June 20, 2013

Bush-Cheney began illegal NSA spying before 9/11, says telcom CEO

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/352455

Contradicting a statement by ex-vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday that warrantless domestic surveillance might have prevented 9/11, 2007 court records indicate that the Bush-Cheney administration began such surveillance at least 7 months prior to 9/11.

The Bush administration bypassed the law requiring such actions to be authorized by FISA court warrants, the body set up in the Seventies to oversee Executive Branch spying powers after abuses by Richard Nixon. Former QWest CEO John Nacchios said that at a meeting with the NSA on February 27, 2001, he and other QWest officials declined to participate. AT&T, Verizon and Bellsouth all agreed to shunt customer communications records to an NSA database.

In 2007 the Denver Post reported:

""Nacchio suggested that the NSA sought phone, Internet and other customer records from Qwest in early 2001. When he refused to hand over the information, the agency retaliated by not granting lucrative contracts to the Denver-based company, he claimed.""

(snip)

The Bush-Cheney administration fought fiercely to pass legislation which granted telecommunications companies immunity from prosecution for violating Americans' Fourth Amendment rights under the Constitution. The legislation was passed in 2008. UK Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald argued that the unprecedented "retroactive" immunity would also give the Bush administration immunity as well, by preventing lawsuits from moving forward into the discovery phase, where wrongdoing was likely to be uncovered.

(end snip)

We know the GOPers tried and failed to pin President Obama with targeting them with the IRS, but did Cheney try to target Dems with the NSA? I have always suspected this was the case.

Keep talkin' there, Dick. I love old memories.

June 12, 2013

Biden on Al Gore: "This man was elected president of the United States of America,"

http://www.bing.com/news/search?q=biden+al+gore&p1=%5bNewsVertical+SortByDate%3d%221%22%5d&FORM=NWRFSH

(snip)

Biden also made remarks about former Vice President Al Gore, who served in the House with Markey and was also at the fundraiser.

"This man was elected president of the United States of America," Biden said, talking about Gore's presidential election defeat in 2000. "No, no, no. He was elected president of the United States of America. But for the good of the nation, when the bad decision in my view was made, he did the right thing for the nation."

(end snip)

Some Biden truth-tellin' for this Wednesday morning.

That oughta get the wingers stirred.