So Jake, is it only President of the United States who you believe can do anything to protect his citizens?

i.e. Was it OK for Saddam to gas the Kurds to protect his citizens from danger?

I don't. Too much lawlessness.

Osama's pre-emptive strike on the US 9/11/2001 comes to mind.

But then again, I'm not a hypocrite, er, I mean Republican.

Bob Dole’s quivering words, “Where is the outrage?” about Clinton’s transgressions, hover above the truly criminal acts of this most prosecutable regime since the Third Reich. So where is it? Frankly, I think it’s too complicated for the masses of Americans anymore. Ever since Reagan let them off the hook with, “Government isn’t part of the solution; government is the problem,” Americans have slumbered to their leaders’ soporific fairy tales. Not so very long ago, America meant the best workmanship, the greatest universities, the “can-do” spirit. We’ve aged badly and very quickly. Sex — ours and others’ — now preoccupies the public mind and complexities are avoided like skunks. Those who can still think must organize and act. We must demand impeachment — and make it happen — and stand up for the America we knew before it’s vanished.

Hi Glen,

I also agree with a few of the letterwriters on this blog-that perhaps the NSA program was used to spy on Dems-who may now be being blackmailed into staying silent. Should we start seeing more BS like the Jeffereson raid-then I'll assume I may be correct. I'm not so sure that Jefferson was not setup-and was meant to be a scare tactic by the WH to Dems. It was just too stupid. Who would hide that money in thier freezer? I just never have bought that. That and the fact that Jefferson maintains his innocence and that the search was illegal. Which leads to another question-where did the FBI get thier lead on Jefferson? Hmm.....wonder if this went down just before Ashcroft discovered whatever it was the NSA program was up to and did a 180 on its' legality. And subsequently fell ill and got the visit from Gonzo-the "blackmail visit".

If this quite possibly could be the case-rather than get picked off by a drip by drip campaign by the WH-i suggest dems do an aboutface and counterattack bigtime. Dems have the majority of the public on thier side-we would be way more forgiving of any small indescretions by dems than to see our entire Constitution hijacked further. If it came to a choice between Dems and GOP-even if not squeaky clean-we'd take the lesser of 2 evils.

For instance, if the government is doing key word data analysis on a wide net search of domestic electronic communications, what key words do you put in to filter all of that data with?

You don't use key words. Except to get entry points, for which you don't really care how accurate they are. Besides, for each event (there were thousands of terrorist events just last year), you can get a few entry points that are probably higher quality. You pick up a computer from a raid in Pakistan, and you do analysis on language use patterns, you run semantic searches from the phrases there, you follow names. What you are looking for is entry points for link analysis. Where you go from there is to look at patterns and metapatterns. You filter the news media, you use people that repeat stories. You filter plane tickets, you start link graphs. You look at usage patterns of banks and services, you add people who have similar usage patterns. You look at known clusters, watch for their patterns to change. You draw belief graphs, you update them. You throw info into the system, see how it changes.

Who said anything about key words? Key words are sooo...Google.

with any program that it is done in secret and extra-legally, it will have fewer rules and procedures open to oversight, and no enforceable requirements for record keeping, which is a situation that just begs for abuse

Even if everything the defenders of the NSA program has said was spot-on (bear with me), as long as its operated without oversight by human beings, its going to become corrupted. It's simply a matter of time and human nature.

The fact that it stank of rotten fish fromn the get-go just compounds the problem...

Just an Observer: "But FBI Director Robert Mueller was a central player in the drama -- he even met personally with President Bush -- and also was one who threatened resignation. This indicates that, whatever was going on before the program was modified, those activities were being conducted by the FBI, not just the NSA."

Of course the FBI has been involved in the domestic version of NSA data mining program, among other illegal activities in order “to keep us safe”. We know that the NSA equipment and software has been installed at many of our domestic communication centers managed by companies like AT&T (and discussed on PBS the other night) These NSA programs do not exist in a vacuum, they require input of search criterion into the various filters (which requires local knowledge) and the results must be analyzed, and follow-up reports and investigations result. Using either the NSA or the FBI creates legal problems, since the NSA is not allowed to do domestic investigations and the FBI is not allowed to investigate without such legal niceties as probable cause, search warrants etc. However, NSA has neither the expertise nor the manpower to do domestic investigations, the FBI does, and for practical reasons, are undoubtedly deeply involved in the NSA equipped domestic spy program.

For instance, if the government is doing key word data analysis on a wide net search of domestic electronic communications, what key words do you put in to filter all of that data with? Well, things like bomb of course, but also more specific criteria are added to the list, the names of a particular mosque perhaps, and perhaps a code name known to be used by a suspected domestic terrorist cell. The more accurate and specific the search criteria, the better (and less overwhelming) the results. Organizations and people already involved with investigating domestic spying would be the logical people to create the input filters and do the follow-up analysis and investigations based on the program’s results. That means FBI, not NSA.

Among the many problems with any program that it is done in secret and extra-legally, it will have fewer rules and procedures open to oversight, and no enforceable requirements for record keeping, which is a situation that just begs for abuse. I was very struck by testimony before congress that there have an estimated 70,000 NSL’s issued, but the FBI claimed they could not produce a list because of poor record keeping. The sheer number of NSL’s, a powerful but usually an illegal instrument for investigation of private information, tells us that, unless there are a lot more terrorists in this country than I had imagined, and judges unwilling to give search warrants when asked, abuse is already rampant.