I'm a Soldier, Not a Spy

By Grant Doty

Friday, December 30, 2005; Page A27

As Americans take stock of the news that the government has been involved in domestic warrantless eavesdropping as well as surveillance of "potentially threatening people or organizations inside the United States," many people are troubled, including me.

Although the government may be interested in my ACLU membership, my wife's participation in war protests or my affiliation with the liberal United Church of Christ, my real anxiety stems from the fact that I am a soldier and may now be under suspicion from my friends and neighbors.


Specifically, given the information slowly leaking out of Washington, it may not be farfetched for some to think that when I "stumble across people or information" that might be of interest to the government, I might report it to the Pentagon's three-year-old Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA).

While such a conclusion would be false (I hadn't heard of CIFA before reading about it in the news this month), in an Orwellian world, the protestations of someone labeled the "eyes and ears" of the state are reasonably suspect.

What makes me think that the people with whom I interact regularly will somehow believe I won't report suspect words and actions? When I walk to my bus stop in Bethesda each morning, I see who has a "War Is Not the Answer" yard sign. One of the people I regularly see on my commute wears a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals button on her overcoat. My church, which prayed for me during my year in Iraq, has an e-mail list that informs me about local civic actions, including war protests. I attend night law school, frequently in uniform, and through the social network of law students know when the gay, lesbian and bisexual organization is planning to lead the picketing of Judge Advocate General Corps recruiters who come to campus.

Now that we've learned that the military may be collecting such "raw, unverified information" in the form of "Talon reports," my fear is that when friends and neighbors see me, in or out of uniform, their speech could be chilled. I wonder: Will I begin to see a change in behavior? Will my neighbors draw their shades more often? Will they think twice about putting a bumper sticker on their car? Will I be deleted from the church list? Will my law school class discussions be more reserved?

"Paranoia," some may say. The only people who need to worry are those with something to hide. This may be true. In fact, being with the president or against him in the war on terrorism may be the current controversy, but I can envision a time when antiabortion groups and churches might fear soldiers attending meetings or services if such groups are labeled "threats" by a subsequent administration. Are they sincere pro-lifers or moles? Perhaps gun owners' groups might feel that soldiers are joining to get access to membership lists or activities if such groups are deemed "dangerous." Is one a Second Amendment defender or domestic spy?

Yes, I took an oath to defend the United States against all enemies "foreign and domestic," but the implication of domestic intelligence-gathering by the military, even by a limited number of soldiers, should be sufficiently disturbing for American citizens in and out of uniform that we think long and hard about crossing the line, even a little.

The writer is a lieutenant colonel in the Army. The views expressed here are his own.



© 2005 The Washington Post Company

For Russ.

The oil that drives the US military

By Michael T Klare

In the first US combat operation of the war in Iraq, navy commandos stormed an offshore oil-loading platform. "Swooping silently out of the Persian Gulf night," an overexcited reporter for the New York Times wrote on March 22, 2003, "Navy Seals [Sea, Air and Land special forces] seized two Iraqi oil terminals in bold raids that ended early this morning, overwhelming lightly armed Iraqi guards and claiming a bloodless victory in the battle for Iraq's vast oil empire."

A year and a half later, American soldiers are still struggling to maintain control over these vital petroleum facilities - and the fighting is no longer bloodless. On April 24, two American sailors and a coastguardsman were killed when a boat they sought to intercept, presumably carrying suicide bombers, exploded near the Khor al-Amaya loading platform. Other Americans have come under fire while protecting some of the many installations in Iraq's "oil empire".

Indeed, Iraq has developed into a two-front war: the battles for control over Iraq's cities and the constant struggle to protect its far-flung petroleum infrastructure against sabotage and attack. The first contest has been widely reported in the US press; the second has received far less attention. Yet the fate of Iraq's oil infrastructure could prove no less significant than that of its embattled cities. A failure to prevail in this contest would eliminate the economic basis upon which a stable Iraqi government could someday emerge. "In the grand scheme of things," a senior officer told the New York Times, "there may be no other place where our armed forces are deployed that has a greater strategic importance." In recognition of this, significant numbers of US soldiers have been assigned to oil-security functions.

