From The Ramparts

Bu$h and Congress Expand Warrantless Spying

Bu$h and Congress Expand Warrantless Spying on AmeriKKKans

“This past Saturday, Congress approved legislation expanding the ability of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop, without warrants, on telephone calls, e-mail and faxes passing through telecommunications hubs in the United States when the government suspects terrorists may be involved. The legislation, which expands the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was negotiated between the White House and lawmakers in response to a federal court ruling this summer determining that the NSA's past eavesdropping had violated the law. Mike McConnell, the retired Navy admiral who was appointed last January as the nation's second director of national intelligence, told Congress that the ruling drastically reduced the ability of the NSA to track terrorists, while Bush warned that, because of the ruling, the government was ‘missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country.’ The fear of Democratic leaders that their party might be further accused of being soft on terrorism apparently prompted them to vote for the new FISA legislation -- handing new unilateral surveillance powers to the executive branch while significantly diminishing judicial oversight. Civil liberties groups and lawmakers opposed to the legislation believe the changes will make it easier for the government to spy on U.S. citizens, because the more loosely defined FISA statute now allows warrantless surveillance of people communicating with others who are ‘reasonably believed to be outside the United States.’ During the House debate last Saturday night, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., described the bill as an enormous loophole that will grant the attorney general the ability to ‘wiretap anybody, any place, any time without court review, without any checks and balances.’” America under surveillance By Tim Shorrock http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/08/09/domestic_surveillance/

