Sunday, December 18, 2005

When is Domestic Spying ok?

George Bush is answering that exact question, although many in the United States are unsure they like what they're hearing.

In what some are saying is an illegal move, Bush has used portions of the Patriot Act, passed after the 9/11 bombings, to allow the NSA to intercept international phone calls from people "determined" to have a close links to al-Qaida.

From the article...

James Bamford, author of two books on the National Security Agency, said the program could be problematic because it bypasses a special court set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize eavesdropping on suspected terrorists.

"I didn't hear him specify any legal right, except his right as president, which in a democracy doesn't make much sense," Bamford said in an interview. "Today, what Bush said is he went around the law, which is a violation of the law - which is illegal."

"I tell you, he's President George Bush, not King George Bush. This is not the system of government we have and that we fought for," Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press.

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