POLITICS: Justice Department Opens NSA Leak Probe

This is another make beleive investigation being investigated by the make beleive investigators.

Pluheeezzz...Its done to make some happy- its done to then come out with "The president did nothing wrong and acted within the law"

Just like the other whacky investigations we have had...9/11 and the likes.

AND the sad thing is people swallow their findings no questions asked. If "they" say its ok, its ok.

Thats why this is all going so downhill so fast.

I'm miserable with a toothache anyway..dont listen to me..not that you ever do.

And accordingly, dgtempe, there are no national security secrets, in fact there are no secrets at all. That anything deemed vital to national security or national security interests should be made immediately and openly available to the public, no matter the costs, no matter who will see or have access to such information?

As such, there should be no investigations into this matter because it is information that should be readily available to anyone, including terrorist-wannabes. Hell, maybe the government should simply consider getting rid of security clearances and top secret informations? Yes, lets just lay our plans openly out on the table and let the whole damn world know exactly how we plan to thwart and/or combat terrorism, etc, huh?

That would suit you just grand, wouldn't it? Not! Hence the investigations.






seekerof

[edit on 2-1-2006 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by sigung86
If I am observant enough to keep you from coming in my house and lying on the couch and watching my television whenever you simply want to, then I don't have to worry about you coming in when I happen to be at work and taking all my furniture. And if one of my neighbors should let it leak to me that you are, in fact, sneaking in when I'm away, then I am not at all sure that person should be drawn and quartered for helping me protect my furniture.

How did you find out that Bush watched your TV? Was the channel set to Fox News when you got home?

Anyway, Bush has said that he doesn't read newspapers, so I doubt very much if he watches TV either.

Originally posted by jsobecky
Anyway, Bush has said that he doesn't read newspapers, so I doubt very much if he watches TV either.

You don't really believe everything Bush said, Jsobecky, Right?

Ask thyself the same question

You really don't believe everything that is said about or against Bush, do you, Marg?





seekerof

[edit on 2-1-2006 by Seekerof]

This is a wonderful topic to follow.

Originally posted by Seekerof
Ask thyself the same question

You really don't believe everything that is said about or against Bush, do you, Marg?

seekerof

Do I have to answer to that one . . . actually to be sincere I don't but taking in consideration our human nature sometimes I don't believe the things I do myself. sometimes

Originally posted by jsobecky

Originally posted by sigung86
If I am observant enough to keep you from coming in my house and lying on the couch and watching my television whenever you simply want to, then I don't have to worry about you coming in when I happen to be at work and taking all my furniture. And if one of my neighbors should let it leak to me that you are, in fact, sneaking in when I'm away, then I am not at all sure that person should be drawn and quartered for helping me protect my furniture.

How did you find out that Bush watched your TV? Was the channel set to Fox News when you got home?

Anyway, Bush has said that he doesn't read newspapers, so I doubt very much if he watches TV either.

At the risk of losing another 20 points for over quoting from a parsimonious moderator... I decided to keep this one post totalyl intact for comment.


Towit:

Bush doesn't read papers 'cause it's awfully embarrassing for him when everyone sees him moving his lips. But then Clinton wasn't any better, and Bush hasn't made off with the White House Silver, yet!

Ya got me JSOBecky! I wouldn't know if someone were sneaking into my house unless someone ratted him/her out. Then it becomes a matter for the neighborhood, as it were, to weigh the evidence of the damage of the person doing the sneaking versus the damage of the person who is doing the ratting.

At any rate, I am reminded of an old Chinese saying regarding secrets...
"Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead". That kind of sums up all this security brouhaha in a nutshell. As long as there are human beings around, when there are secret makers, there will be, inevitably, secret leekers.

Thanks to all... I have really enjoyed this little "get together".

So lets say for the sake of arguement it's not ok to leak "classified" info. What about a situation where someone in our Military/Govt. were plotting to commit a terrorist or other illegal act upon the US or any other country for that matter? Like spying on citizens without a court order, or invading soverign nations. Or commiting false flag black ops? Ghosting innocent people into the classified "black" prison system? These things are ALL ILLEGAL. Lets just say someone with some nutz found out and "leaked" this information to the public in order to inform WE THE PEOPLE about WTF is going on so that it could be stopped. Would that be wrong?

