So Fucked Up

Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Big Brother is upon us. The terrorist HAVE freakin won because Bush has created The Paranoid-Spy-on-Your-Neighbor-States-of-America. Freedom is pouring out of the PSYNSA through a sieve. In order to protect our freedom they have to take said freedom away from us? How in the hell does this make sense?! The Neo-cons have created a perpetual state of fear and war that ensures they can use fear and war to maintain their elected status and to fill the pockets of the "military-industrial complex"

What's worse is that the New York Times held the story for a year because the White House told them to.

And of course, they won't comment on any of it.

The law governing clandestine surveillance in the United States, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, prohibits conducting electronic surveillance not authorized by statute. A government agent can try to avoid prosecution if he can show he was "engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction," according to the law.

"This is as shocking a revelation as we have ever seen from the Bush administration," said Martin, who has been sharply critical of the administration's surveillance and detention policies. "It is, I believe, the first time a president has authorized government agencies to violate a specific criminal prohibition and eavesdrop on Americans."

Update:

What John A. Says:

In America, when the president has a problem with the law he goes to Congress and presents his case, and asks our elected officials to weigh the merits of the case and then vote on changing the law. Only dictators say to hell with Congress, to hell with our laws, to hell with our democratic process

This isn't just wrong what Bush did, it isn't just criminal, it violates the most basic tenets of our democratic form of government. We have a man in power in the White House who thinks he is above the law....

We need an immediate independent investigation, and if this story is confirmed, Bush should resign or be removed from office.

Update2: Watch Russ Fiengold Speak on this and the Patriot Act.