Well he cannot be considered a liberal.

He's a sort of libertarian/conservative. He's a Republican only because he wanted to be elected and the Democrats are freaky.

B

It is nothing new, read about it in the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/05/cyber/articles/27network.html

Alex

Hot off the press!!!!


December 16, 2005
Bush Apologizes for Phone Taps After 9/11
From the office of the President

(2005-12-16) — President George Bush today apologized to the American people for signing an order in 2002 that allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to secretly listen in on international phone calls in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The New York Times today broke the story that after 9/11 the NSA tapped phonelines of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of Americans without court orders in an effort to trace communication networks discovered on computers and cellphones confiscated from terror suspects.

“I want to apologize for allowing the NSA to do these wiretaps after 9/11,” the president said. “I’m sorry that I violated the privacy of some of these folks after terrorists launched attacks from our soil that killed 3,000 people, destroyed two skyscrapers and four jumbo jets, and punched a gaping hole in our military headquarters.”

“My biggest regret,” the president added, “is that the NSA didn’t secretly tap these lines before 9/11. I hope my fellow Americans can forgive me.”

Appearing with Specter on CNN's "Late Edition," Feingold said Bush is accountable for the program regardless of whether congressional leaders were notified.

"It doesn't matter if you tell everybody in the whole country if it's against the law," said Feingold, a member of the Judiciary Committee.



"The president has, I think, made up a law that we never passed," said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.

Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Penn., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he intends to hold hearings.

"They talk about constitutional authority," Specter said. "There are limits as to what the president can do."

Reid acknowledged he had been briefed on the four-year-old domestic spy program "a couple months ago" but insisted the administration bears full responsibility. Reid became Democratic leader in January.

"The president can't pass the buck on this one. This is his program," Reid said on "Fox News Sunday." "He's commander in chief. But commander in chief does not trump the Bill of Rights."

Several lawmakers weren't so sure. They pointed to a 1978 federal law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provides for domestic surveillance under extreme situations, but only with court approval.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called that troubling. If Bush is allowed to decide unilaterally who the potential terrorists are, he in essense becomes the court, Graham said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"We are at war, and I applaud the president for being aggressive," said Graham, who also called for a congressional review. "But we cannot set aside the rule of law in a time of war."

So we all know you are trying to offer maximum support for the AlQueda cells that may be here....

How is your personal dirty bomb program going?



ANd you have ignored the total fact of why this is needed.....thanks to the wall between the FBI and the intelligence communities....established under Bill Clinton with the direction of Janet Reno.

And courts were aware of it..even if YOU personally may not have been notified every step of the game.

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
---------------------
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

What Courts were notified? And what authority or law were they acting under?

Federal Investigators Probe High-Tech Explosives Theft About 400 Pounds of Explosive Material Missing

Dec. 19, 2005 — About 400 pounds of explosive material was stolen from a research facility in New Mexico, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed today.

The theft was discovered Sunday night by local authorities.

Also, 2,500 detonators were missing from a storage explosive container, or magazine, in the name of Cherry Engineering.

The theft is one of the largest reported cases from a facility in the United States in the last decade ending 2004. During that time, a total of about 1,000 pounds was reported stolen from government facilities in 14 reported incidents. It is unknown whether there is any connection to terrorism.

A special agent at ATF said the incident was unusual because such high-powered material was targeted.

One hundred and fifty pounds of the plastic explosive compound C-4 and 250 pounds of undetectable "sheet explosives" — a DuPont flexible explosive material that can be hidden in books and letters — were stolen in the burglary, which also included the theft of blasting caps.

Burglars used a torch bar to break into the explosives containers and remove the material.

The missing material could potentially make numerous bombs.

I wonder why these folks didn't have thier phones tapped??!!!