9/11 Families Pan NSA Snooping

[Gold9472]

9-11 Families Pan NSA Snooping

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/powerplays/archives/002287.php

By Jarrett Murphy | January 04, 2006

President Bush has defended his decision to allow the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on phone calls connected to the United States by saying September 11 showed that the government needed to collect more information to prevent attack. But on Wednesday one group of 9-11 families members, September 11 Advocates, disagreed.

"Our government intercepted two al Qaeda communications, during routine monitoring, on September 10, 2001—'tomorrow is zero hour' and 'the match begins tomorrow,' " the group said in a statement. Those messages weren't interpreted until it was too late. "It was certainly not any FISA court issue that delayed such translation. Rather, the delay was ostensibly due to NSA's overwhelming workload created by its voluminous influx of information that needed to be translated and analyzed on a daily basis."

Plus, says the group, the existing FISA law gives the president the right to order eavesdropping on someone for three full days before he has to go to the secret court to get an order. "Moreover, in a time of war, the President is given a full fifteen days to retroactively ask for such a warrant," the statement reads. "Thus, why is there any need for the President to circumvent the law?"

According to the 2004 report to Congress on secret warrant requests to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, "The Court did not deny in whole or part any application submitted by the government in 2004," when there were 1,758 requests. In the three previous years, the court saw 3,888 requests for FISA warrants. It denied four and modified two. The government appealed the modifications, and it won on both appeals. Even before September 11, the court wasn't exactly a tough hurdle: In 2000, it approved 1,003 applications, modified one, and denied zero.

[Gold9472]

Cheney Says Eavesdropping Program Might Have Prevented 9/11

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010400973.html

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 4, 2006; 12:36 PM

Vice President Cheney today offered a staunch defense of a secret government eavesdropping program, saying it might have been able to thwart the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks if it had been in place at the time.

In excerpts released by the White House ahead of a speech at the Heritage Foundation, Cheney called for prompt renewal of the USA Patriot Act. He said the law, key provisions of which are subject to congressional reauthorization, "has done exactly what it was intended to do, and this country cannot afford to be without its protections."

"Another vital step the president took in the days following 9/11 was to authorize the National Security Agency to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications," Cheney said, according to the excerpts. "There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al Qaeda that have one end in the United States. If we'd been able to do this before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon. They were in the United States, communicating with al Qaeda associates overseas. But we didn't know they were here plotting until it was too late."

Cheney referred to a report by the U.S. commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. In criticizing federal agencies' inability to detect the plot, the commission cited the phone calls of two hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, to other al Qaeda members overseas.

"The authorization the president made after September 11th helped address that problem in a manner that is fully consistent with the Constitutional responsibilities and legal authority of the president and with the civil liberties of the American people," Cheney said.

He said that activities under the secret monitoring program "have helped to detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks against the American people. As such, this program is critical to the national security of the United States."

The excerpts did not contain any examples of attacks that have been thwarted.

Last month, President Bush said in a radio address that the NSA intercepts were vital for keeping America safe from terrorist attack, and he criticized the public disclosure of the program. Bush also cited the information about the two hijackers who communicated with al Qaeda from the United States.

[Gold9472]

I'm going to believe the family members on this one.

[somebigguy]

Cheney is full of shit, what a fucking liar!!!! How much foreknowledge did they need, every damn country in the world were warning them of the impending attacks, but if they were spying on their own people, then 9/11 would have been prevented???

Gimme a break, any republican scumbags wanna take the other side on this one?

[Gold9472]

Cheney Says Eavesdropping Program Might Have Prevented 9/11

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010400973.html

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 4, 2006; 12:36 PM

Vice President Cheney today offered a staunch defense of a secret government eavesdropping program, saying it might have been able to thwart the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks if it had been in place at the time.

In excerpts released by the White House ahead of a speech at the Heritage Foundation, Cheney called for prompt renewal of the USA Patriot Act. He said the law, key provisions of which are subject to congressional reauthorization, "has done exactly what it was intended to do, and this country cannot afford to be without its protections."

"Another vital step the president took in the days following 9/11 was to authorize the National Security Agency to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications," Cheney said, according to the excerpts. "There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al Qaeda that have one end in the United States. If we'd been able to do this before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon. They were in the United States, communicating with al Qaeda associates overseas. But we didn't know they were here plotting until it was too late."

Cheney referred to a report by the U.S. commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. In criticizing federal agencies' inability to detect the plot, the commission cited the phone calls of two hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, to other al Qaeda members overseas.

"The authorization the president made after September 11th helped address that problem in a manner that is fully consistent with the Constitutional responsibilities and legal authority of the president and with the civil liberties of the American people," Cheney said.

He said that activities under the secret monitoring program "have helped to detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks against the American people. As such, this program is critical to the national security of the United States."

The excerpts did not contain any examples of attacks that have been thwarted.

Last month, President Bush said in a radio address that the NSA intercepts were vital for keeping America safe from terrorist attack, and he criticized the public disclosure of the program. Bush also cited the information about the two hijackers who communicated with al Qaeda from the United States.

But Dick, you ALREADY WERE listening you murdering fascist cocksucker.