Bush speak

Here is everything George Bush had to say publicly about Thursday's USA Today story that the NSA is compiling "the largest database ever assembled in the world," chock full of millions of Americans' phone records. His comments on this important matter took two minutes to deliver, according to the White House Web site.

After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack. As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. In other words, if al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they're saying.

Today there are new claims about other ways we are tracking down al Qaeda to prevent attacks on America. I want to make some important points about what the government is doing and what the government is not doing.

First, our international activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates. Al Qaeda is our enemy, and we want to know their plans. Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat. Fourth, the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities.

We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates. So far we've been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil.

As a general matter, every time sensitive intelligence is leaked, it hurts our ability to defeat this enemy. Our most important job is to protect the American people from another attack, and we will do so within the laws of our country.

Thank you.

Let's begin where the Bush did, and always does: September 11th. It's the excuse, er, explanation the administration offers for everything it does, legal or otherwise. People swallowed executive branch overreaching so much easier when they were scared, so he's reminding them up front of the specter of terrorist attack. To really hammer it home, he says "al Qaeda" six times in 15 sentences, once while paraphrasing himself ("In other words ..."), once to point out that "Al Qaeda is our enemy." He also says the word "attack" four times.

Right there in the first sentence with the obilgatory 9/11 reference is the phrase "within the law." This is keeping with the administration's policy of pretending that domestic surveillance without the approval or oversight of the FISA court is legal. It's not, but George Bush doesn't let that stop him from saying it. And why should he? With the United States attorney general essentially his personal attorney and Supreme Court Justice Tony Scalia having proven so compliant and reliable, what does Bush care about "legal," other than its public-relations value?

"First, our international activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates." Bush would have us believe that the international aspect of this spying effort was small and limited, with a laser-like focus on its target.

Maybe he meant by comparison.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said.

Perhaps thousands isn't enough to explain the scope of the international side of this.

President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA to eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual requisite warrants.

But (Russell) Tice (a longtime insider at the National Security Agency) disagrees. He says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used.

"That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum," Tice said.

If the administration knew enough about al Qaeda affiliates in the United States to tap their phones, heavily armed agents would be busting down their doors. But the administration doesn't know enough to tap their phones, and so is checking every international call it can get its ears on, hoping to get lucky. Sure al Qaeda is the target, but in their effort to get them, they're spying on everyone. It's the bloodless equivalent of firing into a crowd and hoping to hit the person you're shooting at.

"Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval." Seriously, does anyone still think that the administration cares about court approval? This administration doesn't ask permission, and here's why (scroll all the way down):

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

And a power mad administration like this one isn't about to put itself in a position to be told "no."

"Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat." Again, Bush assures us that the domestic spying program is legal. It's not, but he seems to believe that saying it is often enough will make it so. Or prevent Congress from enforcing the law, which is just as good. Reagrding the claim that the "appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat" were told what the administration is up to, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, in his censure resolution in March, said:

Congress Did Not Approve This Program: The extremely limited briefings of the President’s warrantless surveillance programs to a handful of Congressional leaders did not constitute Congressional oversight, much less approval. In fact, the failure of the President to keep the Congressional Intelligence Committees “fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities” was a violation of the National Security Act.

"Fourth, the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities." I guess we're just going to have to take his word for it.

"We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." No? The NSA is collecting phone records of millions of Americans (and would be collecting data on millions more if Qwest would have fallen in line like Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth reportedly have), building a database of unprecedented size, reportedly looking for calling patterns.

That sounds like mining the personal lives of Americans to me, and apparently to most speakers of the English language:

Data Mining: A type of database application that looks for hidden patterns in large groups of data.

Bush wraps up with the usual bullshit about how leaks about administration wrongdoing threaten the security of the nation, drops in another "enemy" and "attack," and another reminder that all this is completely legal.

Satisfied?