Cheney says top congressional Democrats complicit in spying

[kentuck]

When our own are a big part of the problem, what should we do about it??
================================


http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/22/cheney/index.html

<snip>
At that point, we brought in what I describe as the big nine — not only the intel people but also the speaker, the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate, and brought them into the situation room in the basement of the White House.

I presided over the meeting. We briefed them on the program, and what we'd achieved, and how it worked, and asked them, "Should we continue the program?" They were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike. All agreed — absolutely essential to continue the program.

I then said, "Do we need to come to the Congress and get additional legislative authorization to continue what we're doing?" They said, "Absolutely not. Don't do it, because it will reveal to the enemy how it is we're reading their mail."

<snip>

It is certainly true that Dick Cheney is not exactly the most scrupulously honest public servant around. In fact, he's almost certainly the opposite. Still, what he said yesterday was merely an expanded and more detailed version of what has previously been publicly reported and, to some degree, confirmed about the knowledge and support of Democratic leaders for the NSA program. Cheney's claims encompasses the following key Democrats:

* Nancy Pelosi (Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee, House Minority Leader);
*
* Jane Harman (Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee);
*
* Jay Rockefeller (Ranking Member, Senate Intelligence Committee);
*
* Harry Reid (Senate Minority Leader).

Unsurprisingly, Pelosi, Harman and Rockefeller all voted last July to legalize warrantless eavesdropping and to immunize telecoms from liability, thereby ensuring an end to the ongoing investigations into these programs. And though he ultimately cast a meaningless vote against final passage, it was Reid's decisions as Majority Leader which played an instrumental role in ensuring passage of that bill

[YOY]

1. I trust Cheney about as far as I can throw him but this bears investigation.

n.t.

[Dennis Donovan]

2. That was part of their plan/defense all along to avoid impeachment...

...and it clearly worked.:mad:

[bdamomma]

3. Cheney has not stopped spewing up his crap.

criminal POS he is.

[marylanddem]

5. The mystery man can't shut up now that he's going going gone...

But these so-called Democrats need to tell all...

[mmonk]

4. Duh.

Torturing captives too.

[cliffordu]

6. I'm thinking this explains all the rolling over on the part

of Pelosi and Reid every time the Repups snap their fingers.....

[glitch]

20. I believe that was the whole point of bringing them on board. nt

[Andy823]

26. Yep, I always thought

They had something on Harry and Nancy, either that they went along with a lot of the crap like the spying, or they had some stuff they got on them from the spying! It needs to come out just what their part was, and the have some explaining to do!

[librechik]

7. Just a reminder, in case anyone was thinking about spiling the beans

once Snarl has left the building.

Heh--it's not going to be easy to close Guantanamo--indeed.

[OwnedByFerrets]

8. Many have been saying for a long time....

the reason for NO IMPEACHMENT is because they are also guilty. I am one of those.

[jaysunb]

41. yup. me too

:evilfrown:

[bigtree]

9. Who knows what the creep told them? The mistake was in voting for ANYTHING

. . . stirred up by this administration.

I'm waiting to see if Barack Obama has enough courage to reveal just what Bush and Cheney have been up to, from torture to renditions.

[bdamomma]

11. that seems to be the burning question whether or not

these criminals will be held accountable for their 8 yr. nightmare on the American people, they are going to throw that to the new Attorney General, and if this new administration does not hold these criminals responsible I hope the international community steps in.

[BlooInBloo]

10. We know. That's why those specific Dems are reviled. Among other reasons, I suppose.

[PassingFair]

12. Does anyone really doubt this?

We KNEW this.

It should NOT stop us from prosecuting all of them.

If Republican James Comey could stand up to these
wire-tapping thugs at Ashcroft's hospital bed, our Dems could
have screamed bloody murder in Congress.

[LWolf]

13. Do you still wonder why impeachment is off the table? nt

[spanone]

14. investigate, indict, prosecute, jail.....let the chips fall where they may

[gratuitous]

15. You know, I don't care

If the case can be made, then make it to the public. If the case for violating the Constitution can't be made, then prosecute the perpetrators. Every last motherfucking one of them. They have been placed in a position of trust and they have broken that trust. They've broken it with the men and women who signed up for the military (and in my opinion, every person in uniform who wants to leave should just throw down their weapons and head for home), with the taxpayers who pay their salaries and fund this madness, and with the world community of nations who reasonably expect the most powerful nation on the planet to act responsibly and rationally.

[Johonny]

16. So that means they didn't know

cause Cheney never tells the truth.