Top officials insist that these duties will eventually be taken over by Iraqi forces, but day by day this glorious moment seems to recede ever further into the distance. So long as US forces remain in Iraq, a significant number of them will undoubtedly spend their time guarding highly vulnerable pipelines, refineries, loading facilities and other petroleum installations. With thousands of kilometers of pipeline and hundreds of major facilities at risk, this task will prove endlessly demanding - and unrelievedly hazardous. At the moment, the guerrillas seem capable of striking the country's oil lines at times and places of their choosing, their attacks often sparking massive explosions and fires.
Guarding the pipelines

It has been argued that America's oil-protection role is a peculiar feature of the war in Iraq, where petroleum installations are strewn about and the national economy is largely dependent on oil revenues. But Iraq is hardly the only country where US troops are risking their lives on a daily basis to protect the flow of petroleum. In Colombia, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Georgia, US personnel are also spending their days and nights protecting pipelines and refineries, or supervising the local forces assigned to this mission. American sailors are now on oil-protection patrol in the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea, and along other sea routes that deliver oil to the United States and its allies. In fact, the US military is increasingly being converted into a global oil-protection service.

The situation in Georgia is a perfect example of this trend. Ever since the Soviet Union broke apart in 1992, US oil companies and government officials have sought to gain access to the huge oil and natural-gas reserves of the Caspian Sea basin - especially in Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Some experts believe that as many as 200 billion barrels of untapped oil lie ready to be discovered in the Caspian area, about seven times the amount left in the United States. But the Caspian itself is landlocked and so the only way to transport its oil to market in the West is by pipelines crossing the Caucasus region - the area encompassing Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the war-torn Russian republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia.

US firms are now building a major pipeline through this volatile area. Stretching a perilous 1,600 kilometers from Baku in Azerbaijan through Tbilisi in Georgia to Ceyhan in Turkey, it is eventually slated to carry a million barrels of oil a day to the West, but will face the constant threat of sabotage by Islamic militants and ethnic separatists along its entire length. The United States has already assumed significant responsibility for its protection, providing millions of dollars in arms and equipment to the Georgian military and deploying military specialists in Tbilisi to train and advise the Georgian troops assigned to protect this vital conduit. This US presence is only likely to expand in 2005 or 2006 when the pipeline begins to transport oil and fighting in the area intensifies.


Or take embattled Colombia, where US forces are increasingly assuming responsibility for the protection of that country's vulnerable oil pipelines. These vital conduits carry crude petroleum from fields in the interior, where a guerrilla war boils, to ports on the Caribbean coast from which it can be shipped to buyers in the United States and elsewhere. For years, left-wing guerrillas have sabotaged the pipelines - portraying them as concrete expressions of foreign exploitation and elitist rule in Bogota, the capital - to deprive the Colombian government of desperately needed income. Seeking to prop up the government and enhance its capacity to fight the guerrillas, Washington is already spending hundreds of millions of dollars to enhance oil-infrastructure security, beginning with the Cano-Limon pipeline, the sole conduit connecting Occidental Petroleum's prolific fields in Arauca province with the Caribbean coast. As part of this effort, US Army Special Forces personnel from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, are now helping to train, equip, and guide a new contingent of Colombian forces whose sole mission will be to guard the pipeline and fight the guerrillas along its 770km route.

Oil and instability

The use of US military personnel to help protect vulnerable oil installations in conflict-prone, chronically unstable countries is certain to expand given three critical factors: America's ever-increasing dependence on imported petroleum, a global shift in oil production from the developed to the developing world, and the growing militarization of US foreign energy policy.


