A number of things about this bother me, but what bothers me the most is the FBI is in charge of it. The other intelligence agencies have no respect for the FBI because it is so politicized.

__________________
Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

10 year old kids make excuses like that.
Nothing done by others excuses Bush.

yeah, and so did benjamin franklin in 1755 in the pennsylvania state assembly to the governor:

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

and it still rings true.

__________________
1985 300D - 1984 Euro 280E AMG Clone (SOLD) - 1978 280CE (SOLD) - 1983 300D (SOLD) - 1981 300D (SOLD)

Interesting fiction......too bad you have no judgements to prove it.

Do you have a LINK to prove or verify any of your allegations? LOL!

__________________
'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert

By Scott Shane
The New York Times

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Panetta, who ended the program when he learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

Efforts to reach Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.

The question of how completely the CIA informed Congress about sensitive programs has been hotly disputed by Democrats and Republicans since May, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the agency of failing to reveal in 2002 that it was waterboarding a terrorism suspect, an allegation Panetta denied.

The law requires the president to ensure the intelligence committees "are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity." But the language of the statute, the amended National Security Act of 1947, leaves some leeway for judgment, saying such briefings should be conducted "to the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters."

Not "fully operational"

In addition, for covert-action programs, a particularly secret category in which the role of the United States is hidden, the law says briefings can be limited to the so-called Gang of Eight, consisting of the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress and of their intelligence committees.

Democrats in Congress, who contend the covert action provision was abused to cover up programs under Bush, are seeking to change the law to permit the full committees to be briefed on more matters.

President Obama, however, has threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if the changes go too far.

A spokesman for the intelligence agency, Paul Gimigliano, declined Saturday to comment on the report of Cheney's role.

"It's not agency practice to discuss what may or may not have been said in a classified briefing," Gimigliano said. "When a CIA unit brought this matter to Director Panetta's attention, it was with the recommendation that it be shared appropriately with Congress. That was also his view, and he took swift, decisive action to put it into effect."

Bill Harlow, a spokesman for George Tenet, who was director of central intelligence when the unidentified program began, declined to comment Saturday, noting the program remains classified.

Intelligence and congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the CIA interrogation program and did not involve domestic intelligence activities.

They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the CIA shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place sporadically from 2001 until this year.

"Because this program never went fully operational and hadn't been briefed as Panetta thought it should have been, his decision to kill it was neither difficult nor controversial," one intelligence official, who would speak about the classified program only on condition of anonymity. "That's worth remembering amid all the drama."

Members of Congress have differed on the significance of the program, whose details remain secret. Most of those interviewed, however, have said that it was an important activity they felt should have been disclosed.

Secret program

In the eight years of his vice presidency, Cheney was the Bush administration's most vehement defender of the secrecy of government activities, particularly in the intelligence arena. He went to the Supreme Court to keep secret the advisers to his task force on energy and won.

A report released on Friday by the inspectors general of five agencies about the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program makes clear Cheney's former chief of staff, David Addington, had to approve every government official who was told about the program. The report said "the exceptionally compartmented nature of the program" frustrated FBI agents who were assigned to follow up on tips it turned up.

High-level NSA officials who were responsible for ensuring the surveillance program was legal, including the agency's inspector general and general counsel, were not permitted by Cheney's office to read the Justice Department opinion that found the eavesdropping legal, several officials said.

Addington could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Questions over the adequacy and truthfulness of the CIA's briefings for Congress date back to the creation of the intelligence oversight committees in the 1970s after disclosures of agency assassination and mind-control programs and other abuses. But complaints increased in the Bush years, when the CIA and other intelligence agencies took the major role in pursuing al-Qaida.

The use of harsh interrogation methods, including waterboarding, for instance, was first described to a handful of lawmakers in September 2002.

Pelosi and CIA officials have disagreed about what she was told, but in any case, the briefing occurred after a terrorism suspect, Abu Zubaydah, had been waterboarded 83 times.


(continued)

Investigation

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., a member of the House intelligence committee, wrote Friday to the chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, to demand an investigation of the unidentified program and why Congress was not told of it. Aides said Reyes was reviewing the matter.

"There's been a history of difficulty in getting the CIA to tell us what they should," said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma. "We will absolutely be held accountable for anything the agency does."

Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the committee's top Republican, said he would not judge the agency harshly in the case of the unidentified program because it was not fully operational. But he said that, in general, the agency has not been as forthcoming as the law requires.

"We have to pull the information out of them to get what we need," Hoekstra said.

Note: The comments above reflecting the former VP's secret project tends to undermine Hayden's comments as reported. Add to this the research results from the IG as noted in the first article, and it's clear that the rats are scurrying. It is very likely criminal incitements will follow shortly...

By PAMELA HESS
The Associated Press


WASHINGTON — Former CIA Director Michael Hayden angrily struck back Saturday at assertions the Bush administration's post-9/11 surveillance program was more far-reaching than imagined and was largely concealed from congressional overseers.

In an interview, Hayden maintained that top members of Congress were kept well-informed all along the way, notwithstanding protests from some that they were kept in the dark.

"One of the points I had in every one of the briefings was to make sure they understood the scope of our activity 'They've got to know this is bigger than a bread box,' " said Hayden, who also previously headed the National Security Agency.

"At the political level, this had support," said the one-time CIA chief, jumping into an escalating controversy that has caused deep political divisions and lingering debate on the counterterrorism policies of an administration now out of power.

Hayden was reacting to a report issued Friday by a team of U.S. inspectors general, which called the surveillance program after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks "unprecedented." The report also questioned the program's legal rationale and its excessive secrecy.

Hayden, who in 2001 designed and carried out the secret program, said he is distressed by suggestions Congress was not fully informed. He said he personally briefed top lawmakers on the entire surveillance operation and said he felt they supported it.

The details of the wider surveillance program described by the federal investigative report remain classified.

The program included the wiretapping of U.S. phone and computer lines and was intended to detect communications from the al-Qaida terrorist network. That was revealed by The New York Times in 2005 and later confirmed by then-President George W. Bush.

Several Democratic members of the House and Senate expressed surprise and concern Friday about the still-secret surveillance program.

Hayden asserted that just weeks after Bush approved the activity, senior Republicans and Democrats on the intelligence committees in the House and Senate started getting briefed regularly on its details. He said these sessions happened about four times a year.

Hayden also said the meetings nearly always occurred at the White House, with Vice President Dick Cheney in attendance.

The Bush surveillance program has been contentious since it was revealed, raising concerns about the extent of secret activities undertaken since the terrorist attacks and the potential violation of civil liberties. Indeed, the report released Friday said most of the information gathered under the wider program ultimately did not have any connection to terrorism.

It was so secret that few members of Bush's inner circle were "read in" on program. Even John Ashcroft, who was attorney general at the time, got an accurate description of one surveillance activity only two years after he certified it as legal. And his initial request to brief his chief of staff and deputy on the program was refused by the White House.

Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the report released Friday pointedly said any continued use of the information gathered in the secret programs must be "carefully monitored."

Bush authorized the warrantless wiretapping program under the authority of a secret court in 2006, and Congress approved most of the intercepts in a 2008 electronic-surveillance law. The fate of the remaining and still-classified aspects of the wider surveillance program is not clear from the report.

I think that what bothers me more than anything else is that ALL use the excuse, when they get caught...being 80yo, or 10yo...it doesn't matter...

But for some...it's as if Bush II. and Comp. were the ONLY ones to do this...and the "Axis of Evil" is the first and only revelation of what goes on in any of the houses of Government...

Get serious and join the real world...this type of crap has been going on before the Republic was founded...

Hell, I'll bet that Washington, during the Revolution, forced landowners that were loyal to the King, to get down and dirty w/the Revolution or he'd have what he had for troops rape and pillage their family and property if they didn't...

No one brings that up...but I'm sure that's one side of the formation of our Country no one is going to talk about or would bring up in polite company...

Getting petty and snarky about how the enemy's rights were violated before they had a chance to kill more Americans is stuff for college campuses and left-wing talk shows...they have more to fear than real Americans...they are the ones that want power over protection...

They wave the flag of freedom, but want YOU to DANCE to THEIR TUNE when they get into the positions of power...

In wartime, you don't have freedoms...you're ALLOWED to come and go at someone else's discretions...and for the most part, that's OK with most Americans...

Some folks like to just ***** and hem & haw over the minutia of the past...

Those are the real 10 year olds..."Johnny got up and snuck down stairs last night and watched SNL...I went to bed at 7:30PM and stayed there."

