Bush Advanced New Spy Program Aimed At YOU
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department’s new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities — such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps.
Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said. The department has previously said the program will not intercept communications.
“There is no basis to suggest that this process is in any way insufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans,” Chertoff wrote to Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.), chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee and its intelligence subcommittee, respectively, in letters released yesterday.
“I think we’ve fully addressed anybody’s concerns,” Chertoff added in remarks last week to bloggers. “I think the way is now clear to stand it up and go warm on it.”
His statements marked a fresh determination to operate the department’s new National Applications Office as part of its counterterrorism efforts. The administration in May 2007 gave DHS authority to coordinate requests for satellite imagery, radar, electronic-signal information, chemical detection and other monitoring capabilities that have been used for decades within U.S. borders for mapping and disaster response.
OK, Bush and Company are still pillaging the laws this country was founded on. The next president will be handed a genuine absolute dictatorship. It will be a test for the next president to scale back executive powers to return America the freedoms originally described in the declaration of independence and constitution.
Democrats say Chertoff has not spelled out what federal laws govern the NAO, whose funding and size are classified. Congress barred Homeland Security from funding the office until its investigators could review the office’s operating procedures and safeguards. The department submitted answers on Thursday, but some lawmakers promptly said the response was inadequate.
“I have had a firsthand experience with the trust-me theory of law from this administration,” said Harman, citing the 2005 disclosure of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program, which included warrantless eavesdropping on calls and e-mails between people in the United States and overseas. “I won’t make the same mistake. . . . I want to see the legal underpinnings for the whole program.”
I think I hear opposition voices way way out in the bleachers. Oh, are those Democrats up there? Are those the ones who actually read the United States Constitution, and recognize all the white-out being painted over some very important parts. After all, Bush has no problem ordering torture …
CRAWFORD, Tex., April 11 — President Bush said Friday that he was aware his top national security advisers had discussed the details of harsh interrogation tactics to be used on detainees.
Bush also said in an interview with ABC News that he approved of the meetings, which were held as the CIA began to prepare for a secret interrogation program that included waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and other coercive techniques.
“Well, we started to connect the dots, in order to protect the American people” by learning what various detainees knew, Bush said in the interview at the presidential ranch here. “And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”
Not to worry. In nine months, Bush will be tucked away safe and sound in Dallas, ready to advise the next Republican President with details about how he did it. Of course, Bush will have to get permission from:
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