America's dependence on imported petroleum has been growing steadily since 1972, when domestic output reached its maximum (or "peak") output of 11.6 million barrels per day (mb/d). Domestic production is now running at about 9mb/d and is expected to continue to decline as older fields are depleted. (Even if some oil is eventually extracted from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, as the administration of President George W Bush desires, this downward trend will not be reversed.) Yet America's total oil consumption remains on an upward course; now approximating 20mb/d, it's projected to reach 29mb/d by 2025. This means ever more of the nation's total petroleum supply will have to be imported - 11mb/d today (about 55% of total US consumption) but 20mb/d in 2025 (69% of consumption).

More significant than this growing reliance on foreign oil, an increasing share of that oil will come from hostile, war-torn countries in the developing world, not from friendly, stable countries such as Canada or Norway. This is the case because the older industrialized countries have already consumed a large share of their oil inheritance, while many producers in the developing world still possess vast reserves of untapped petroleum. As a result, we are seeing a historic shift in the center of gravity for world oil production - from the industrialized countries of the global North to the developing nations of the global South, which are often politically unstable, torn by ethnic and religious conflicts, home to extremist organizations, or some combination of all three.

Whatever deeply rooted historical antagonisms exist in these countries, oil production itself usually acts as a further destabilizing influence. Sudden infusions of petroleum wealth in otherwise poor and underdeveloped countries tend to deepen divides between rich and poor that often fall along ethnic or religious lines, leading to persistent conflict over the distribution of petroleum revenues. To prevent such turbulence, ruling elites such as the royal family in Saudi Arabia or the new oil potentates of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan restrict or prohibit public expressions of dissent and rely on the repressive machinery of state security forces to crush opposition movements. With legal, peaceful expressions of dissent foreclosed in this manner, opposition forces soon see no options but to engage in armed rebellion or terrorism.

There is another aspect of this situation that bears examination. Many of the emerging oil producers in the developing world were once colonies of and harbor deep hostility toward the former imperial powers of Europe. The United States is seen by many in these countries as the modern inheritor of this imperial tradition. Growing resentment over social and economic traumas induced by globalization is aimed at the United States. Because oil is viewed as the primary motive for US involvement in these areas, and because the giant US oil corporations are seen as the very embodiment of US power, anything to do with oil - pipelines, wells, refineries, loading platforms - is seen by insurgents as a legitimate and attractive target for attack; hence the raids on pipelines in Iraq, on oil-company offices in Saudi Arabia, and on oil tankers in Yemen.


Militarizing energy policy

US leaders have responded to this systemic challenge to stability in oil-producing areas in a consistent fashion: by employing military means to guarantee the unhindered flow of petroleum. This approach was first adopted by the administrations of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower after World War II, when Soviet adventurism in Iran and pan-Arab upheavals in the Middle East seemed to threaten the safety of Persian Gulf oil deliveries. It was given formal expression by president Jimmy Carter in January 1980 when, in response to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Islamic revolution in Iran, he announced that the secure flow of Persian Gulf oil was in "the vital interests of the United States of America", and that in protecting this interest the United States would use "any means necessary, including military force". Carter's principle of using force to protect the flow of oil was later cited by president George H W Bush to justify US intervention in the Gulf War of 1990-91, and it provided the underlying strategic rationale for America's recent invasion of Iraq.

Originally, this policy was largely confined to the world's most important oil-producing region, the Persian Gulf. But given America's ever-growing requirement for imported petroleum, US officials have begun to extend it to other major producing zones, including the Caspian Sea basin, Africa and Latin America. The initial step in this direction was taken by president Bill Clinton, who sought to exploit the energy potential of the Caspian basin and, worrying about instability in the area, established military ties with future suppliers, including Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and with the pivotal transit state of Georgia. It was Clinton who first championed the construction of a pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan and who initially took steps to protect that conduit by boosting the military capabilities of the countries involved. President George W Bush has built on this effort, increasing military aid to these states and deploying US combat advisers in Georgia; Bush is also considering the establishment of permanent US military bases in the Caspian region.