[FLAprogressive]

17. Prosecute them too. nt

[Greyhound]

18. Prosecute everybody involved or our laws are meaningless. n/t

[LeftishBrit]

19. Cheney also said that Leahy should go and fuck himself. That doesn't mean that Leahy actually did!

I would not trust Cheney on anything, and especially not when he's obviously throwing blame on the Democrats to get himself wholly or partly off the hook.

[StudsT]

21. tell it to the jury

i have 0 sympathy for any leader who condoned breaking the supreme law of the land, especially in cahoots with the bush crime family.

StudsT

[Festivito]

27. Yup. And everyone had better have a convincing story. /nt

[kentuck]

22. Why don't other Democrats challenge them in their positions?

We need a new Speaker and a new Majority Leader, in my humble opinion. The present leadership have shown themselves to be unfit to lead.

[Beetwasher]

23. Fine. Whatever. We START W/ Prosecuting YOU DICK. THEN We Move On To OTHERS!

BUT YOU FIRST YOU SCUMBAG!

[babylonsister]

24. We knew this, but it still looks crappy in print, and coming out of

Cheney's mouth. :grr:

[KansDem]

25. Oh, yeah! I trust Mr. Dick "Saddam has WMDs" Cheney!

Yeah, I trust him impeccably! :eyes:

[mmonk]

28. Criminals will tell the truth to protect themselves if the occasion arises.

Happens all the time in courtrooms.

[Ikonoklast]

29. He made sure they were complicit. That's his cover, and they know it.

So, we can throw the Constitution in the trash as long as a few people in our government secretly agree to do so.

Great.

They all need to be indicted. All of them.




On another note, what is to keep these people from listening in or reading sensitive private communications of the financial sector, and either acting on that data mined themselves, selling that information, or passing it along to an unregulated hedge fund manager for a share of the profits?

I'd love to be able to buy or sell on insider information.

[kentuck]

31. They were just following orders...

Seems like I've heard that defense before? They knew it was illegal.

[slipslidingaway]

30. Third Way Dispatch ... on the Issue of Telecom Immunity

http://dispatch.thirdway.org/articles/2008/02/08/to-our-friends-and-critics-on-the-issue-of-telecom-immunity

"Think back for a moment to the days after 9-11, to the range of emotions we all felt: horror, sadness, anger, frustration. But we felt other things as well: determination and patriotism. We were resolved as a nation that no band of two-bit thugs was going to attack this country and murder Americans without us damn well doing something about it.

Now, imagine that you were specifically asked to do something about it and were told that your actions would hold the lives of innocent Americans in the balance. Imagine that you were Mary Smith, a senior executive of a telephone company and that an FBI agent came to you with a letter that asked for your help in tracking down terrorists. The letter assured you that the President and the Attorney General certified that what they were asking you to do was legal. Imagine that the FBI made it clear that if you failed to cooperate, Americans could die.

What would you do? Do you assist the government based on their representations that the help was both legal and urgently needed, or do you decline and risk the consequences?...."


Jay Rockefeller & Third Way
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x351149

[Individualist]

32. I've said all along that DLCers were and are complicit

It was so obvious. The only thing worse than a neocon is a neocon enabler.
:puke:

[no limit]

33. I bet they are in on the torture too. Which is why nobody will ever be punished for it.

All these years we fought so hard for these assholes, little did we know they were all in on it.

[coalition_unwilling]

39. Jane Harmon is my Rep. I will never

vote for her again and will work for and vote for any primary challenger or progressive challenger in the general election.

[no limit]

46. Well I think Marcy Winograd already tried that, didn't work out so well

good luck to you but don't get your hopes up. I'm coming to the realization that we have no control over any of this and constatly trying to change it while not accomplishing anything is enough to drive a person crazy. Might be easier just to take it, hopefully they decide to use some lube.

[coalition_unwilling]

47. You have succumbed to despair, but

I do not think it entirely warranted.

Winograd got 38.5% of the vote in 2006, despite being out-spent10-1 by Harman and the forces of corporatist\imperialist darkness.

In some westside precincts, Winograd thumped Harman decisively, proving that Harman's gerrymandered district is a modern-day "pocket borough." And that a fairly sizable number of Harman's nominal constituents despise her utterly.

N.B. I volunteered for Winograd, so am not objective on this issue.

[glinda]

34. If true then the Dems involved should be accountable also.

A good house cleaning is necessary to insure that things can change.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

35. And there is complicity with torture as well.

This is a repost of mine from the other day in another thread but I think it bears repeating.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/29285
Pelosi and Torture
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2007-12-10 22:04. Congress
By John Nichols, www.thenation.com

skip
Now, however, comes the news that Pelosi knew as early as 2002 that the U.S. was using waterboarding and other torture techniques and, far from objecting, appears to have cheered the tactics on.