Where does the "just a f!@#$%g piece of paper" Constitution or Bill of Rights or even the Patriot Act say the president has the power to spy on ANYONE without a court order? Bush tried to use the 9/11 excuse back in 2001 to justify the ability to do this and it was shot down by congress. The POTUS does not have the RIGHT to do MANY of the things he is doing. Yet anytime the Administration is questioned or has the finger pointed at them it just gets spun into something totally different founded on LIES.

I am really suprised we are allowing this to continue. I half expected millions to march on Washington DC demanding impeachment. Atleast I am forever an optimist. Yet instead of prosecuting the guilty, we hunt down and crucify the ones trying to get the information out to the rest of us who REALLY DO NEED TO KNOW AND CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Originally posted by DjOsiris
Where does the "just a f!@#$%g piece of paper" Constitution or Bill of Rights or even the Patriot Act say the president has the power to spy on ANYONE without a court order? Bush tried to use the 9/11 excuse back in 2001 to justify the ability to do this and it was shot down by congress. The POTUS does not have the RIGHT to do MANY of the things he is doing. Yet anytime the Administration is questioned or has the finger pointed at them it just gets spun into something totally different founded on LIES.

Knowing what the Constitution and Bill of Rights say, are you likewise familiar with what this [linked below] legal code says, DjOsiris?
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 37 > § 798. Disclosure of classified information






seekerof

Very amusing reading coming from the critics of the current administration and what they're doing to keep you safe, despite your disliking of the handling of things in Washington.

Myself, I strongly support the idea of spying on American citizens, especially when so many enemies of liberty will hide behind the guise of "American" to further their own diabolical agenda to bring down this nation. The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Communist Party are just two of these groups of people. One wishes to strip anything decent and moral from the American way of life and the other wishes to strip all rights from the citizens of the United States.

Has any of the critics here heard of ECHELON? Spying on U.S. citizens is not something new. In fact, ECHELON will spy on supposedly allies of the U.S.

In September 1993, President Clinton asked the CIA to spy on Japanese auto manufacturers that were designing zero-emission cars and to forward that information to the Big Three US car manufacturers: Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. In 1995, the New York Times reported that the NSA and the CIA’s Tokyo station were involved in providing detailed information to US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor’s team of negotiators in Geneva facing Japanese car companies in a trade dispute. Recently, a Japanese newspaper, Mainichi, accused the NSA of continuing to monitor the communications of Japanese companies on behalf of American companies

or this

Insight Magazine reported in a series of articles in 1997 that President Clinton ordered the NSA and FBI to mount a massive surveillance operation at the 1993 Asian/Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) hosted in Seattle. One intelligence source for the story related that over 300 hotel rooms had been bugged for the event, which was designed to obtain information regarding oil and hydro-electric deals pending in Vietnam that were passed on to high level Democratic Party contributors competing for the contracts. But foreign companies were not the only losers: when Vietnam expressed interest in purchasing two used 737 freighter aircraft from an American businessman, the deal was scuttled after Commerce Secretary Ron Brown arranged favorable financing for two new 737s from Boeing

In neither of the above instances was America at war, but the spying was conducted and not on terrorist groups. The full article can be found at the link given.

Check this out,

Claims by a top Senate Democrat that the Clinton administration's warrantless surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists was different from what the Bush administration has employed are being contradicted by a former Justice Department official who served under President Bill Clinton.

The above quote can be found here,Clinton Official: Sen. Leahy Wrong on Domestic Spying if anyone wants to take the time to read.

But most of all, Happy Spying New Year!

DjOsiris

I feel your pain that is why I will keep my options open, it can go either way, we just have to way and trust the people that we supposedly elected to power to maintain the checks and balances in our nation and to also maintain the reason they were elected to uphold and protect the constitutional rights of every citizen of this country.

But also you have to be open to the possibility that somebody may want to do damage to our nation while exposing our government with a leak.

But I kind of lean more to the first.

from DjOsiris
we hunt down and crucify the ones trying to get the information out to the rest of us who REALLY DO NEED TO KNOW AND CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH!

sarcasm on
Yes, I remember how much this board defended the people who leaked the harmless info on Valerie Plame /sarcasm.

The entrire liberal board stood as one in defending the person(s) who leaked that info.

I'm looking forward to the fundraiser they hold to help pay for Lewis Libby's legal fees.

sarcasm on
Yes, I remember how much this board defended the people who leaked the harmless info on Valerie Plame /sarcasm.

The entrire liberal board stood as one in defending the person(s) who leaked that info.

