threats.
>>
>> But some NSA officials familiar with the operation have questioned
>> whether the surveillance of calls and e-mails has crossed constitutional
>> limits on legal searches, according to the Times.
>>
>> "This is really a sea change," a former senior official
who specialises
>> in national security law told the paper.
>>
>> "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the NSA only does foreign
>> searches."
>>
>> Classified
>>
>> The US newspaper said nearly a dozen current and former administration
>> officials discussed the programme with reporters.
>>
>> They were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the
> scheme.
>>
>> Under the programme, the NSA has eavesdropped on as many 500 people
>> inside the US at any given time in its search for evidence of terrorist
>> activity, the paper said. "
>>
>>
>> Ah well another plank in the US system is shown to be rotten. I wonder
>> if they've extended it to drug dealers etc yet.
>>
>> Now all they have to do is to start getting heavy with the judges.
>>
>> Adam
>
>

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