acquits bleeds?seashores rock,principally Saud:…

I agree with the commentor who state if self policing worked there would be no need for the police.

“I believe (perhaps naively) that this organization [the NSA] really does not institutionally want to be involved in domestic politics.”

For some inexplicabe reason, so do I. I try to rationalize it by believing if I had ultimate, 007, super-ninja-spy powers, I really wouldn’t give a damn what was going on in the White House — I’d just go off doing my super-spy thing in Kamchata or something.

BUT, wanting to do it and pushed to do it are two different things. As the GSA briefings (and, what, 15 others at this point? The frickin’ Peace Corps?) show, put a few key team players in a few key positions, and you can “re-direct” an agency. Then, if you can “re-direct” the Agency that is supposed to act as oversight for the first Agency, you’re home free.

I think this is my main problem with Dubyas House — the machinations they are clearly using to exert power can only be justified if you are trying to do something dirty.

“What can we do to help our people?”
“get back to me off-the-record.”
“oh, yeah, right — as long as we’re gonna do something about this.”

Amazingly, of the 8 or so people in the room who were present for the above conversation (not an exact transcript but IMO pretty damn close), the only two people who don’t remember the above comments were the two people speaking. How can you doubt that? Its the same behavorial logic I apply to Rep. Jefferson’s odd financial storage plan: You may have a good excuse (highly unlikely), but storing $90,000 in marked bills in your freezer is pretty much a good reason to doubt EVERYTHING about you.

Whether or not I trust the NSA, I feel compelled as a citizen at this point to simply assume wrongdoing under such suspicious circumstances. I used to trust the DoJ the same way, knowing that the “high priests” of the legal community were almost robotic in their (heavy) evenhandedness. Sure, you had a rogue ASUA here or there, but the agency overall stood for virtue. Ahhh, the good old days.

As r4d20 noted, Dubya has been playing FISA games for years, and so far all of them have been either (a) counterproductive (refusing offers to update) or (b) illegal (DoJ revolting over spying, recent secret ruling, etc.). Now the bad situation looks even suspicious and morally suspect.

btw, has anybody heard if Jefferson has offered an explanation for the money-in-the-freezer thing? I’m dying to hear this tapdance.

I completely disagree with this argument. What’s silly is the idea that hey are naive to our techniques. If they’re smart enough to enter our country, LEARN HOW TO FLY JETS, and bring down our pillars of commerce without us being able to do jack about it, then they’re smart enough to figure out how we might monitor them.

Furthermore, if the NYT and other publications know about it, it’s hardly classified anymore. The application of my argument can readily been seen in the computer industry. Security flaws are regularly posted in order to force companies like Microsoft to react immediately, as opposed to sitting on the info and doing nothing about it. You might argue that lives may not be at stake in the computer security business, but I’d argue differently. Lives and treasure. Publishing this information helps us more than it could ever help the terrorists. It forces the government to get it’s collective sh!t together at a much quicker rate.

Curiously, as Rick is perhaps suggesting, it’s descriptions by Bamford in his two books (Puzzle Palace and the more recent Body of Secrets) of the post-60s&70s culture at the NSA (and by others) that are far assuring than GWBush administration assurances - I believe (perhaps naively) that this organization really does not institutionally want to be involved in domestic politics. A leak of politically-motivated domestic spying would probably cause a painful level of defunding of the agency if it was directed against the party in control of congress.

This assumes that FISA has been gathering dust since it was enacted in the 1970s. Its been updated, to keep pace with new and emerging technologies, roughly 50 times since it was passed. Its been reported that the law has been updated almost a dozen times since 9/11.

Not only has FISA been updated some 50+ times since it’s first inception, but after 9/11 GWB explicitly rebuffed Congressional offers to modify FISA, to make it more applicable to the GWOT, and stated that it was good enough as it was. Furthermore, he rebuffed these offers AFTER he had already decided to start conducting wiretaps without FISA warrants.

His previous actions show that this is a bad-faith argument on its face - he knows FISA gives him more than enough ability to track and stop terrorists and isn’t “too old” in any way. The REAL point he is trying to make is that FISA is an illegitimate infringement on presidential power. He refused the offer to modify FISA because accepting it would be seen as tacit admission of it’s legitimacy. Publicly denying it legitimacy risked a public debate, and possibly an eventual SC ruling, about presidential power that the Admin was certainly NOT certain of winning. Publicly pretending to abide by it while secretly violating it was the easiest way to get what they wanted without taking risks in the short-term.

Dead on accurate. It seems like its gone beyond “liberal/conservative” to “Bush lovers/haters.” As you said, reason and debate can’t dent faith, on either side (I’m firmly in the “hater” category).

I suppose this is the fabled “Cult of Personality.”