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Okay, Now Even I'm Worried

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Wed, 4 Jan 2006 00:13:23 -0800 (PST)

Okay, Now Even I'm Worried

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/2006.01.01_arch.html#1136158341517

 

 

 

Sunday, January 1, 2006

Okay, Now Even I'm Worried

 

According to a report in Sunday's New York Times, in 2004, the White

House found itself unable to continue with its warrantless NSA

domestic spying campaign because James B. Comey, acting attorney

general while John Ashcroft was hospitalized with an inflamed gall

bladder, would not approve it.

 

Seems the White House had set up a system where the president could

authorize the spying without notifying the Foreign Intelligence

Surveillance Court, but he should get the okay form his own Justice

Department. But what the White House wanted the National Security

Agency to do apparently worried so Comey--no hero of civil

liberties--that he wouldn't sign on.

 

This led the president and his spymasters to turn to Ashcroft

himself--the man who pushed through the USA PATRIOT Act and who tried,

with a mad scheme called Operation TIPS, to turn 20 million Americans

into volunteer spies on their neighbors. Reportedly White House Chief

of Staff Andrew Card and then White House counsel (and now Attorney

General) Alberto Gonzales, went to the hospital where Ashcroft was

undergoing a difficult recovery from his operation, and asked him to

give the needed approval.

 

Pretty scary right?

 

But it gets worse!

 

According to the Times, even Ashcroft was " reluctant " to sign on to

what the White House and the NSA were doing.

 

So just what were they doing?

 

I think it's safe to say that they were probably not just tapping

phones and emails of suspected terrorists. That would surely not have

bothered Comey or Ashcroft.

 

I had earlier assumed that much of the NSA spying that Bush was

approving illegally was on anti-war activists.

 

But think about it: why would that bother Ashcroft? He on several

occasions equated anti-war activists with terrorists himself, so

surely this kind of spying wouldn't have been hard for him to sign onto.

 

No, it had to be something so obviously and patently unconstitutional

and criminal that Ashcroft had visions of himself following Nixon's

AG, John Mitchell, into the slammer when it finally got exposed.

 

And what might that spying be?

 

My guess is that it has to do with the 2004 election, and dirty tricks

aimed at the Democrats.

 

So get ready. Either this stinking swamp of deception and criminality

is about to be dragged into the sunlight and exposed, or we are

heading into a very dark time of tyranny under one-party rule.

3:32 pm pst

 

 

 

 

 

 

To see earlier articles published on this page--or if a link or a

search engine brought you here looking for a story and you don't find

it here--click the archive link at the top of the page.

 

 

For other articles by Dave Lindorff, check out the archives at

CounterPunch (www.counterpunch.org), In These Times

(www.inthesetimes.org) and Salon (www.salon.com).

 

 

This site and all articles published on it are copyrighted by the

author. If you are a publisher and are interested in buying the rights

to any article on this site, or in one of my books or other works,

please contact me at my office.

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