I'm looking forward to the fundraiser they hold to help pay for Lewis Libby's legal fees.

I guess I could agree in principal, but the Plame situation and the listening in on everyone's phone calls really isn't the same thing.

Originally posted by Seekerof

The issue here is about the investigation into who leaked classified information that strictly and blatantly violates National Security Laws.

The NYT will be investigated.
The Washington Post will be investigated.
And the leakers used for their articles revealing classified information will be identified. Bet.

Plamegate has nothing in comparison to this investigation, nothing.
This investigation will be monumental.

can someone please show me where HE is being investigated for authorizing the spying and not just the "leak" that he was doing it ?
If this was already covered I apologize, I did read most of the thread.

I don't really have a problem with my calls being monitored, I used to make and recieve alot of calls to the US ... hope those listening in enjoyed the calls between me and my ex as much as we did

My problem with this is I am hearing and reading of all this "investigating" into the leak of information that it was happening, yet nothing of Bush being held accountable for it. Did I miss something ?

Originally posted by ImJaded

My problem with this is I am hearing and reading of all this "investigating" into the leak of information that it was happening, yet nothing of Bush being held accountable for it. Did I miss something ?

Well is supposed to be a congressional hearing to ask Bush as why he saw necessary to by pass the court set in place to do the surveillance without approval.

Occurs this all this year but we don't know if is going to happen.

I keep saying it, but nobody seems to listen. What NSA did and is doing is not wiretapping. They listen to electromagnetic transmissions, just like you'de listen to a radio station. There is nothing illegal about what they do and there never has been. In the past, whenever NSA identified a particular person, or group, as a result of such electronic snooping they would not listen to communications from that person or group when the communications were solely within the U.S.--only when one end went outside the U.S. That particular policy, which would never have been illegal had they done so, has now changed. Now, when a particular person or group has been determined to be of particular interest, they will listen to communications from that person or group whenever they can, even if both ends of the communication are wholely within the U.S. But it is not wiretapping and it is not now, nor has it ever been illegal.

What is making the policy change somewhat contentious is the simple fact that much of the communications within the U.S. are now carried wirelessly, i.e., they are sent as electromagnetic transmissions (over the airwaves if you will) rather than through telephone lines. This change has made such transmissions available for monitoring by NSA without needing to perform wiretaps, which they never did very much anyway.

The rationale behind the original policy was that the FBI had jurrisdiction over that type of monitoring. The NSA therefore just left it to them. Now, it would be pointless and counterproductive to not listen since the transmissions are readily available.

For anyone to publicly discuss the eavsdropping policies of the NSA legally, they must have appropriate clearances and they must clear whatever is to be said, or printed, in advance with NSA or other appropriate original classification authorities. This is a prudent and needful policy because the sources of NSA intelligence are so easily changed, or denied, once knowledge of those sources is gained. Even the tiniest bit of well intentioned publicity can quite easily result in total loss of valuable intelligence sources. The deliberate revelations by the New York Times is very close to treason and could possibly allow a group, or groups, to plan and execute a catastrophic terrorist attack without any foreknowledge on the part of the U.S.

[edit on 3-1-2006 by Astronomer68]

Originally posted by Astronomer68
...
The deliberate revelations by the New York Times is very close to treason and could possibly allow a group, or groups, to plan and execute a catastrophic terrorist attack without any foreknowledge on the part of the U.S.

[edit on 3-1-2006 by Astronomer68]

Hmmm.... Ida' thunk they could pick it all up via eavesdropping on wireless communication. That's certainly not illegal ya know...

Originally posted by DjOsiris
Yet instead of prosecuting the guilty, we hunt down and crucify the ones trying to get the information out to the rest of us who REALLY DO NEED TO KNOW AND CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH!

May I ask what do you mean by "the rest of us"?

Do you mean the general population?

Do you mean "groups" whose intentions are to created chaos and wreak havoc on society?

Have you been denied any of your Constitutional rights at any time in the last 4 years?

Do you think that you're being watched and if so, what are your activities that make you so paranoid of the government?

Does the activities of the government hamper any plans you have?

Again, just exactly who is "the rest of us"?

To get my two cents in, "the rest of us" need not be concerned with what's going on in the government. These leakers commited treason and let the general public aware of extremely classified information. Upon doing so, they've already given up their legal rights and need to be shot.

In case you've forgotten, we are at war you know!