A multitude of domestic spy programs?

[swag]

Laura Rozen:

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003977.html

The NPR reporter covering the House Judiciary committee hearing today on the NSA warrantless domestic eavesdropping program just reported that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales indicated pretty clearly that the program the president has described as the "terrorist surveillance system" is not the only such surveillance program of US persons and specifically, is not the program that caused such consternation inside the Justice Department. Then he said he couldn't tell them any more. More here:

... The attorney general acknowledged that there had been disagreement about the monitoring inside the administration. But he took issue with published reports that detailed some of those disputes.

"They did not relate to the program the president disclosed," he said. "They related to something else and I can't get into that."

[wtbymark]

1. fascist elephants

hang em'

[MadHound]

2. There's always been a multitude of domestic spy programs

CIA, FBI, NSA, ONI, OSI, a whole big alphabet soup of domestic spy programs, and they've been around since before my lifetime(and I'm 45). While I disagree with Bushco's latest incarnation of this phenomenon, I find it laughable that so many people are so outraged. Yes, it's illegal and immoral, but guess what, it has always gone on, under both Democrats and Republicans. The War on Drugs, the War on Terror, these are just labels to make such spying more palatable to the public.

Don't get me wrong, I don't condone it, in fact I vehemently oppose it. But I also see that Bushco's flirtation with spying on American's is just another in a long line of spying programs. Every single protest that I've been to has had those hard looking men with their high end cameras taking pictures of everybody. And if you're at all involved in some organization, from the Quakers to Greenpeace to Vetrans for Peace, sooner or later, you'll start hearing that mysterious click on the line when you pick up the phone, or come home and find some little thing that is just the slightest bit out of place.

The Patriot Act only legalized what has been going on in this country for decades.

[swag]

3. Well, these domestic surveillance programs wax and wane, don't they?

Here's one chronology that indicates that outrage is one factor that pushes these illegal operations into retreat:

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Mar2006/dunn0306.html

By the way, the Patriot Act did not make legal what the Bush Administration is accused of: circumventing FISA and conducting domestic surveillance with no oversight whatsoever.

[MadHound]

4. I would like to contend that it isn't the programs that wax and wane

It is our national awareness of them. For instance, after Nixon resigned, domestic spying became a verbotten topic in governmental circles. Many artlices and media pieces extolled how the CIA, FBI and other such agencies had gotten their dick knocked in the dirt and were no longer operating any spying operations. Yet funny, how whenever I went to a No Nukes protest in my little burg, there were those hard looking men in sunglasses, with their high end photog equipment, snapping away. And shortly thereafter, the clicks on my phone started.:shrug:

I don't think this shit has ever stopped, or even really slowed down to any significant degree. I think that the media goes through cycles of quiet and outrage, and they only get to the outrage stage when they're slapped in the face with enough evidence so that what's going on absolutely cannot be denied.

And the Patriot Act reference was more about sneak and peeks, snooping records etc.

[swag]

5. You may have a point.

Thanks for elucidating.