Typically, such moves are justified as being crucial to the "war on terror". A close reading of Pentagon and State Department documents shows, however, that anti-terrorism and the protection of oil supplies are closely related in administration thinking. When requesting funds in 2004 to establish a "rapid-reaction brigade" in Kazakhstan, for example, the State Department told Congress that such a force is needed to "enhance Kazakhstan's capability to respond to major terrorist threats to oil platforms" in the Caspian Sea.


As noted, a very similar trajectory is now under way in Colombia. The US military presence in oil-producing areas of Africa, though less conspicuous, is growing rapidly. The Department of Defense has stepped up its arms deliveries to military forces in Angola and Nigeria, and is helping to train their officers and enlisted personnel; meanwhile, Pentagon officials have begun to look for permanent US bases in the area, focusing on Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Uganda and Kenya. Although these officials tend to talk only about terrorism when explaining the need for such facilities, one officer told Greg Jaffe of the Wall Street Journal in June 2003 that "a key mission for US forces [in Africa] would be to ensure that Nigeria's oilfields, which in the future could account for as much as 25% of all US oil imports, are secure".


An increasing share of US naval forces is also being committed to the protection of foreign oil shipments. The navy's 5th Fleet, based at the island state of Bahrain, now spends much of its time patrolling the vital tanker lanes of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz - the narrow waterway connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea and the larger oceans beyond. The navy has also beefed up its ability to protect vital sea lanes in the South China Sea - the site of promising oilfields claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia - and in the Strait of Malacca, the critical sea-link between the Persian Gulf and America's allies in East Asia. Even Africa has come in for increased attention from the navy. To increase the US naval presence in waters adjoining Nigeria and other key producers, carrier battle groups assigned to the European Command (which controls the South Atlantic) will shorten their future visits to the Mediterranean "and spend half the time going down the west coast of Africa", the command's top officer, General James Jones, announced in May 2003.

This, then, is the future of US military involvement abroad. While anti-terrorism and traditional national-security rhetoric will be employed to explain risky deployments abroad, a growing number of American soldiers and sailors will be committed to the protection of overseas oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker routes. And because these facilities are likely to come under increasing attack from guerrillas and terrorists, the risk to American lives will grow accordingly. Inevitably, Americans will pay a higher price in blood for every additional liter of oil they obtain from abroad. Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College. This article is based on his new book, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (Metropolitan/Henry Holt). This article appeared on Tomdispatch and is used here by permission.

(Copyright 2004 Michael Klare.)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/FJ09Dj01.html

I could find hundreds of articles written on this subject but this one wasn't so technical.

With the massive corporate profits the oil giants pull in, am I being silly to think that the oil companies should provide their own protection. In the last quarter the oil companies made more money than any companies have ever made in the history of the world.

If they need a mercenary army they should use the Blackwater Group to hire the Army/Marine men that are leaving the military. The taxpaying citizens would have this burden off their backs and the men who guard the pipelines would be making alot more money.

Oh they are. And those they hire no longer have the so-called rules and regs the service has.

Yeah, the real shame is that Bushie hisself sent every one of those assets and every one of those troops to all those places.

This government being the US government since the time of WWII?

Please try to go read some history. The more you post on this topic the more ignorant you seem.

IT'S WHAT'S FOR NEW YEARS

katz talkin ignorance is a real hoot

LOL

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I told all four that there were going to be some times where we don't agree with each other. But that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.


In states with democratic traditions, dictators frequently emerge in times of war, or during an economic or social crisis. Most notably, Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany, achieved office by democratic means and once in power gradually eroded constitutional restraints. Under Joseph Stalin, the concentration of power in the Communist Party in the Soviet Union developed into a personal dictatorship, but after his death there emerged a system of collective leadership


We all have to be warned and alert against this danger. Bush/Cheney are coming close to declaring Bush above all law.

"Bush/Cheney are coming close to declaring Bush above all law."

