History, Our Times, and Rage?

Why would Bush and Company want to spy on American citizens in case they’re planning acts of terror, then turn around and allow 5000 young Saudis into our borders, when 14 out of 15 active participants in September 11, 2001 were young Saudis in this country to attend universities and colleges?

Whatever intended purpose these current entangled machinations will eventually reveal, we are merely lucky to have divined their existence now instead of later. Luck and time may not be sufficient to prevent the continuing vast conspiracy against America that may exist.

Our war is HERE. Our war is INTERNAL. Our war is not with ‘terrorists’ and whoever the present administration defines as ‘the enemy’. Our war is with the current administration and our defeat will result in the loss of American democracy.

The Bush administration must not be allowed to continue their secret agenda for the overthrow of Liberty and Justice in America.
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December 17, 2005

Transcript

President Bush’s Address

Following is a transcription of President Bush’s weekly radio address yesterday as recorded by The New York Times.

As president, I took an oath to defend the Constitution and I have no greater responsibility than to protect our people, our freedom and our way of life.

On Sept. 11, 2001, our freedom and way of life came under attack by brutal enemies who killed nearly 3,000 innocent Americans. We’re fighting these enemies across the world. Yet in this first war of the 21st century, one of the most critical battlefronts is the home front. And since Sept. 11, we’ve been on the offensive against the terrorists plotting within our borders.

One of the first actions we took to protect America after our nation was attacked was to ask Congress to pass the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act tore down the legal and bureaucratic wall that kept law enforcement and intelligence authorities from sharing vital information about terrorist threats. And the Patriot Act allowed federal investigators to pursue terrorists with tools they already used against other criminals.

Congress passed this law with a large bipartisan majority, including a vote of 98 to 1 in the United States Senate. Since then, America’s law enforcement personnel have used this critical law to prosecute terrorist operatives and supporters and to break up terrorist cells in New York, Oregon, Virginia, California, Texas and Ohio.

The Patriot Act has accomplished exactly what it was designed to do. It is protecting American liberty and saved American lives. Yet key provisions of this law are set to expire in two weeks.

The terrorist threat to our country will not expire in two weeks. The terrorists want to attack America again and inflict even greater damage than they did on Sept. 11. Congress has a responsibility to ensure that law enforcement and intelligence officials have the tools they need to protect the American people.

The House of Representatives passed reauthorization of the Patriot Act, yet a minority of senators filibustered to block the renewal of the Patriot Act when it came up for a vote yesterday. That decision is irresponsible and it endangers the lives of our citizens.

The senators who are filibustering must stop their delaying tactics and the Senate must vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

In the war on terror we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment. To fight the war on terror, I’m using authority vested in me by Congress, including the joint authorization for use of military force, which passed overwhelmingly in the first week after Sept. 11. I’m also using constitutional authority vested in me as commander in chief.

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to Al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.

This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies.

Yesterday, the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have.
And the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies and endangers our country.

As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, it was clear that terrorists inside the United States were communicating with terrorists abroad before the Sept. 11 attacks. And the commission criticized our nation’s inability to uncover links between terrorists here at home and terrorists abroad.

Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet in the Pentagon, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, communicated while they were in the United States, to other members of Al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn’t know they were here until it was too late.

The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after Sept. 11 helped address that problem in a way that is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities.
The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time.

And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.

The activities I authorized are reviewed approximately every 45 days. Each review is based on a fresh intelligment assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland.

During each assessment, previous activities under the authorization are reviewed. The review includes approval by our nation’s top legal officials, including the attorney general and the counsel to the president.
I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from Al Qaeda and related groups.

The N.S.A.’s activities under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice Department and N.S.A.’s top legal officials, including N.S.A.’s general counsel and inspector general.

Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it. Intelligence officials involved in this activities also receive extensive training to ensure they perform their duties consistent with the letter and intent of the authorization.

This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties. And that is exactly what I will continue to do so long as I’m the president of the United States.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

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Excerpts from major national newspapers and news organizations Sunday, December 18, 2005:

December 18, 2005
Thousands of Scholarships Lift Saudi Enrollments in U.S.
By JOEL BRINKLEY
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 - Urgently trying to improve relations with the United States, the Saudi Arabian government is promoting a scholarship program that has already more than doubled the number of new Saudi enrollments at American colleges and universities since last year.
The program, aimed in part at reducing widespread hostility in the Saudi public toward the United States, has reversed a steady plunge in Saudi students here that started immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The Saudi government offered 5,000 students full four-year scholarships, complete with living allowances. About two-thirds of the 5,000 students enrolled in American schools this fall, the State Department said, and the number would have been higher had the United States been able to process all the visa requests.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

Story location: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/international/middleeast/18arabia.html


December 17, 2005
News Analysis
Behind Power, One Principle as Bush Pushes Prerogatives
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - A single, fiercely debated legal principle lies behind nearly every major initiative in the Bush administration’s war on terror, scholars say: the sweeping assertion of the powers of the presidency.
From the government’s detention of Americans as “enemy combatants” to the just-disclosed eavesdropping in the United States without court warrants, the administration has relied on an unusually expansive interpretation of the president’s authority. That stance has given the administration leeway for decisive action, but it has come under severe criticism from some scholars and the courts.
With the strong support of Vice President Dick Cheney, legal theorists in the White House and Justice Department have argued that previous presidents unjustifiably gave up some of the legitimate power of their office. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made it especially critical that the full power of the executive be restored and exercised, they said.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

Story location: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/politics/17legal.html


THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR
December 18, 2005

Bush admits giving OK for wiretaps
he says practice has kept nation safe, will continue
By James Kuhnhenn
Knight Ridder Newspapers

December 18, 2005

WASHINGTON—President Bush acknowledged Saturday that on more than 30 occasions, he secretly authorized the National Security Agency to spy on Americans and other residents and defiantly vowed to continue such domestic eavesdropping “for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaida and related groups.”
Bush’s unusually frank admission, made in his weekly radio address, came amid a bipartisan uproar in Congress after The New York Times revealed the secret NSA program in Friday’s editions.
Bush said the report relied on unauthorized disclosure of classified information that “damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.” Disclosure of the program helped generate opposition to a renewal of the Patriot Act in the Senate on Friday.
“The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time,” Bush said in a rare live address. “And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.”
The New York Times account said the NSA secretly monitored—without court approval—international phone calls and e-mail messages that originated in the United States. The newspaper said the NSA eavesdropped on hundreds and perhaps thousands of U.S. citizens and other U.S. residents or tourists.
The president ordered the NSA to act without approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, a special federal tribunal created in 1978 to authorize domestic counterterrorism operations.
“I don’t understand why that wasn’t used,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. “Congress has clearly provided for what was going on. It seems to be that that procedure should have been followed.”
“It’s important not to view that activity in a vacuum,” he added. “There are a whole number of actions that the president has taken, premised on unilateral executive authority, that many observers find problematic.”
In a Democratic response to the president, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., called Bush’s address a “shocking admission” and demanded that he halt the program immediately.
“The president believes that he has the power to override the laws that Congress has passed,” Feingold said. “This is not how our democratic system of government works. The president does not get to pick and choose which laws he wants to follow.
“He is a president, not a king.”

Story location: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH?SITE=ININS&SECTION=POLITICS


December 18, 2005
Editorial
This Call May Be Monitored ...
On Oct. 17, 2002, the head of the National Security Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, made an eloquent plea to a joint House-Senate inquiry on intelligence for a sober national discussion about whether the line between liberty and security should be shifted after the 9/11 attacks, and if so, precisely how far. He reminded the lawmakers that the rules against his agency’s spying on Americans, carefully written decades earlier, were based on protecting fundamental constitutional rights.
If they were to be changed, General Hayden said, “We need to get it right. We have to find the right balance between protecting our security and protecting our liberty.” General Hayden spoke of having a “national dialogue” and added: “What I really need you to do is talk to your constituents and find out where the American people want that line between security and liberty to be.”
General Hayden was right. The mass murders of 9/11 revealed deadly gaps in United States intelligence that needed to be closed. Most of those involved failure of performance, not legal barriers. Nevertheless, Americans expected some reasonable and carefully measured trade-offs between security and civil liberties. They trusted their elected leaders to follow long-established democratic and legal principles and to make any changes in the light of day. But President Bush had other ideas. He secretly and recklessly expanded the government’s powers in dangerous and unnecessary ways that eroded civil liberties and may also have violated the law.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

Story location: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/opinion/18sun1.html?incamp=article_popular_1


Don’t Be Fooled by Bush Polls, Democratic Council Warns
By John F. Harris and Chris CillizzaSunday, December 18, 2005; A04
Rising public frustration with the Iraq war and low approval ratings for President Bush look to many Democrats like an opportunity for big gains with voters in the 2006 and 2008 elections.
But two of the party’s top strategists say this opportunity may be something else: a trap.
Al From, president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, and pollster Mark Penn wrote a strategy memo to DLC supporters last week warning party leaders not to use Bush’s problems as an invitation to call for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, or generally to steer a more liberal course that could alienate the middle-of-the-road voters the party needs.
“It is important for Democrats to understand that despite Bush’s decline, America remains a moderate to conservative country—particularly on economic and security measures,” the two wrote. While a poll taken by Penn for the DLC showed voters opposing the Iraq war 54 to 44 percent, they warned that “Democratic leaders could be playing with political dynamite if they call for an immediate pullout of American troops.”
The memo is the latest illustration of deep divisions among Democrats over the right stance on Iraq—on policy and political grounds. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who supports a rapid withdrawal starting now, has estimated that half the Democratic caucus agrees with her.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Story location: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700817.html


Spying on Americans
Sunday, December 18, 2005; B06
IN THE WAKE of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the New York Times reported last week, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance of hundreds of U.S. citizens and residents suspected of contact with al Qaeda figures—without warrants and outside the strictures of the law that governs national security searches and wiretaps. The rules here are not ambiguous. Generally speaking, the NSA has not been permitted to operate domestically. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires that national security wiretaps be authorized by the secretive FISA court. “A person is guilty of an offense,” the law reads, “if he intentionally . . . engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute”—which appears, at least on its face, to be precisely what the president has authorized.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Story location: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121701005.html


North Korea Times
Powell admits being sidelined by Cheney, Rumsfeld
Sunday 18th December, 2005

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went behind his back, and the backs of other members of the administration.
Powell was speaking on a wide range of topics in an interview with David Frost on the BBC.
Asked whether a cabal including Cheney and Rumsfeld had operated within the White House, as alleged by Powell’s Chief of Staff from 2002 to 2005, Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell said he would not characterise it as a cabal, however Rumsfeld and Cheney on occasions did go direct to the president by-passing him and other members of the administration.

Story location http://story.northkoreatimes.com/p.x/ct/9/cid/b8de8e630faf3631/id/6c8d5ce762c73b05/