Bush secretly authorized NSA to spy on Americans

From the New York Times:

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Why do I have the suspicion that when people look back on this presidency it will be called “one of the worst administrations ever?”

More from the article:

Mr. Bush’s executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States ­ including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners ­ is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the N.S.A. operation.

Hmm… it seems Congress gave the President more than just the authorization for war.

Some officials familiar with it say they consider warrantless eavesdropping inside the United States to be unlawful and possibly unconstitutional, amounting to an improper search.

You think? Does anyone in D.C. read the Constitution any more?

The article is quite lengthy but worth the read.

posted Dec 16th, 2005 by mikehorn
  • http://www.tomchristianonline.com/ Thomas Christian

    Total disregard for constitutional rights seems to be a common problem in Washington,DC. Only it didn’t just happen after 9/11. I have heard Valerie Plame described as being involved in “WMD counter-proliferation”. That’s not true however. She and her coworkers were also engaged in spying on Americans inside America, something which the CIA supposedly is not allowed to do.
    I know. She called me in spring of 2003 pretending to be with Brewster-Jennings. Following that I got a call from “Gail Heights” at University Services trying to get information. As you may know, Gail Heights was the alias used by Gao Zhan, the Chinese scholar who was convicted of exporting microprocessors to Communist China. This was just one of many attempts by Valerie Plame and her coworkers to get inside my life something which began in 1996 after applying for a job at the CIA and long
    before the 9/11 attacks.
    Other attempts included wiretapping, bugging, e-mail interception, opening of mail and surveillance.

  • Eponym

    Bush makes Nixon look like a choir boy. Worst administration ever? Yep.

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  • Stephen Gordon

    I just read it. Damn!

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