Bush's NSA Speech

WhiteHouse.gov has the text up.

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 foreign another attack, and we will do so within the laws of our country.

Thank you.

Reproduced in its entirety because I'm helping pay for server hosting the text, the stenographer who took down the text, the speech writer that wrote the text and the bumbling fool that stammered and blubbered his way through the text.

Ok, your current nomination to head the CIA told us this in the past:

I have met personally with prominent corporate executive officers. (One senior executive confided that the data management needs we outlined to him were larger than any he had previously seen). [...] And last week we cemented a deal with another corporate giant to jointly develop a system to mine data that helps us learn about our targets.

So the corporate executives know which of their clients are terrorists? Perhaps they're experts on Constitutional Law. Or maybe they went to the FISA court. Either way, this doesn't sound like "strictly targeted" eavesdropping.

And the bit about "the government does not listen to domestic phone calls" is rather disingenuous. They just compile a list of who you call, when you called, how long the call was and how often you call them. But don't worry, your privacy is "fiercely protected."

"We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." Right. Just like the USA Today said, "The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans." The government is mining and trolling through the personal lives of tens of millions of innocent Americans.

The first two paragraphs don't even address the current scandal. They're talking about the dubiously legal practice of tapping international calls. The third paragraph contains three enumerated points. All of them are lies. The fourth paragraph starts with a lie and then claims that BushCo has been successful in preventing another terrorist attack. Well, Clinton managed to prevent any terrorist attacks (Except Oklahoma City, which was perpetrated by a homegrown, right winger) without monitoring every call made by millions of Americans.

Fifth paragraph: Attack the people that pointed out you're doing something illegal by implying they're doing something unpatriotic or helpful to terrorists.

There was a point during the Watergate scandal that brought down Nixon where Tricky Dick got on TV and lied to the country. Bush just did that. Hopefully he'll end up just as disgraced. Either way, if he was at 31% approval before, my guess is that he'll be exploring the 20s pretty soon.

George W. Bush Domestic Spying NSA