reality-based educator

More imperial presidency stuff from our Special Education Preznit. During his radio address today, he admitted he personally approved the use of illegal wiretaps in order to keep us safe in the War on Terror:

Bush Acknowledges Approving Eavesdropping

By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Saturday he personally has authorized a secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks and he lashed out at those involved in publicly revealing the program.

"This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security," he said in a radio address delivered live from the White House's Roosevelt Room.

"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 as long as I am president of the United States," Bush said.

Angry members of Congress have demanded an explanation of the program, first revealed in Friday's New York Times and whether the monitoring by the National Security Agency violates civil liberties.

Defending the program, Bush said in his address that it is used only to intercept the international communications of people inside the United States who have been determined to have "a clear link" to al-Qaida or related terrorist organizations.

He said the program is reviewed every 45 days, using fresh threat assessments, legal reviews by the Justice Department, White House counsel and others, and information from previous activities under the program.

Without identifying specific lawmakers, Bush said congressional leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times on the program's activities.

The president also said the intelligence officials involved in the monitoring receive extensive training to make sure civil liberties are not violated.

Appearing angry at times during his eight-minute address, Bush left no doubt that he will continue authorizing the program.

"I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaida and related groups," he said.

Well, I sure am relieved to know that the preznit believes these illegal wiretaps are "crucial to national security" and "critical to saving American lives."

I also am reassured by the preznit's assurances that the intelligence officers involved in the monitoring "receive extensive training to make sure civil liberties are not violated."

And I am especially confident that since we are only monitoring people who have been determined to have a "clear link" to Al Qaeda that we're only wiretapping truly bad guys.

NOT!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Vice Preznit of Terror, Dick Cheney, assure us that Saddam had clear ties to Al Qaeda?

Does anyone really have any confidence in Bush administration claims that they use "fresh threat assessments" every 45 days to make sure they are only monitoring true threats to national security?

I mean, nearly every threat assessment we have gotten from this administration both pre and post 9/11 has been severely flawed, to say the least.

Remember how the Bushies said Al Qaeda was going to blow up the Citicorp building last summer?

Remember how that threat assessment turned out to be based on both faulty and outdated intelligence?

Remember how the more cynical among us suspected the Citicorp/Al Qaeda threat had been divulged to the press right after the Democratic National Convention for "political reasons"?

How much do you want to make a bet that Bush has personally authorized wirtetapping for "political" reasons? How much do you want to bet that the more the press and the Senate look into this, the more they'll find Cheney, Libby, Rove et al. behind the wiretapping and the more they'll notice that some of the people and/or groups monitored were "peace groups" or other opponents of the preznit's policies who the administration had somehow construed to be threats to "national security"?

Kinda like how a Quaker peace group in Florida was monitored and spyed upon by the Defense Department because somebody in the Pentagon saw the peace activist group as a "threat" to national security. Lisa Myers of NBC News broke that story this week, and I think it's no coincidence that the NSA spying story and the Defense Department spying story broke in the news the same week.

So will Arlen Specter be true to his word and hold hearings into this Orwellian spying program personally authorized by our preznit? Or will Specter succumb to political pressure and hold a Pat Roberts kind of whitewash that will allow administration apologists to go onto the talk show circuit and explain away the illegalities by saying a Senate committtee looked into them and there was nothing there?

I'm betting on #2.

I am hoping, however, that maybe after November 2006, a Democratic House or Senate could get around to # 1.

And then we could have some frogmarching.