Cheney Pushed U.S. To Widen Eavesdropping

Source: The New York Times

This really doesn't surprise me.

The architect behind the NSA intercepting purely domestic telephone calls and e-mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists: Vice President Dick Cheney.

It seems NSA lawyers tried unsuccessfully to persuade Cheney and his legal advisers that anything beyond communications into and out of the country would violate FISA and several telecommunications laws--including the Telecommunications Privacy Act.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, picked to be the next chief of the CIA, sold the plan to CIA officers and the White House on the fact there would be safeguards in place. The cataloguing of every phone call and email inside the U.S. went forward, and meanwhile, those safeguards are currently missing in action.

Also, let's not forget that all of this moved forward without the sanctioning of the FISA court and warrants, hence all of this is extremely illegal, in scope.

WASHINGTON, May 13 -- In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e-mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists, according to two senior intelligence officials.

But N.S.A. lawyers, trained in the agency's strict rules against domestic spying and reluctant to approve any eavesdropping without warrants, insisted that it should be limited to communications into and out of the country, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss the debate inside the Bush administration late in 2001.

The N.S.A.'s position ultimately prevailed. But just how Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the agency at the time, designed the program, persuaded wary N.S.A. officers to accept it and sold the White House on its limits is not yet clear.

Nixon wasn't half as bad as this bunch.

Clinton got a blowjob, and the GOP, themselves, got off on publicly embarrassing him and the Democratic party.

When does a very criminally corrupt Bush administration get its due? Someone please explain to me why Bush and Cheney both continue to get a free pass?

Tags: [Cheney Pushed U.S. to Widen Eavesdropping], [NSA intercepting purely domestic telephone calls and e-mail messages without warrants], [NSA], [Gen. Michael V. Hayden], [Vice President Dick Cheney], [White House], [anything beyond communications into and out of the country would violate FISA and several telecommunications laws], [criminal and extremely illegal]