GG: "The point is that we ought not have to assume or speculate about that matter. We ought to know, and Congress ought to force the administration to disclose this."

Exactly. I am inclined to think that the purpose of using the information was exactly as in the case of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, who amassed significant power by collecting files containing large amounts of compromising and potentially embarrassing information on many powerful people, especially politicians.

No matter what we find out about this administration, people still want to assume the best and give the benefit of the doubt.

Is it because people hope for the best in every president -- or just this one?

Remember a lot of people voted for Bush because they thought he'd be a good guy to have a beer with (in spite of the fact that he claimed not to drink anymore).

People invested a quality of "jes' folks" in George Bush that they want desperately to hang on to.

Many people in the media stuck their heads out for George Bush and we are having a serious problem right now with an inability to admit mistakes. It's as if their judgement, once found inadequate, can never be trusted again.

Personally, I don't understand why these reporters expect people to trust them if they're still holding onto ideas that have been conclusively been proven false.

Why exactly should we trust you now?

"the recent surveillance activities appear so far to have been aimed at mostly people believed to pose a terrorist threat"

The phrase "appear so far" provides all the necessary cover. As you continuously point out, having no information available whatsoever makes it pretty presumptious to pretend that the lack of evidence represents a lack of activity but the sentence in the story is essentially true. It does indeed appear to the reporter to have been aimed at terrorists.

I still ascribe to the panic theory and what I've read from Suskind and Tyler Drumheller seems to reinforce the impression.

After 9-11 the administration was so panicked that it ordered that all the stops be pulled on any and all intelligence gathering activity. Of course what they did, once they saw all that new data pouring in and realized what capabilities they had remains anyone's guess.

If Cheney was involved however, its pretty safe to assume the worst.

...for his role in bringing this issue to the public's attention.

Bolton documents contain classified company names

By Douglas Jehl The New York Times

THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2005

WASHINGTON The information that the White House has refused to provide Congress for its review into the nomination of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations includes the names of companies mentioned in intelligence reports on commerce with China and other countries covered by export restrictions, according to officials briefed on the matter.

It had been reported that the White House was refusing to hand over only the names of 19 Americans mentioned in 10 intelligence reports by the U.S. National Security Agency.

The names of the individuals and companies, which remain highly classified, were provided to Bolton by the agency in response to requests he made as under secretary of state for arms control. The Democrats who forced postponement of a vote on Bolton's nomination last week argued that the Senate should insist on access to the same information.

[snip]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/01/news/bolton.php

…because it was just agreed that we would all implicitly believe -- with no investigation -- that they only listened in on the Terrorists and did so for our own Good.

But given the mindset of Bush who said during the election that a win for the Democrats means that “America loses” isn’t it (from his point of view) his responsibility and indeed a matter of national security to do everything possible (including spying on them) to keep the Democrats from letting the “terrorists win?”

Remember what he said, “However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses"

Why wouldn’t he act on this belief? From this point of view – he should be spying on them, and he’s doing it “for our own good.”

This view was a basic part of the campaign and continues to be so. Cheney’s buddy John Howard of Australia issued this warning:


"If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats."

If they believe their own rhetoric, then we have to ask, why wouldn’t they spy on Obama and the Democratic Party? If they don’t, the terrorists could “win.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103000530.html

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21209258-2,00.html

We cannot accurately ascertain whether the eavesdropping program has been abused (although one might argue that its very nature is an abuse of the Constitution).

But we can know for a fact that it will be used against political targets sooner rather later. It is an inevitable consequence of these kinds of programs, even when they have some oversight. The utter lack of objective accountability makes it a certainty that abuses will occur.

Who among us would not use a handy tool to bludgeon our enemies, both real and perceived? Even with the very best of intentions, the line will be crossed. The moment will come when it is irrestible, when it is deemed necessary, when it appears justifiable.

And we cannot rely on the best of intentions.

Given recent revelations about how the FBI has been abusing their expanded powers under the Patriot Act it should be a default assumption that CIA and NSA are abusing their newly granted powers as well.

The only proof we have that the CIA is not abusing this authority is the Administrations claim of ‘Trust us.’ Who the hell is dumb enough to believe that?!? (Around 30 percent of the country according to the polls) Given the level of incompetence and deception demonstrated by Katrina, the Passport mess, Iraq and on and on it’s a given that warrantless is wiretapping is being abused and misused.

In addition I have yet to hear a single argument for why FISA (a rubber-stamp court anyway) was a bad thing for intelligence gathering.