The Washington Post reports that Pelosi, who was then a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, was were informed by CIA officials at a secret briefing in September 2002, that waterboarding and other forms of torture were being used on suspected al-Queda operatives. That’s bad. Even worse is the revelation that Pelosi was apparently supportive of the initiative.

According to the news reports, Pelosi has no complaint about waterboarding during a closed-door session she attended with Florida Congressman Porter Goss, a Republican who would go on to head the Central Intelligence Agency, Kansas Republican Senator Pat Roberts and Florida Democratic Senator Bob Graham.

“The reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement,” recalls Goss.



***********************************************************************************************************************************

http://jonathanturley.org/2008/07/31/speaker-pelosi-dec... /

Speaker Pelosi Declares There Is No Evidence of Any Crime by President Bush
Jonathan Turley July 31 2008

After blocking any serious investigation or impeachment hearings on crimes committed by President Bush, Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally addressed the allegations of presidential crimes on that forum of deep intellectual and legal thought: the television show The View. She agreed to answer a question from Joy Behar, who will have to suffice as a substitute for Peter Rodino. In a perfectly bizarre moment, Pelosi stated that there is simply no evidence of any crime committed by the President despite the findings of the International Red Cross, various international groups, and a legion of constitutional experts. It seems that America has now had its impeachment hearing before the august body of Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Joy Bahar, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. If you feared that our democracy is de-evolving into a caricature of itself, just watch this video.

We will never prosecute the criminals or exorcise our demons with Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. That's the long and the short of it. I'm sorry, but Nancy would have to go down with Bush and Cheney over the whole torture disgrace.

Personally, I think, that's the breaks Nancy when you don't object to the clearly illegal and immoral perversions of conscience and justice that were undertaken with your help and support.

As to the others, I am simply not willing to sacrifice the Rule of Law, the Geneva Conventions, the history of Nuremburg, and general human enlightenment, in order to spare a handful of Democrats embarassment or justice. I would say the same thing if it turned out to be a bunch of Democrats as well as the Bush administration.

(edited to correct title of reply)

[slipslidingaway]

38. Exactly !!! n/t

[kentuck]

36. Just how much change are we willing to ask for ??

and to demand?

[seafan]

37. It's called 'taking everybody else down with you'.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/22/cheney/index.html">Cheney says top congressional Democrats complicit in spying, Salon, December 22, 2008







Senator Sounded Alarm in '03: Rockefeller Wrote Cheney to Voice Concerns on Spying, December 20, 2005


Rockefeller letter, dated July 17, 2003


Bob Graham: "I was not informed of a domestic surveillance program.", December 17, 2005


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121701233.html">Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers, WP, December 18, 2005



Unless George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney and associates are prosecuted for violations of the US Constitution, international treaties and the Geneva Conventions, the American people will forever be complicit in their crimes.




We have now arrived at The Fork In The Road for restoring the rule of law.

[slipslidingaway]

40. SEE THE LIST: Lawmakers at NSA briefings since '01

Just posted this in the other thread...

List is from May 2006

Four page pdf file with dates, locations and names of those who attended meetings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program...found in the Greenwald update.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/2006-05-17-nsa-list.pdf


http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-17-nsa-briefings_x.htm

[kentuck]

42. Do you consider the Democrats' excuses as valid?

And does it matter? Torture is still torture. Spying on citizens is still spying on citizens...

[babylonsister]

43. According to this, Cheney is lying...

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/22/cheney-wiretap-briefings/

[kentuck]

44. Cheney lie??

Naw!!!

[slipslidingaway]

45. Cheney may very well be lying about asking for Congressional

approval, but as I said in my post on your thread...


But why not ask the questions....does this comply with FISA???

Edited on Mon Dec-22-08 01:02 PM by slipslidingaway

"...House Intelligence Committee Chairman Jane Harman (D-CA) said that the White House never disclosed that it was skirting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants...


...Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) said the same thing:

The assumption was that if we did that, we would do it pursuant to the law,..."


They never disclosed, we assumed??? I think most of us teach our children NOT to assume and ask questions.

:shrug:

If they asked whether or not the program was pursuant to the law then they should release the minutes from that portion of the meeting.

[Orsino]

48. We hardly needed Cheney to tell us that.

But it's heartening to see him fall back on "everybody does it" as an excuse.