Bush OK'd illegal enemies list pre-9/11

A recently declassified document shows that George Bush authorized illegal domestic spying before 9/11:

Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 13 January 2006

The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.

In its "Transition 2001" report, the NSA said that the ever-changing world of global communication means that "American communication and targeted adversary communication will coexist."

"Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws," the document says.

However, it adds that "senior leadership must understand that the NSA's mission will demand a 'powerful, permanent presence' on global telecommunications networks that host both 'protected' communications of Americans and the communications of adversaries the agency wants to target."

What had long been understood to be protocol in the event that the NSA spied on average Americans was that the agency would black out the identities of those individuals or immediately destroy the information.

But according to people who worked at the NSA as encryption specialists during this time, that's not what happened. On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law. [...] Read the rest.

The issue is not necessarily that the NSA's data mining sometimes turned up info on American citizens, but rather that the administration chose to retain that information illegally. It appears that the Bush administration was too busy drawing up an illegal American enemies list to pay attention to little clues like briefings called "Osama Bin Laden determined to strike inside the United States."

Comments

[rob helpy-chalk]

Fuck.

[rob helpy-chalk]

Was I supposed to say something more articulate?

[Squashed lemon]

Bush is so screwed. He has to change all his talking points and explain why he is lying now...

but then again, what's new.

[Confederate Yankee]

Or... and here's a thought... you could actually read the document and discover that it was written during the Clinton adminstration before Bush ever took office.

Sometimes that gun is smoking becuase it blew up in your hand.

[Eli]

Sometimes that gun is smoking becuase it blew up in your hand.

I doubt the veracity of this statement on gun usage.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Actually, I did read the document. It's the 2001 transition report from the NSA. So, of course it was written before Bush took office! The NSA doesn't just pull an all-nighter to write up the brief for the incoming POTUS.

The fact is that Bush approved the program and lied about it. The NSA's data mining program might have been perfectly appropriate if it hadn't been abused to gather information about American citizens. Using data mining to spy on American citizens without warrants is illegal, period.

The president claims that he has the authority to spy on Americans without warrants because we're at war. But the truth is that he assumed that authority before the war started. So, he's a liar.

[Confederate Yankee]

This document does not show any support at all for your contention that Bush started the program before 9/11. None.

It states the history and purpose of the NSA to that point, and what it was capable of doing and becoming, but it could not predict what it would become before Bush even took office.

A document written in December of 2000 is not a crystal ball, and yet in your illogical hatred, you would ignore the limitations of time... or instead would trust in a fortune teller.

It's sad, really, the mental contortions you must make to remain "reality-based"..

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

CY, I thought you were arguing that the NSA domestic spying plot was hatched under Clinton. Now you're (correctly) noting that, as of the publication of the transition report, the data mining program had not yet been implemented. So, we agree that Bush authorized the program.

The only dispute is whether the NSA started spying on Americans before or after 9/11.

The evidence that the program began before 9/11 comes from a http://www.slate.com/id/2133564/>a telecommunications executive who told Slate that he participated in the program before the terrorist attacks and from Leopold's own NSA sources.

[Rob Malaguti]

Nothing is more amusing than the "it was Clinton" "it was Bush" argument regarding spying. I dont care if it started under JFK, it is illegal according to the U.S. Constitution and needs to be halted immediately. But as always, some people love to turn it into a partisan thing rather than focusing on the fact that all Americans are having their rights and liberties trampled on.

[John Palcewski]

I’ve just had an inspiration: A literally perfect protest that will—without any doubt whatever—cause a media firestorm. And it won’t cost anything. And it won’t be illegal. Or a LIE.

The moment President Bush in his upcoming State of the Union speech utters a falsehood, or a mischaracterization, like “I did not break the law by ignoring FISA,” or that he will do “anything” to protect the people from the terrists, or claiming that congress was briefed on and agreed to the wiretapping, the moment he utters a single syllable of bullshit, then:

every single Democrat should get up and quietly walk out of the room.

This mass exodus would not be disrespectful to the presidency itself, but rather a principled refusal of congressmen and women to by their silence endorse the bullshit and lies of the man who occupies the office.

Imagine it!

Why don’t we start an email, fax and telephone campaign? Spread the word. Let the word flow through the blogosphere. Let the Fascists know what’s coming.

The beauty of this proposal is that we don’t have to resort to the slime tactics and lies and bullshit that got the Republicans where they are today. PRINCIPLE will be the bedrock of this exercise of free speech.

What do you say?

[Squashed Lemon]

..

okay, wingnuts are all worked out. so we are in the right path. (If wingnuts ar getting loud, that mean it touches their nerve cause their talking points are falling apart. keep nipping, peeps.)

------
My bigger question. And I think it will be VERY interesting to see.

Remember "ABLE DANGER"?

I got the feeling, able danger database is fed some huge number of information, from these sort of program. and the 'hush-hush' words that they already have 'rough' picture and organisational structure of the plot is true.

ie. Bush knows 9/11 is about to happen and he makes sure it happens.

Watch this one out, as more documents emerge...the administration will FIGHT very hard to hide any evidence.