Bush’s Secret Surveillance State
by Anthony Gregory
LewRockwell.com
December 28, 2005"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."~ The Fourth Amendment
“By the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires – a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.”~ President George W. Bush, April 20, 2004
The Bush administration appears to consider public knowledge of its illegal surveillance of American citizens to be more dangerous than the surveillance itself.
On December 16, 2005, the
New York Times reported that President Bush has been secretly ordering the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens within the United States without first getting judicially issued warrants. Asked repeatedly about the controversy during an interview with Jim Lehrer on the day the story broke, Bush evaded the questions. He responded, “We don’t talk about sources and methods. Don’t talk about ongoing intelligence operations. I know there’s speculation. But it’s important for the American people to understand that we will do – or I will use my powers to protect us, and I will do so under the law, and that’s important for our citizens to understand.”
The same day, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also defended Bush’s vague and secret “powers to protect us,” insisting that Bush “has always said that he will do everything that he can to protect the American people from the kind of attack that we experienced on September 11, but within the law and with due regard to the civil liberties of Americans.”
On December 17 Bush conceded that he had in fact ordered the secret spying, saying that it made it “more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time.” He described the program as “critical to saving American lives.”
By December 19, the administration appeared visibly emboldened on the issue. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales went so far as to say that the president had the “inherent authority” to perform such secret, warrantless wiretaps of people in the United States. The president, on the same day, vowed that the program would resume “for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens.” Even more remarkably, he called the disclosure of the program a “shameful act” and said, “The fact that we’re discussing this program is helping the enemy.”
So in just a few days, the administration had gone from refusing to discuss the program to outright defending it, all the while suggesting that the Constitution and Congress’s authorization of power to the president immediately following the 9/11 attacks together give the executive branch any number of unchecked, secretive powers over the American people – and that all the president has to do is claim that his actions are for “national security” and we should all shut up about them lest we assist the terrorists.
cont..........http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory103.htmlI'd like to know when the American citizenry is going to get off its collective ass and actually do something about the fact that our rights are being obliterated and the Constitution trampled underfoot like so many cow pies in a pasture-full of raging bulls.
Perhaps because I'm getting on in years, my patience is growing very, very damned thin these days. I never in my life dreamed that this could transpire in my America, but it has - and it continues to do so until, eventually, we'll have no rights whatsoever and will become obsequiously submissive to the fascist regime in Washington, D.C.
There are times at night when I go to bed to sleep that I pray that God will allow me to pass away in my sleep so that I don't have to see this happening and the effect it will have on the lives of my children and, especially, my grandbabies. (Yes, the precious, little ones who didn't ask to be brought into this world of horror and who want only to live and play as children the world over should be allowed to play.)
I can't say more at this time, because my eyes are filled with tears and my heart filled with rage - maddening, unrequited rage!
Regards,
RJnAbbysNana:mad: :grr:
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