AV and Katz already have

too late. No respect for law at all.

Ever thus since about, oh, 1896 or so. Sherry, you are very farsighted here. Farsighted in the opthamalogical meaning of seeing only what is up very very close. It is not only with oil companies or only in recent times that the American government has served the interests of American business and industry what used to be called "abroad."

As others have said, you could use to read a lot more history. As Santayana said, those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it. And there are tragedies in the "reform/revolution" columns as well as in the war and empire columns.

That said, there is always an interesting debate and an intrinsic tension regarding democracy and extensions of empire.

not when debate is scorned

not when empire rides on the back of the poor

not when our boys die defending oil

Oh bulloney.

Go storm the Bastille.

man vs water cannon

So everybody seems to agree that the proper use for the armed forces is to protect the oil companies pipelines.

I must have missed that in my reading. I haven't read much about the military until the last few years. Other than a few books, which didn't mention the reason for the battles were to protect oil. Maybe I have been naive. I always thought the military was to protect the citizens. My bad.

Well, I have to put this in mind when I see another base being put anywhere, that it's ok for soldiers and airmen to die to protect oil pipelines and not be upset. It's the way it is and always has been. Okie Dokey.

American Empire wasn't taught at my school. I graduated in '62. We weren't even taught anything about the New World Order.

Well, ya learn something new every day.

I sure wish I had known about all this when I was 25. But, having six kids slows ya down a little.

I'm just glad I taught my kids to be non-violent and Never join the military.

It would kill me if my kids died to protect an oilwell.

Please reread.

They moved it to eastern Europe or Siberia. I can't get a connecting flight.

Ignoring the whole history of the US, just to try and nail some point on righties? NFW, Sherry dearest.

Reread what?

Oh, fer Pete's sake!

People have been telling you that your premise was wrong and far too narrow to cover all, or even the major, reasons for the global footprint. That you needed to expand your understanding.

But, hey, if this floats yer boat - start filling the lake.

The responses. You are presuming support where they may have been simply conveyance of information. And you are stuck on a position of "it's all and only about oil." To get new information you may have to shake loose things you think you know. Elsewise your "questions" may be only begging the real ones.

I am entirely sympathetic to your statement about children dying for oilwells.

What Russ said.

I truly hope this is a case of selective stupidty on Sherry's part.

I found this article to be very thought provoking Lovin' Europe by Leaving

It is past time for our 60-year-old European child to move out of the house and get a life.

The GM cars that pay GM pensions don't run on good intentions and non-violence.

Thanks for taking the time to point out my stupidity and ignorance. It was very helpful.

I have lots of reading to do. Apparently.

Chevy's that run on oil can't afford to run out.

They've died for land, whales, water, coal, oil, buffalo, dung and any number of other limited resources. What most ranting libs don't seem to be willing to admit, is that the standard of living they constantly bitch about losing REQUIRES various natural resources, and they don't just show up at the natural resource store.

But some methods of developing or aquiring these various natural resources go beyond anything we, as the most (cough, cough) civilized of countries would consider even close to worth the cost. AKA, human rights, (covers a lot) or the environment.

Like drilling in the middle of nowhere, on land that's dark a good part of the year?

Nah, I think it's just in your nature to be against. Bitch about drilling, bitch about prices.

I've proven I can get by without a car. You and Sherry going to go to do that too?

Why should they have cars? Neither one has to be anywhere.

Like Wind Farms in Nantucket or the Kennedy Compound?

The jet ski and the boat and the snomobile are just totally exessive.

Maybe they have to drive to the internet cafe?

How wasteful.

Yep. Considering the amount of output drilling in Alaska is probably more efficient AND less environmentally intrusive.

Nuclear power even less so. (but who wants to hear the wailing about THAT?)

No, not that far removed. Constanza is in the Black Sea. I am going entirely off memory of the maps here, but I seem to remember that it's really close to the Bulgaria/Romania border. I also seem to remember that the Bulgarians 'wanted it' in the late 19th-early 20th century.

