Not one al-Qaeda member was caught in the US with wiretaps

[bigtree]

Taps found clues, not Al Qaeda, FBI chief says

WASHINGTON - The National Security Agency's secret domestic spying hasn't nabbed any Al Qaeda agents in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress yesterday.

Mueller told the Senate Intelligence Committee that his agents get "a number of leads from the NSA," but he made it clear Osama Bin Laden's henchmen weren't at the end of the trail.

His assessment of the controversial NSA snooping appeared to undercut a key claim by President Bush. As recently as Wednesday, Bush defended bypassing courts in domestic spying by insisting that "one of the people making the call has to be Al Qaeda, suspected Al Qaeda and/or affiliate."

The committee's chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), let slip that one disrupted plot involved Iyman Faris' scheme to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge. "I think as to the number of lives that have been saved, it might have been how many were on the Brooklyn Bridge if it had blown up," Roberts said.

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official later told the Daily News that the NSA program was used after Faris agreed to cooperate in the investigation but "that was not what initiated it."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/388032p-329252c.html

clue: taps were illegal.

[ixion]

1. no, but they bagged some quakers and vegans

in the course of 'protecting us' :puke:

[BushOut06]

2. Here's something for you

Today we salute you, Mr. National Security Agency Eavesdropper!
You sift through thousands of phone conversations,
Looking for any signs of of terrorist activity.
Al Qaeda, Hamas, vegetarians, Michael Moore –
any one of them could be planning the next big attack.
(backing chorus: Oh-ohhhh, I think I hear a terrorist!)
Search warrant? You don’t need no stinkin’ search warrant!
We’re at war! Times have changed since 9-11, you know.
(backing chorus: oh yeah, we ain’t going back!)
So crack open a Bush Light, Mr. National Security Agency Eavesdropper,
Because our torture prisons just aren’t full enough yet.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=306136&mesg_id=306136

[BuyingThyme]

3. Well, you have to catch them before you wiretap them.

Isn't that what Chimpy says? He only taps known al Qaeda, right?

Maybe he should just arrest them, instead of listening to their phone calls. It may have prevented 9/11.

[gunsaximbo]

4. No, but I'm sure those taps were useful during the election

criminals.

[Mnemosyne]

5. .

[fizana]

6. Wasn't the Brooklyn Bridge guy the one who

was going to use a blowtorch to bring the bridge down? That would have worked. And Roberts has the nerve to imply that lives were saved!!