New Wire tap Videos - James Risen + Charles Schumer

[dutchdemocrat]

Macromedia Flash streaming technology

http://www.chris-floyd.com/bush/video/video2/player.php

The New York Times reports that in 2004 Deputy Attorney General James Comey refused to sign off on renewal of Bush's warrantless NSA spying program. Instead of addressing Comey's concerns, Bush Administration officials took the desperate move of actually visiting Attorney General Ashcroft in the hospital to get his authorization for renewal of the program. Ashcroft was, at the time, in intensive care recovering from pancreatitis.

Comey refused to approve renewal of the program based on concerns over "whether the president had the legal and constitutional authority to conduct such an operation."

In light of these new revelations, Senator Charles Schumer, appearing on Fox News Sunday, demanded that Bush Administration officials testify before congress.

Mitch McConnel, who appeared along with Schumer, chastised The Times for continuing to report on details of the wiretap program. While Schumer said that any investigation should consider possible whistle-blower status for anyone who leaked this information, Senator McConnel was more interested in punishing the whistleblower.

Because the NSA shared the wiretap information with many federal agencies, it will be very difficult to assign blame to a specific leaker.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/bush/video/video2/player.php

James Risen, co-author of the New York Times blockbuster article exposing warrant-less spying on Americans, appeared on NBC's Today Show this morning. Risen has published a new book, "State of War", that includes Bush's NSA Wiretap program along with other damning revelations.

Risen made some important points during his interview:

* 12 or more officials blew the whistle on NSA program. Risen describes these people as patriots who believed that the spying program was illegal. "They were motivated by the purest reasons."
* Risen says that the motivation of the whistleblowers were "the complete opposite of the Plame case" where national security secrets were leaked by the White House to discredit a political opponent.
* Risen reports that Bush may have suggested that pain medication be withheld from detainees. There is some evidence that this may have been the beginnings of a slippery slow which lead to torture and the mistreatment of detainees.
* The CIA asked as many as 30 Iraqi-Americans to go to Iraq prior to the war and use their contacts to determine the state of Iraq's WMD programs. In each case, the individual returned to report that all of Iraq's WMD programs had been ceased or destroyed
in the prior Gulf war. Iraq nuclear program, in particular, was said to have been destroyed by bombings in the first Gulf war. The CIA dismissed the reports as Saddam's propaganda. Here again, we have more evidence that the Bush Administration ignored intelligence that did not help their goal of starting a preemptive war on Iraq.
* During the period from 9/11 through the beginning of the Iraq war, Risen say that the checks and balances on the Executive Branch broke down. Foreign policy was radicalized at the hands of Rumsfeld, Tenet, Cheney, Rice and a few others who would not allow career professionals in the State Department to participate.

[dutchdemocrat]

1. The Wiretap Research Page is here.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/bush/

Videos are on it too...

[phoebe]

2. guess that "witholding the pain medication" from Ashcroft didn't quite

work in this case..oh to have been a fly on the wall in that room..