ASHCROFT SAID NO

Andy Card and the then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a bedside visit to John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, who was stricken with a rare and painful pancreatic disease, to try—without success—to get him to reverse his deputy, Acting Attorney General James Comey, who was balking at the warrantless eavesdropping.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10663996/site/newsweek/

SO WHAT GET RID OF ASHCROFT THATS WHAT

President Bush strongly defended his domestic spying program on Sunday, calling it legal

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/01/D8ES6MH00.html

NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information From Surveillance

Fruit of Eavesdropping Was Processed and Cross-Checked With Databases

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 1, 2006; A08



Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said.

The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available by request to agencies that are allowed to have it, including the FBI, DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, one former official said.

At least one of those organizations, the DIA, has used NSA information as the basis for carrying out surveillance of people in the country suspected of posing a threat, according to two sources. A DIA spokesman said the agency does not conduct such domestic surveillance but would not comment further. Spokesmen for the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, declined to comment on the use of NSA data.

Since the revelation last month that President Bush had authorized the NSA to intercept communications inside the United States, public concern has focused primarily on the legality of the NSA eavesdropping. Less attention has been paid to, and little is known about, how the NSA's information may have been used by other government agencies to investigate American citizens or to cross-check with other databases. In the 1960s and 1970s, the military used NSA intercepts to maintain files on U.S. peace activists, revelations of which prompted Congress to restrict the NSA from intercepting communications of Americans.

Today's NSA intercepts yield two broad categories of information, said a former administration official familiar with the program: "content," which would include transcripts of a phone call or e-mail, and "non-content," which would be records showing, for example, who in the United States was called by, or was calling, a number in another country thought to have a connection to a terrorist group. At the same time, NSA tries to limit identifying the names of Americans involved.

"NSA can make either type of information available to other [intelligence] agencies where relevant, but with appropriate masking of its origin," meaning that the source of the information and method of getting it would be concealed, the former official said.

Agencies that get the information can use it to conduct "data mining," or looking for patterns or matches with other databases that they maintain, which may or may not be specifically geared toward detecting terrorism threats, he said. "They are seeking to separate the known from the unknown, relationships or associations," he added.

The NSA would sometimes monitor telephones, e-mails or fax communications in cases where individuals in the United States -- and sometimes people they contacted -- were linked to an alleged foreign terrorist group, officials have said. The NSA, officials said, limited its decisions to follow-up with more electronic surveillance on an individual to those cases where there was some apparent link to terrorist sources.

But other agencies, one former official said, have used phone numbers or other records obtained from NSA in combination with wide-ranging databases to look for links and associations. "What data sets are included is a policy decision [made by individual agencies] when they involve other than terrorist links," he said.

DIA personnel stationed inside the United States went further on occasion, conducting physical surveillance of people or vehicles identified as a result of NSA intercepts, said two sources familiar with the operations, although the DIA said it does not conduct such activities.

The military personnel -- some of whose findings were reported to the Northern Command in Colorado -- were employed as part of the Pentagon's growing post-Sept. 11, 2001, domestic intelligence activity based on the need to protect Defense Department facilities and personnel from terrorist attacks, the sources said.

Northcom was set up in October 2002 to conduct operations to deter, prevent and defeat terrorist threats in the United States and its territories. The command runs two fusion centers that receive and analyze intelligence gathered by other government agencies.

Those Northcom centers conduct data mining, where information received from the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, state and local police, and the Pentagon's Talon system are cross-checked to see if patterns develop that could indicate terrorist activities.

Talon is a system that civilian and military personnel use to report suspicious activities around military installations. Information from these reports is fed into a database known as the Joint Protection Enterprise Network, which is managed, as is the Talon system, by the Counterintelligence Field Activity, the newest Defense Department intelligence agency to focus primarily on counterterrorism. The database is shared with intelligence and law enforcement agencies and was found last month to have contained information about peace activists and others protesting the Iraq war that appeared to have no bearing on terrorism.

