I wish that we could drop the “fill in the industry, has more personal information on you than the government is collecting” argument. As a consumer, when you enter into an agreement with a company to use their product or services, you agree to their terms in regard to the use and dissemination of the person information collect (terms and conditions). On top of that, there are Federal laws that protect our rights as consumers. As an example, the CC companies can not sell your SS#, and you have a right to protect your personal information from marketers through the GLB privacy act.

We as consumers can decide if want to trade some parts of our privacy in exchange for the products and services the business offers. As citizens we enter a terms and conditions contract with the USA when we are born. It is called the constitution, and all Americans expect our government to adhere to the terms and conditions granted.

If you want to argue that what the Prez has authorized is constitutional, than fine, but please don’t confuse voluntary release of person data with unauthorized release of data.

If the Rightwing can have a huge database with all of our phone numbers, it seems a good idea to make ALL gun owners register, so we can have a database of gun owners. Guns are dangerous,phones not so much. Peace

The whole issue has been clouded in the usual liberal terms as if the government had the ability to listen to every call made by the custimers of the three companies. As I see it, the truth here is really beyond most Americans. The NSA is obviously trying to get a picture of what normal phone service is so that they can tell oddities when they see them. Even what this picture looks like is beyond most people. It is too big. If the liberals could come up with an idea of how to identify suspects that does not impoinge upon their hated profiling or some sort of electroonic work like this, why don't they tell us all what it is. The cost of not trying can be in the millions of dead. Strange how the liberals never bring that death toll up. Even stranger is how the conservatives fail to make that clear, too.

According to a report in Newmax 71 Democratic senators don't want the government to protect us from terrorists.

Dems Join Suit to Ban Terrorist Surveillance
Until now, Democrats had insisted that they didn't want to end President Bush's terrorist surveillance program, saying instead that the law merely needed to be changed to make terrorist surveillance inside the U.S. illegal.
On Wednesday, however - even before USA Today's bogus report about the NSA's phone number data collection program - 71 House Democrats signed up to sponsor a move that would make it illegal for the NSA to continue to monitor terrorist phone calls.
The liberal web site Raw Story reported Thursday:
"The 71 Democrats and one independent filed an amicus brief in two federal courts reviewing challenges to the warrantless wiretapping program in Detroit and New York, joining the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights."
"Both suits demand the program be stopped."
Predictably, Michigan Democrat John Conyers led the charge:
"As our brief makes clear, this Congress dealt with this issue authoritatively almost 30 years ago - warrantless spying on American soil is flatly prohibited," he railed.

I'd say there's 71 Democrats that shouldn't be returning to the House after the elections.

Do democrats even remember 9/11 anymore. You know, those two big buildings and all that smoke and everything. They sure don't act like they do. I am starting to connect the dots and it leads me to believe that the dems and lib MSM would sell this entire country down the tiolet (like they have been), if there was a chance to hurt President Bush.

Osama and his crew hit the WTC, not the people in Iraq. Osama is still making television appearances, which means that bush's war in Iraq was an illegal mistake and not getting bin Laden is a foreign policy failure. Time for a change. Peace

Newt Gingrich on Hannity and Colmes:

COLMES: Then he said when it came out a little while ago that there was some wiretapping he said it only applies to international communications. And now we're finding something else. So it just seems we’re not getting a consistent story here, are we?

GINGRICH: No. You're not.

COLMES: Why not?

GINGRICH: Look, I'm not-Alan, I’m not going to defend the indefensible. The Bush administration has an obligation to level with the American people. And I'm prepared to defend a very aggressive anti-terrorist campaign, and I'm prepared to defend the idea that the government ought to know who’s making the calls, as long as that information is only used against terrorists, and as long as the Congress knows that it’s underway.

But I don’t think the way they've handled this can be defended by reasonable people. It is sloppy. It is contradictory, and frankly for normal Americans, it makes no sense to listen to these three totally different explanations.

. . .

What he is saying is that one can support a legal spying program, with the proper oversight, and still point out the obvious flaws in the White House's logic. You guys would never argue that Newt "loves terrorists" after his complaints. Why is it if someone from the left makes the same claim, you instantly label them as "an enemy to America" and a "supporter of terrorist"?

(You don't have to answer that. . . I already know why.)

Matt says...
Majority of Americans Support NSA Efforts To Fight Terrorism

The Majority of Relevant US Laws (all of them on the book) say Bush is committing many, many crimes.

That's what I like most about this country; we have laws, and judges, and courts, and lawyers, and juries.
And every time they decide, they decide that the President is doing his job within the law.
Jo' ~ perhaps you should respect the courts and judges and everyone with the wherewithal that has stated repeatedly, that you don't know what you're talking about.
Have a nice day.

jomama,

Typical of the left to ignore the facts and spew false claims.

The law, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, specifically authorizes the collection of the data by the NSA. President Bush is breaking no law. Further, there are a number of federal court cases, including a Supreme Court case (SMITH v. MARYLAND, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)) which ruled that the collection of telephone data to be constitutional.