The corporate mind control apparatus has downplayed the significance of recent legislation that will allow the federal government to spy on all AmeriKKKans without warrants or judicial oversight. The corporate media is in cahoots with and share the class interests, values and agenda of the ruling elites and their sock puppets like George W Bu$h. Now please be clear on this, the Big Brother police state is here and has been in full effect for decades . However the recent cave in by the spineless go along Democrats has merely extended and expanded what Bu$h and Co were doing illegally and made it legal despite ample evidence Bu$h and Co cannot to be trusted to do the right thing, nor can they be trusted to set the tone and tenor of abiding by existing laws or defending and upholding the US Constitution. Bu$h and Co. came into office with a set agenda and knew full well the AmeriKKKan public would be resistant to their agenda absent some catastrophic event like a new Pearl Harbor. “The threat posed by US terrorism to the security of nations and individuals was outlined in prophetic detail in a document written more than two years ago and disclosed only recently. What was needed for America to dominate much of humanity and the world’s resources, it said, was ‘some catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbor’. The attacks of 11 September 2001 provided the ‘new Pearl Harbor’, described as ‘the opportunity of ages’. The extremists who have since exploited 11 September come from the era of Ronald Reagan, when far-right groups and ‘think-tanks’ were established to avenge the American ‘defeat’ in Vietnam. In the 1990s, there was an added agenda: to justify the denial of a ‘peace dividend’ following the cold war. The Project for the New American Century was formed, along with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute and others that have since merged the ambitions of the Reagan administration with those of the current Bush regime.” “A New Pearl Harbor” Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush said what America needed was “a new Pearl Harbor.” Its published aims have, alarmingly, come true. By John Pilger New Statesman December 16, 2002 http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/nc-pilger.html
9-11 gave the Bu$h cabal, their supporters and acolytes the pretext they needed, their ideal “opportunity of the ages” to enact their agenda of: perpetual global warfare coupled with economic/military hegemonic empire and a sham democratic police state at home. “To prepare the ground for the PNAC-like ideas that were circulating in the Hard Right, various wealthy individuals and corporations helped set up far-right think-tanks, and bought up various media outlets – newspapers, magazines, TV networks, radio talk shows, cable channels, etc. – in support of that day when all the political tumblers would click into place and the PNAC cabal and their supporters could assume control. This happened with the Supreme Court's selection of George W. Bush in 2000. The ‘outsiders’ from PNAC were now powerful ‘insiders,’ placed in important positions from which they could exert maximum pressure on U.S. policy: Cheney is Vice President, Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary, Wolfowitz is Deputy Defense Secretary, I. Lewis Libby is Cheney's Chief of Staff, Elliot Abrams is in charge of Middle East policy at the National Security Council, Dov Zakheim is comptroller for the Defense Department, John Bolton is Undersecretary of State, Richard Perle is chair of the Defense Policy advisory board at the Pentagon, former CIA director James Woolsey is on that panel as well, etc. etc. (PNAC's chairman, Bill Kristol, is the editor of Rupert Murdoch's The Weekly Standard.) In short, PNAC had a lock on military policy-creation in the Bush Administration. But, in order to unleash their foreign/military campaigns without taking all sorts of flak from the traditional wing of the conservative GOP – which was more isolationist, more opposed to expanding the role of the federal government, more opposed to military adventurism abroad – they needed a context that would permit them free rein. The events of 9/11 rode to their rescue. (In one of their major reports, written in 2000, they noted that ‘the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing even – like a new Pearl Harbor.’) After those terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration used the fear generated in the general populace as their cover for enacting all sorts of draconian measures domestically (the Patriot Act, drafted earlier, was rushed through Congress in the days following 9/11; few members even read it), and as their rationalization for launching military campaigns abroad.” A PNAC Primer: How We Got Into This Mess by Bernard Weiner June 2, 2003 http://www.antiwar.com/orig/weiner6.html.
Since 9-11 most sane and astute AmeriKKKans have come to see the Bu$hites for what they are: pathological liars, scheming psychopaths out to bankrupt AmeriKKKa and replicate Nazi Germany on these shores. As deluded as the Bu$hites are, they realize most AmeriKKKans loath them for what they have done to this country. Even the rigged opinion polls show Bu$h and Cheney with subterranean approval ratings especially as the Iraq occupation worsens. Joe and Jane Sixpack see the callousness of the Bu$h administration for the families of fallen soldiers, how they ignore the suffering of the innocent men women and children of Iraq, Afghanistan and US victims of Hurricane Katrina. AmeriKKKans now see the value of their homes sinking and their spending power shrinking, they hear the distant rumblings of panic on Wall Street and they are starting to fear for their futures. The Bu$hites know this and they are fearful the masses will move on them. Hence their need to expand their ability to spy on and monitor ordinary AmeriKKKans. Of course they are not going to come out and tell us they plan to replicate Nazi Germany here, so they say they are doing it to “protect” us. They say these laws and surveillance powers are needed tools in their bogus global war on terrorism to enhance “security”. “The United States is expanding the use of spy satellites for domestic surveillance, turning its ‘eyes in sky’ inward to counter terrorism and eventually for law enforcement, US officials said Wednesday. Authorized by US intelligence chief Michael McConnell in May and managed by the Department of Homeland Security, the change will allow more federal and local agencies to tap into satellite imagery and related intelligence products, they said. It also will expand the kind of intelligence that can be made available to include measurement and signature intelligence, which is used to identify and track targets by their particular physical characteristics, they said.” U.S. will use 'eye in sky' for domestic surveillance. http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/3168 “We are told our president has issued orders for the FBI to begin recruitment of more than 15,000 paid informants to begin spying on fellow American citizens. These informants supposedly will seek out terrorist, foreign spies and in criminal investigations. They will collect data on US citizens, pry into phone records and computer files and use black bag secret breaking and entering techniques. This news comes on the heels of the top domestic general in the US Air Force General Victor Renuart, who heads US Northern Command calling for tripling of troops on American soil to battle alleged phantom sleeper cells, and Mr. Bush’s new executive order outlawing all opposition to the Iraq War under threat of confiscation of all property and imprisonment for life. This is exactly what the NKVD, KGB and Stasi did in Communist countries.” Train Wreck of the Week - July 28 2007 http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/trainwreck.php?Id=182
The US corporate media is downplaying the significance of this. This is par for the course, the corporate media’s goal is not to inform us, question or challenge the agenda of the ruling elites. The elites and their sock puppets like Bu$h use the media to keep our dull and benighted neighbors fearful, because they know fear is a powerful tool. They also use the media as a source of disinformation, propaganda (do some research on Operation Mockingbird) and as a means to desensitize us to the violence AmeriKKKa does around the world through TV shows like 24, The Unit etc which glorify violence and US fascist terrorism. The NeoCon’s stooges in the media are even calling for another 9-11 so they can “unite” the country to rally around Bu$h’s insane policies. This is the type of mentality we are faced with. As domestic skepticism towards Bu$h’s policies and resistance to US corporatist fascism grows, the ruling elites must spy on us and keep track of us for their own safety. This why they are now planing to use U 2 Spy Planes domestically because more and more AmeriKKKans are waking up to the NeoCons lies and tricks. More and more ordinary AmeriKKKans are getting a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs. Any sane person looking at AmeriKKKa today intuitively knows things are not good and they know they are going to get worse before they get better. The really sharp folks know conditions will not get better on their own! Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again with the same people, expecting things to turn out differently. The only way things will be different is when enough sane, peace and freedom loving people decide to make things different. That is why Bu$h and his fascist minions are spying on us, to prevent that from happening.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 6:49 AM