WELL, slap their wrists and MOVE ON (Not associated with the pin-headed PAC...some assembly not required...batteries never included.) to real problems...and quit worrying about what didn't kill ya'...

Or, are the Lefties worried that their guy, "O" might use the dreaded powers of the "Dark Side" and slide into the morass of the "Axis of Evil" Republicans?

Stayed tuned to see how bad it's really going to get...provided any of us still are allowed to have a roof over our heads, store-bought clothing on our backs and food in our stomaches...

Or, will we need to kiss "O's" ring before that will be allowed to happen? (Think the "Mark"...for those in the know...)

Don't think it will? Mr. "O" is just coming back from his "I"M LOVED BY THE WORLD...WHY DON'T YOU REPS LOVE ME?" tour for, what is it? The 2nd or 3rd time already?

The press loves him...what lapdog wouldn't?

All other dogs just can't wait to be in his presence...

I pity the blind and dumb...

__________________

M. G. Burg
'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K
.'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K
..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K
...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K
....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K
.....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K
......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp
.......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125
.
“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~

What "still rings true" today is what, EXACTLY, was the essential liberty that was being given up to purchase a little temporary safety back then?

It's nice to quote historical speeches...but if the context is not in the framework of the discussion (i.e.: Properly used as a CORRECT EXAMPLE.), it's pablum in the argument...

Under WHAT circumstances, and referencing what situations, was BF voicing his concerns? No details? Quote is moot.

Thank you.

__________________

M. G. Burg
'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K
.'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K
..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K
...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K
....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K
.....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K
......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp
.......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125
.
“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~

And I wonder how 'real Americans' gets defined. And how often the definition changes. You think it's no biggie because it happens to them and not you? In case you didn't know, it's very very easy to go from 'you' to 'them'. And how do you know only the enemy (as we define enemy in this particular context - a context that can easily change) had rights violated? First they violate the rights. Then they find out if you're an enemy or not. As they feel like defining enemy.
As for power over protection, the Bush administration exercised its power over its obligation to protect and defend the Constitution.
Real Americans are ones who stand up to people trying to subvert their rights.

Paying taxes on tea was okay with most Americans.

I'm surprised you see the trampling of the Bill of Rights as minutiae. I wonder if the 2nd amendment were trampled you'd still call it minutiae.


I'm not a lefty, but you're damn right I'm worried Obama will continue to trample the Constitution. Everyone should be. I'm worried any branch of government will do that.

I see, it's bad to look at the guy who actually did subvert the Constitution because he's not there anymore, but it's good to engage in ridiculous speculations about the future actions of the guy with the job now.

__________________
1984 300TD

You appear are a lost intellect.

It is incomprehensible why you not only acquiesce to sleazy practices but appear to endorse them.

Your argument of evasion is that that because others have done sleaze in the past justifies the continued practice is intellectually lazy at best. There is no basis that can be made by a healthy mind to support or endorse the erosion of our Constitution.

The law requires the president to ensure the intelligence committees "are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity." But the language of the statute, the amended National Security Act of 1947, leaves some leeway for judgment, saying such briefings should be conducted "to the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters."

Not "fully operational"

In addition, for covert-action programs, a particularly secret category in which the role of the United States is hidden, the law says briefings can be limited to the so-called Gang of Eight, consisting of the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress and of their intelligence committees.

Democrats in Congress, who contend the covert action provision was abused to cover up programs under Bush, are seeking to change the law to permit the full committees to be briefed on more matters.

President Obama, however, has threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if the changes go too far.

Intelligence and congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the CIA interrogation program and did not involve domestic intelligence activities.[/

They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the CIA shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place sporadically from 2001 until this year.

"Because this program never went fully operational and hadn't been briefed as Panetta thought it should have been, his decision to kill it was neither difficult nor controversial," one intelligence official, who would speak about the classified program only on condition of anonymity. "That's worth remembering amid all the drama."

Members of Congress have differed on the significance of the program, whose details remain secret. Most of those interviewed, however, have said that it was an important activity they felt should have been disclosed.

Secret program

In the eight years of his vice presidency, Cheney was the Bush administration's most vehement defender of the secrecy of government activities, particularly in the intelligence arena. He went to the Supreme Court to keep secret the advisers to his task force on energy and won.
(What's love got to do with it Fred?)