The law was passed by a Dem conrolled House and Senate, and signed into law by President Clinton, yet some of the same people who voted to authorize the programs are the ones who are complaining about the NSA doing exactly what they passed a law authorizing them to do.

The Dem members of the House and Senate are either stupid, lazy, or deliberately ignoring the facts to make political attacks. Either way, they have no business criticising the program.

How about both Parties are corrupt beyond saving. A clean sweep,for a clean slate, come November. Peace

Thanks A-10 for setting these leftist wackos straight. In addtion to this, ANYONE can get the same telephone log info online...but the defeatocrats want to bash the President and the NSA for protecting the country.

...and they wonder why we question their patriotism.

Fortunately 66% of the public agrees with the President on this. The other 33% is that hardcore lunatic leftist 'hate Bush' crowd.

A-10, I linked to the CALEA site you provided.
Did you read the law yourself? In every instance, the law requires that ANY and All collection of data can only be done 'pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization'.

I do not want to accuse you of being 'either stupid, lazy,or deliberately ignoring the facts to make political attacks', but you have no business criticising the Democrats when you ignore the actual wording of CALEA.

Please read the law you cite, then come back and tell me again whether you can say that 'Bush is breaking no law."

I support it - that's a no-win situation for the democrats.

Donna.

Just what in the sentance "expeditiously isolating and enabling the government, pursuant to a court order OR OTHER LAWFUL AUTHORIZATION, to access call-identifying information that is reasonably available to the carrier--" don't you understand?

I would guess that information that can be obtained on the internet for a price should be accessible to the NSA and the President to defend the country. I would also surmise that a Presidential Order is sufficient OTHER AUTHORIZATION. I would just guess that since this was used by the Clinton adminsitration, as well as law enforcement, that President Bush and the NSA could authorize it as well, but that's just silly me.

I forgot that, according to you leftists, we're talking about Chimpy Hitler/Bush who is violating the law just by breathing, .

Despite the shamefull lib MSM, I have great faith in the american people. At critical moments in history, the american people have come through. In the election of 1864, when President Lincoln was trying to keep the Union together under dire circumstances. The lib media back then scoured Abraham Lincoln, while the democratic party platform was reaching a peace with the south which would create two countries, one slave. My faith was renewed in 2004, where the country had to decide to fight and win the war on terror or retreat and defeat, which the democratic party advocated. America came through giving the most votes in history to President George W. Bush. We are now approaching the election of 2006. Nothing has changed. The republicans plan is to fight and win the war on terror. The democratic platform is retreat and defeat. The dems also want to protect bin ladens telephone calls. The dems would also like to give Iraq back to saddam, and if it was possible, to his two charming sons. Then Iraq could get back to the good old days of mass graves, rape rooms and using power tools on peoples skulls.

Is there a connection between Qwest refusing to allow the NSA access to their customer's data and the Securities and Exchange Committee's investigation and charges against Qwest executives that followed shortly thereafter?

Something has kept bouncing around in my head for the last 24 hours or so, since the newest revelations in the NSA illegal domestic spying stories broke in the recent USA Today story.

Wasn't Qwest's CEO charged for accounting and security fraud by the Federal government? Isn't this the same person that in September/October of 2001, refused to allow the NSA access to Qwest's 14 million subscribers for their illegal data mining operation?

The answer is, yes, one and the same. And the next thought I dragged out of my muddled memory, was that the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), who filed the legal action against Qwest management in March of 2002, if my memory serves me right, has been spectacularly unsuccessful in these prosecutions.

Qwest itself paid a 250 million dollar fine, a substantial amount of money, but a relatively small amount by the standards of the capitalization and earnings of large American corporations.

Out of 4 Qwest executives criminally charged by the SEC, two have been acquitted, one plead guilty to a much lesser fraud charge, and Nacchio himself faces not accounting fraud, but a far less significant charge of insider stock trading.

While I have no evidence to support a connection between Qwest's refusal to co-operate with the Bush Administration and the NSA, the timing of the SEC investigation and weak indictments that followed could lead one to see the possibility of retribution by the Federal Government against Nacchio and the management of Qwest.

This is certainly something that should be pursued by the interested parties, now that they can go public with their particular side of this battle with the Federal Government.

Facts are facts. The sky is blue and the sun is hot, and I support NSA surveillance 1000%. What else actually makes sense? How much more convinced do we need to be to before we believe that our enemies want to kill us all? I'm not panicking, just wanting to state the obvious - the NSA and President Bush should be complemented and thanked for their efforts.

rp

Russell Tice is to testify in Hayden confirmation hearings.

Boy is next week going to be fun!!!!!!!!

Matt - your analogy about folks talking about personal details in public is a bad one. It's like a peeping tom claiming it's ok to climb over a fence and peek in your window, just because he sees you outside all the time. The point is - the telephone, like your house, is a private refuge. If you choose to change in front of open windows, it's your choice, just like folks who speak on their cells in public. However if you choose to use close the shades, or speak discreetly, you expect to be protected from intrusion.

It's not just you. I've heard this crappy analogy from a few of the usual conservative pundits. It's catchy, but still bad.