The Republican National Committee’s resolution calling for an end to bulk surveillance of Americans and dramatic revisions to NSA authority is sparking an angry backlash from several Bush-era surveillance hawks.
The open letter from Bush-era officials takes the bizarre joint position that 9/11 justifies massive increases in NSA surveillance to close a “intelligence gap” and that simultaneously no bulk surveillance program even exists.
The letter opens by claiming the resolution’s criticism of telephone metadata collection and surveillance of Americans amount to “errors,” claiming neither of those things is even happening, and accuses the RNC of trying to make it a “partisan issue.”
The Obama Administration has often responded to leaks about the bulk surveillance by insisting that the reports, backed up by official documents themselves leaked to the public, are “false,” and often keeps denying them long after it’s been proven that they exist. The Bush-era letter seems to be following that tack, despite it being resoundingly unsuccessful.
How about a link to the letter and those who signed it?
A stellar group of neocons, still trying to lessen the size of the footnote they'll leave for the history books. Mukasey, Hayden, and Chertoff should all be sharing a cell in…say…GITMO?
What about the rest of them Bush, Cheney, the list could go for a while!
True, true…I was just trying to keep my list relevant to the article. One could also include many of the principles and staff of the "current occupant" to the list of possible enemy detainees.
Bush and Cheney have the ultimate responsibility, it was under the Signature of Bush that these things happened and as such he must take the full blame, but for his approval they would not have happened!
Oh, I think Cheney would have found a way to get what he wanted regardless of whether Dubya approved or not. He wasn't a very engaged President to say the least. The events of the time were ripe for where we were taken.
Doncha love it? Politicians elected to defend both the letter and the spirit of the constitution taking the high road by exploiting its semantic loopholes.