This WaPo article is about events BEFORE-9/11. BEFORE-9/11, President George W. Bush spied on Americans. BEFORE-9/11, before the so-called “war on terror,” the Bush Administration contacted communication companies and asked them for information about their customers. BEFORE-9/11, Bush was pushing for warrantless surveillance of Americans!
Stram, can't you just hear the gasps, pointing and name calling from Hank and his Anon alias now..??
A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.
Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week.
(snip)
Details about the alleged NSA program have been redacted from the documents, but Nacchio's lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.
Not only did the Bush Administration ask Qwest to spy on Americans, it punished the company because it refused to do an illegal act. The company lost "contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars." One wonders whether the inside trading conviction was part of the "punishment" as well.
Now Bush has the audacity to tell Congress to pass a bill that gives immunity to companies that were "patriotic" and complied with the illegal request. Congress should encourage true patriotism, the kind that was shown by Qwest when it refused.
Congress does not even have the information it requested from the Whitehouse. It should do nothing until it gets this information. And then it must produce a law that protects American citizens from warrantless wire tapping.
All his talk about the "war on terror," making us safe at home and fighting for democracy abroad is just that, talk. Killing innocent Iraqi's and the slaughter of our brave soldiers is just his means to continue his evil ways. Of course he can get away with it! Hitler kept Germany afraid too...
Now tell me this isn't an evil, demented plan. Tell me that we should rally behind the evil empire and "allow them to protect us." My only question is... who's going to protect us from them?
5 comments:
These guys make Nixon look like a kindly old Grandpa.
Do we need to get behind a Dodd-Feingold fillibuster?
Either that Vigil, or go a tad postal....
When Cheney tells you to play ball, you had better play ball.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
James Madison
Oh, God! Isn't one enough?
Speaking of impeachment for spying, Nixon still looks like a crook to me. We can all thank him for teaching Cheney and Rumsfeld how to spy on American citizens. From Wiki—Dick Cheney:
Dick Cheney's political career began in 1969, as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger during the Nixon Administration. The intern Cheney then joined the staff of Donald Rumsfeld, who was then Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from 1969–70.
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