Posted by Mark Silva at 3 pm CDT
The Bush administration has no interest in your dinner reservations, your calls to the kids at college or your wedding plans. The Bush administration wants to know if you're calling Al Qaeda.
That's the word from the White House, which at the same time maintains that it is neither confirming nor denying the existence of a massive database of American telephone calling records at the National Security Agency, collecting the phone numbers that most Americans have dialed since Sept. 11, 2001.
President Bush "is not confirming or denying existence of the details of that story,'' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said of a USA Today report on the NSA's cataloging of American phone calls. After the president made a brief statement at the White House assuring Americans that the government is not "trolling'' for personal information, Perino told reporters aboard Air Force One: "What he felt it was important to do today was tell the American people what the federal government is and is not doing to protect them from possible terror attacks. He wanted to tell them that the government is acting responsibly and lawfully in all of our intelligence activities.
''The president was talking about today how we fiercely protect the privacy rights of the American people,'' Perino said. "The government is doing everything that it can, in a lawful way, to protect innocent Americans from probable terrorist attack.
"Not confirming or denying or acknowledging the substance of the story this morning in USA Today, what the President said today, all intelligence activities of the United States are limited and targeted and focused solely on al Qaeda and al Qaeda's affiliates. They are the enemy.
"The government has no interest in knowing what innocent Americans are talking about on their domestic phone calls,'' said Perino, deputy press secretary at the White House.
''So if you are calling to make reservations at a restaurant, and if you are calling your daughter at college, or if you are calling to plan your wedding, the government has no interest in knowing about those calls. The government is interested in finding out if al Qaeda is planning an attack in America -- you can bet that we want to make sure that we get ahead of that to prevent that and to save lives.''
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Comments
And we all have so many reasons to believe everything this administration says...
Posted by: dylan | May 11, 2006 3:07 PM
Dylan is right. We already know that the administration spied on Quakers and opponents of the military's don't-ask-don't tell policy, to say nothing of the previous warrantless wiretapping revelations. It is certainly within the realm of possibility then that the assurances that conversations themselves aren't being monitored are hollow. I don't trust this crew one bit, personally, and I'd be surprised if they *weren't* listening.
Posted by: Chicago Jason | May 11, 2006 4:02 PM
We're supposed to trust a government that uses violence, i.e., war, to change another government.
Our government has too much military power that is unchecked by civilians. The fact that the US has a nuclear arsenal just shows how dangerous our governemnt really is.
Posted by: Rico | May 11, 2006 4:21 PM
TIA as in Total Information Awareness anyone?
There was some guy named Poindexter who dreamed this up, then was forced to quit because of it. This may be some un-named piece of that program.
They are definately trying to slip this one in us through the back door,,,, er, as it were.
Posted by: C.Morris | May 11, 2006 9:02 PM
Are you talking to terrorists? No? Then why do you care? Do you all honestly think that this or any other administration cares about your phone conversations? If you're speaking with known or suspected terrorists, I expect my government, at the very least, to do something about it. If you disagree, then you can't complain if we're 'hit' again.
Posted by: Mike | May 12, 2006 8:48 AM
It's a computer program with numbers. there isnt someone sitting in a room watching when you call for pizza.
Do all of you plan on being mad at Google when you get the specialized hits on your gmail when you log in..
simply stunning. quit being so myopic.
Posted by: A citizen | May 12, 2006 8:52 AM
Just trust us. Right.
Posted by: Bob | May 12, 2006 9:04 AM
Hey Rico....if you think this government is so dangerous, try another country and see how they treat you! Perhaps the fact that we do maintain a nuclear arsenal is the reason we are so free and prosperous.....it sure ended the second world war in a snap now didn't it !! They started it...not us.
Posted by: bill | May 12, 2006 9:44 AM
"Why would the government seek and store records of every telephone call to your doctor, your lawyer, your next-door neighbor?
Tell us."
NSA is collecting calls for indications of patterns. If they want to take this one step further and find out who is calling who, they are required to get a warrant.
They don't know that it's "you" calling, nor do they know if you're calling your doctor or lawyer or such. They're looking at NUMBERS, not who the numbers belong too.
Quite amazing how this non-story has been dredged up when it was already reported months ago in USA Today. How very convenient that it comes out again with Hayden's confirmation heaing coming up.
As for Democratic outcries...a number of them were briefed on this ages ago.
To go back further, NSA was conducting this operation as Project Echelon under the Clinton administration. It is (was) run by the National Security Agency and four English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
The Clinton administration also announced that it would seek broad powers to compel Internet Service Providers to allow FBI monitoring of email messages, using a powerful software package devised by the police agency and given the ominous title of “Carnivore.” Under the Clinton administration plan, the email equivalent of such illegal wiretaps would now be permissible.
The only "rights" being violated here took place on 9-11, about 3,000 individual rights. If you thin your rights are being violated, have your lawyer call the telephone service providers who willingly hand over this information.
Another Drive-By Media attack, supplied with DNC talking points.
Posted by: Bob | May 12, 2006 11:01 AM
Let's not get carried away....yet. Let's get all the facts as to what the NSA was doing, how the data was gathered and understand what statistical analysis the NSA wanted to perform. Personally I am trying to understand why the NSA would need such a large piece of data. Such a large volume of data appears unreasonable for the stated objectives.
The government needs to explain and justify why this is not an unreasonable search as per the 4th Amendment.
Posted by: Martin | May 12, 2006 12:01 PM
"No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
Federalist Paper No. 47 (Likely James Madison)
"I agree that 'there is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from thelegislative and executive powers.' And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would ahve everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments; that as all the effects of such a union must ensue from a dependence of the former ont he latter, notwithstanding a nominal and apparent separation; that as, from the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its coordinate branches...[consequently] There is no position which depends on clearer principals than that every act of a delegated authority contrary to the tenor of the commision under which it is exercised, is void."
Federalist Paper No. 78--Alexander Hamilton
"The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They ahve seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative intereferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more industrious and less informed part of the community."
Federalist Paper No. 44--James Madison
Posted by: Brendan | May 12, 2006 12:24 PM