[/QUOTE]

Power play. All the inmates want to run the Asylum. Obama says this is Presidential turf & will veto the bill.

Apparently, the secret program was not illegal. Nothing in this articles suggests it was.

So, the statute gives some" leeway for judgement".... Disagree with the judgement if you will. Fine. But what's the alternative? Disclosure of everything to this "Gang of 8?" Hardly necessary. Disclose everything to the entire intelligence committee? To the entire House? To the NY Times? )
I don't see a real issue here. 'Cept more B/C bashing. And deflecting attention from Madam Speaker.

..and wtf does the the energy task force issue have to do with this issue?
Seriously?

They talked about this on Stephanopoulos today. Disclosure of activities is necessary. Any and all ideas is not. If they conducted field training, then it should have been disclosed.
Obama's threat of veto is based on widening the circle of people who are briefed. If they make it too many people, he'll veto it.

Our government is supposed to have checks and balances on each branch. Secrecy and secret acts is not the purview of one branch, or one office of one branch. You want to worry about socialism, but this kind of thing makes me worry about authoritarianism.

__________________
1984 300TD

Thanks for delivering a much needed lesson that correlation is not causality.

__________________
MBlovr
'59 180 Dad's original
'59 180 Dad's 2nd one
'67 250SE Dad's last one
'59 220 SE My first one
'62 220SE Coupe second one
'89 190E 2.6 5spd third one
'06 E350 4matic (sold)
'10 E350 4matic

Real Americans are those that are being "re-defined" by the current administration, based on their beliefs, not on their actions...because they believe in the 2nd Amendment, they go to Church, they believe that in order to get something, you have to GIVE FIRST, not expect an entitlement for sitting on your asses all day long...people that have to wash their hands before they eat 'cause they have real dirt and grime under their fingernails, not because of the hands they shook to "seal a deal" under a table someplace...

Yep, the "enemy" has been re-defined already...it's whoever the HSA has determined is not in "O's" camp, lock, stock and barrel...

And until those we elect to represent us have enough balls to call out those among them that are violating the rights of citizens...we're heading downhill at a pace faster than a melting snowball in July, with afterburners lit...


You mean "colonists" don't you? The Boston Tea Party was about 3 years before the Declaration of Independence. And no, it wasn't OK with the colonists...that's why they refused (at least in Boston) to allow the tea to be off-loaded and they also refused to let the ships return to England. THEY weren't Americans...they were colonists that got tired of being taxed without representation...big difference.


On foreigners, yep...and as for "trampling" - that's your verbage, not mine...

As for the Bill of Rights...some BoRs get "side-stepped" during wartime...It happened during the War of 1812...Civil War...Spanish/American War...WWI., WWII., Korean Conflict, Vietnam Conflict, et al., and any conflicts I may have left out...including the "WOT" that we are CURRENTLY ENGAGED IN...or did everyone forget?


And that trampling is what? Running roughshod over rights that help protect all from the few? Or is it to protect the "guilty" from policies that not everyone agrees with?

I never insinuated that we shouldn't look at the past...even the recent past...but to criminalize EVERY STEP that occurred just because someone's pissed that their "guys" weren't in control during the past few administrations is being petty at the least and insipidly bordering on the insane moving even more forward.

Remember, we've been at war with the ideals, attitudes and actions of a militant version of a world-wide religion...many who reside next door to you and I. They vote, they attend our schools and just with a flick of a "BIC" - they could cut out your beating heart and shove it in your face as you fall to the pavement...I don't want to spend the rest of my days on this earth looking over my shoulders and wondering if the next clean-cut face coming up to me is going to show me my beating heart just because some well-intentioned, but "oh-so-out-of-reality" Liberal Demowack decides that, in theory, every idea needs to tested, re-tested and re-tested again, again and again, until everyone gives up and lets him have his way.

Communism failed...
Greenism is trying to take junk-science to a credible level...as cock-eyed as it is...we just elected a Government that's turning THAT into it's own religion...
And now, the Revisionists are hard at work, printing new text books on the evils of Bushism...and their followers...

Yep...what's more disgusting than the evils of "Bush 43" is the oncoming of "O" I. - or better yet, the "O"men...

(Cue the opening theme from Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells")

__________________

M. G. Burg
'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K
.'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K
..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K
...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K
....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K
.....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K
......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp
.......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125
.
“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~