Military officials acknowledged that such information should have been purged after 90 days and that the Talon system was being reviewed.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, deputy director for national intelligence and former head of NSA, told reporters last month that the interception of communications to the United States allegedly connected to terrorists was, in almost every case, of short duration. He also said that when the NSA creates intelligence reports based on information it collects, it minimizes the number of Americans whose identities are disclosed, doing so only when necessary.

"The same minimalizationist standards apply across the board, including for this program," he said of the domestic eavesdropping effort. "To make this very clear -- U.S. identities are minimized in all of NSA's activities, unless, of course, the U.S. identity is essential to understand the inherent intelligence value of the intelligence report." Hayden did not address the question of how long government agencies would archive or handle information from the NSA.

Today's controversy over the domestic NSA intercepts echoes events of more than three decades ago. Beginning in the late 1960s, the NSA was asked initially by the Johnson White House and later by the Army, the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to intercept messages to or from the United States. Members of Congress were not informed of the program, code-named Minaret in one phase.

The initial purpose was to "help determine the existence of foreign influence" on "civil disturbances occurring throughout the nation," threats to the president and other issues, Gen. Lew Allen Jr., then director of NSA, told a Select Senate Committee headed by then-Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) in 1975.

Allen, in comments similar to recent Bush administration statements, said collecting communications involving American citizens was approved legally, by two attorneys general. He also said that the Minaret intercepts discovered "a major foreign terrorist act planned in a large city" and prevented "an assassination attempt on a prominent U.S. figure abroad."

Overall, Allen said that 1,200 Americans citizens' calls were intercepted over six years, and that about 1,900 reports were issued in three areas of terrorism. As the Church hearings later showed, the Army expanded the NSA collection and had units around the country gather names and license plates of those attending antiwar rallies and demonstrations. That, in turn, led to creation of files on these individuals within Army intelligence units. At one point a Senate Judiciary subcommittee showed the Army had amassed about 18,000 names. In response, Congress in 1978 passed the Foreign Intelligence Security Act, which limited NSA interception of calls from overseas to U.S. citizens or those involving American citizens traveling abroad.
© 2006 Washington Post

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/123005I.shtml

John Dean?

HE is your best authority? No wonder lefties are such pathetic bunch.

OK, you don't like John Dean, how about Bruce Fein, constitutional lawyer and leading expert on the Constitution and International Law.



From THE WASHINGTON TIMES, LP didn't bother to post this, so I will.



. or outside the law?

By Bruce Fein

December 28, 2005


President Bush secretly ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on the international communications of U.S. citizens in violation of the warrant requirement of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, abominations.


The eavesdropping continued for four years, long after fears of imminent September 11 repetitions had lapsed, before the disclosure by the New York Times this month.

Mr. Bush has continued the NSA spying without congressional authorization or ratification of the earlier interceptions. (In sharp contrast, Abraham Lincoln obtained congressional ratification for the emergency measures taken in the wake of Fort Sumter, including suspending the writ of habeas corpus).


Mr. Bush has adamantly refused to acknowledge any constitutional limitations on his power to wage war indefinitely against international terrorism, other than an unelaborated assertion he is not a dictator. Claims to inherent authority to break and enter homes, to intercept purely domestic communications, or to herd citizens into concentration camps reminiscent of World War II, for example, have not been ruled out if the commander in chief believes the measures would help defeat al Qaeda or sister terrorist threats.

Volumes of war powers nonsense have been assembled to defend Mr. Bush's defiance of the legislative branch and claim of wartime omnipotence so long as terrorism persists, i.e., in perpetuity. Congress should undertake a national inquest into his conduct and claims to determine whether impeachable usurpations are at hand. As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 65, impeachment lies for "abuse or violation of some public trust," misbehaviors that "relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."


