Lindsey Graham ‘glad’ NSA collecting phone records

[onehandle]

Source: Yahoo News

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on Thursday morning he's "glad" the National Security Agency is secretly collecting millions of telephone records from Americans in an effort to track down terrorism suspects.

“We are very much under threat," Graham said on "Fox & Friends," adding that he is a customer of Verizon, the communications company ordered to turn over the records to the government. "Radical Islam is on the rise throughout the region. Homegrown terrorism is one of my biggest concerns. It is happening in our own backyard, and I am glad that NSA is trying to find out what terrorists are up to overseas and inside the country."

Graham isn't the only Republican defending the Obama administration's broad surveillance program, which the Guardian newspaper exposed on Wednesday.

Ari Fleischer, President's George W. Bush's former press secretary, wrote on Twitter that Obama "is carrying out Bush's fourth term" with drone strikes, phone surveillance and Guantanamo Bay. "Just to be clear & so silent liberals understand, I support President O's anti-terror actions. They're bi-partisan now," he wrote. Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia told reporters the program is long-standing and legal.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/lindsey-graham-m-glad-nsa-collecting-phone-records-151211411.html

[rdharma]

1. I do declare!

Lindsey likes the phone tapping.

[marshall]

2. At least he's on the same page as the President

Both past and present. The future is open.

[Maedhros]

5. This is disturbing:

"Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush's former press secretary, wrote on Twitter that Obama "is carrying out Bush's fourth term" with drone strikes, phone surveillance and Guantanamo Bay. "Just to be clear & so silent liberals understand, I support President O's anti-terror actions. They're bi-partisan now," he wrote. Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia told reporters the program is long-standing and legal."

When Ari Fleischer, Saxby Chambliss and Lindsay Graham are praising the President, the President must be doing something wrong.

This is the most frightening quote: "They're bi-partisan now." By failing to denounce, and instead continuing, the excesses of the Bush Administration, Obama has taken policies that were at one time shockingly extreme and made them business as usual. In our confrontational political system, once a policy becomes "bipartisan" it is institutionalized and will never go away.

[alarimer]

3. If what you're doing pleases Republicans, it is wrong.

That's a good rule of thumb.

[Purveyor]

4. Can someone still go out and buy a disposable cellphone at say Dollar General without providing

identification? I know it used to be that way...

[Malik Agar]

8. Why would you need to do that?

If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear...

[Purveyor]

10. I don't need one but I know it was a issue at one time of drug dealers, terrorist, stalkers using

this type of phone without being traceable.

[Paper Roses]

9. Phone at a dollar store? Which one? Off topic but....

I hate the phone I have, a disposable dollar store phone would work for me.

Do you think the calls would be recorded? I hope Uncle Sam would like to hear about a great meatloaf recipe from a neighbor.

[Purveyor]

13. Dollar General isn't just a dollar store as they sell stuff in all price ranges and yes, I've seen

a nice selection of 'pay as you go' cellphones in there.

Used to be, they only had plain-jane type phones but now you can purchase rather elaborate phones.

All the big box stores sell them also...

[Solly Mack]

7. Of course he is.

He would be.

[gussmith]

11. Noooo, nooo no

I can not believe that we are expending resources to spy on Americans. To the core it repulses me that 'national security' is invasive. Sound Obtusive to me. That's obtuse in its approach and cost effectiveness. And intrusive. Got any real national defenses?

[Jack Rabbit]

12. It was illegal when Bush did it and it is illegal now

Nothing has changed except the party in the White House. The war on terror is still a grotesque three dollar bill. It is still designed to make foreign populations subjugate themselves to private US profit centers.

A drone strike is itself an act of terror, especially when the imperial terrorists can't guarantee that the missile isn't going to strike a wedding celebration instead of a meeting of al Qaida operatives. We may as well just as well continue to use Blackwater's Islamophobic thugs to shoot up traffic in an Arab capital.

The NSA gathering phone records is still a wholesale violation of the fourth amendment. The abridgment of due process is still an injustice and an offense to human rights.

And Senator Graham is still a fascist.

[blkmusclmachine]

14. +1

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