The Founding Fathers confined presidential war powers to avoid the oppressions of kings. Despite championing a muscular and energetic chief executive, Hamilton in Federalist 69 accepted that the president must generally bow to congressional directions even in times of war: "The president is to be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. In this respect, his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces; while that of the British king extends to declaring war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies -- all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature."


President Bush's claim of inherent authority to flout congressional limitations in warring against international terrorism thus stumbles on the original meaning of the commander in chief provision in Article II, section 2.


The claim is not established by the fact that many of Mr. Bush's predecessors have made comparable assertions. In Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer (1952), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Truman's claim of inherent power to seize a steel mill to settle a labor dispute during the Korean War in reliance on previous seizures of private businesses by other presidents. Writing for a 6-3 majority, Justice Hugo Black amplified: "But even if this be true, Congress has not thereby lost its exclusive constitutional authority to make laws necessary and proper to carry out the powers vested in the Constitution in the Government of the United States."


Indeed, no unconstitutional usurpation is saved by longevity. For 50 years, Congress claimed power to thwart executive decisions through "legislative vetoes." The Supreme Court, nevertheless, held the practice void in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha (1983). Approximately 200 laws were set aside. Similarly, the high court declared in Erie Railroad v. Tompkins (1938) that federal courts for a century since Swift v. Tyson (1842) had unconstitutionally exceeded their adjudicative powers in fashioning a federal common law to decide disputes between citizens of different states.


President Bush preposterously argues the Sept. 14, 2001, congressional resolution authorizing "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines" were implicated in the September 11 attacks provided legal sanction for the indefinite NSA eavesdropping outside the aegis of FISA. But the FISA statute expressly limits emergency surveillances of citizens during wartime to 15 days, unless the president obtains congressional approval for an extension: "[T]he president, through the attorney general, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order... to acquire foreign intelligence information for a period not to exceed 15 calendar days following a declaration of war by the Congress."


A cardinal canon of statutory interpretation teaches that a specific statute like FISA trumps a general statute like the congressional war resolution. Neither the resolution's language nor legislative history even hints that Congress intended a repeal of FISA. Moreover, the White House has maintained Congress was not asked for a law authorizing the NSA eavesdropping because the legislature would have balked, not because the statute would have duplicated the war resolution.

As Youngstown Sheet & Tube instructs, the war powers of the president are at their nadir where, as with the NSA eavesdropping, he acts contrary to a federal statute. Further, that case invalidated a seizure of private property (with just compensation) a vastly less troublesome invasion of civil liberties than the NSA's indefinite interception of international conversations on Mr. Bush's say so alone.
Congress should insist the president cease the spying unless or until a proper statute is enacted or face possible impeachment. The Constitution's separation of powers is too important to be discarded in the name of expediency.

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer and international consultant with Bruce Fein & Associates and the Lichfield Group.


A republican lawyer in a republican paper says the President should be impeached unless he ceases the spying, which he says he won't do.

Start the proceedings.

http://www.watergate.com/page2.asp

Liddy Challenges Dean's Version Of Watergate Events
by Len Colodny

When John Dean testified before the Senate Watergate Committee on June 25th, 1973, he read into record an opening statement that exceeded 240 pages. In great detail, he presented his version of the Watergate affair from beginning to end; knowing fully well that G. Gordon Liddy would remain silent. As a result, Dean's version of events remained unchallenged and became the accepted version of the Watergate affair for many years.

In 1980, however, Liddy published his own best selling autobiography and uncovered a whole new set of facts. The book Will portrayed Dean as being much more involved in both the pre break-in plotting and planning and the post break-in cover-up. Liddy painted an entirely different picture then the one Dean crafted for the Senate, for the Courts and in his own 1976 book Blind Ambition.

I'll stick with Vicky Toensing, Mark Levin, and Cass Sunstein. (s self-professed liberal)

av,

Dragging out old news. This president is facing a serious impeachment inquiry. The r's are running from him. Face it. He's a criminal.

Famous for being a rat fink.