Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You’re Calling

big brother times three. Government whether on any level is not being held accountable and is out of control- their arrogance is mind boggling

Good! I hope they do find out who is leaking national security info to the press. I’m tired of the press helping our enemies. Maybe you guys should start trying to “FOR the USA” instead of “AGAINST the USA” ALL THE TIME. I hope the FBI nails lots of idiots who are out to destroy the intelligence agencies and cost us more soldiers and spys!

Excellent the Media needs looking after, Traitors most of them…….

I hope the information they gain allows them to catch the scum that leak information, and helps them arrest the communist scum who publish it.

well maybe ABC news better stop leaking classified information. This only helps our enemies and right now I believe ABC news is an enemy of the US.

I believe that it is a great idea to maintain telephone surveilance over news organizations who disclose classified and sensitive secret information. Lets nail the government employees who knowingly break their oath to not divulge classified information.

“Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.”
Under the law as signed by Bill Clinton collecting the information is legal. Why do you portray it as “under Bush administration guidelines?” Is this part of the bias I hear so much about?
If they are investigating leaks they probably have warrants for the searches so they can see who is leaking information. I am glad they are rooting out the people breaking the law. I hope they get the one who broke the law by telling you about this.

This might be one of the most frightening things I’ve ever read.

Welcome to the KGB.

I am a journalism graduate, UNC-Chapel Hill. I am also a veteran.
I hope they catch every government leaker of classified secret information and put them in prison for life. And any reporter publishing known classified secret information should be shot. It is called treason, not first amendment rights.

The problem, folks, is that the government has broken the law. Get it?
I’m always staggered when people who claim to uphold the “values of America” willingly and joyfully allow their government to violate those values. What’s your problem with the Constitution? Take another look: Fourth Amendment. Please.

I think that this is very good news. Something has to be done to investigate the main-stream media as the MSM has obviously declared war against the President in regards to the war on terror and and the liberation of Iraq. It is outrageous how they are working to leak classified information and to undermine our security at every turn with their reporting. It is also outrageous how they fabricate stories against the President or in a timely fashion recycle old stories as if they were new. I personally no longer trust the MSM at all and feel extremely threatened by their agenda.

You guys in the press have been sucking up to this president from the very beginning. You reported his lies, you bought the B.S., and you did it all for access and so you could get invited to the right parties, and so he could towel-snap you and give you stupid nicknames.
And where did it get you? Monitored by the NSA.
Maybe if you’d done your job from the beginning, we wouldn’t be living in a fascist state run by a madman right now. But no….it was more important that Al Gore was stiff and John Kerry had no charisma. You wanted to drink beer with this guy? Fine. Drink your beer with him. But don’t start crying now about your rights being violated.

Amendment I – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression.
Congress shall make no law… or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….

This has to be one of the most frightening issues of our time. I as a citizen deserve to know what the moral construction of our government. The press gave us information such as immoral and unappropriately un-American torture prisons; obtaining this information and releasing is Patriotic, because it goes against what we believe is right. “Our govt should be afraid of its people”, not the other way around.

i don’t what is scarier, the article or the responses in this thread. some of these responses smack of the very worst kind of authoritarian fascism. these people talk just like the communist party hacks i’ve met in cuba or the old soviet union… and they call themselves patriots. it’s disgusting.

You commit treason and expose classified national securtiy information – the goverment is going to come after you – as they should.

You do realize people are being paid by the Bush administration to attack the press publically on comment pages like this. I personally was offered a job doing it.
Look at the similarities in the comments.”Aid the enemy” “leaking security” ABC is simply telling it’s viewers what it’s ELECTED GOVERNMENT is doing with it’s money-destroying this country’s power in the eyes of the world!
I want to know what my government is doing. I want to have some measure of control over my life. I am tired of living in the constant fear this administration has subjected us to in the name of patriotism.
Who are these jackasses who think the press is giving aid to the enemy. What blind nonsense.

If you don’t believe in the US Constitution, get the out of here. If you don’t support the Bill of Rights, then YOU are Anti-American. Go move to Russia, Cuba, or China; move anywhere but get the hell out of my country. The only reason our soldiers are dying in this war is because the people that you degenerates voted into office sent them off to fight for someone else. Own up to your mistakes and quit trying to trade my liberty for your false sense of security.

Ok Tommy Boy, shall we start with Dick Cheney and Robert Novak?

Tom, it’s not treason. It’s covered by US Code title 18 section 793, 794 and 798 among others. See http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dd_1847_1.pdf
It’s a felony. The leakers should go to jail. The publishers and reporters, to the extent that they knew information was classified, should go to jail. Nobody should be shot.

Tom Camp: “I am a journalism graduate, UNC-Chapel Hill. I am also a veteran.
I hope they catch every government leaker of classified secret information (*) and put them in prison for life. And any reporter publishing known classified secret information should be shot. It is called treason, not first amendment rights.”
* – Except outing CIA agents for political payback. I like those.

They’re not spying on reporters to find “leakers”. They’re looking for anything that’s different from their POV – different from the FoxNews POV.
It’s brainwashing. It’s clear by those who rushed to post supportive comments here that it’s worked to a degree….
Enjoy the fission this administration has created in this government……

People should remember the thoughts of Thomas More when Henry VIII jailed him for not accepting Royal edicts. More believed we have to fight for the rights others’, in this case the news media, to protect our own.
If Bush isn’t stopped, we’ll all lose our rights under the guise of fighting terrorism.

It’s funny watching people support the actions of the government in recording and tracking American citizens. The Bush Administration has turned the United States into a Soviet style state, where dissent and questioning is treason and people should be shot. Where did my country go. And don’t give me a line about 9/11 changing everything. The terrorists hitting us has nothing to do with our Constitution being usurped by these hacks.

I will bring Dick Cheney to his knees.

The people who are posting in support of this non-sense seem to have forgotten what is at stake here. The Bush administration and their cronies need to be held accountable. Do not forget the Presidential Daily Brief from August 2001 that forewarned about a potential terrorist attack. We’d not even be having this discussion if Bush and crew had been doing their job. To say that reporters and/or dissenters should be treated as traitors is really over-the-top. Perhaps those who support this need to take a long look at what it means to live in a free country, because they surely seem to be bound and determined to turn America into a fascist state. Wake up, people!

I am going to be very curious to see how people feel when a democrat is in the White House and essentially inherits the same set of rules that this president is using. Remember the black helicopter crowd in the 90s? These are the same people writing in to support the president’s efforts to infiltrate the press. In fact, I’d be willing to be they’re the same people commenting on this post.
Sag.

So I suppose they are also keeping track of people who comment on this story. “Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” “Gestapo.” “Gestapo who?” (Sound of door being smashed….).

The most frightening part of this is the swarm of responses attacking the media and honest public servants for revealing illegal government operations.
This lynch mob believes that torture, arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention on secret charges and other abuses of human freedom are only bad if the Russians or Chinese do it.
Yet they attack liberals for “situational ethics.” What goes around, comes around, folks. Don’t come whining to the media when it’s your turn on the rack. Not that we won’t want to help you — but you will have blown away our ability to do it.

Fellow Americans, we have to insure that the Bush administration doesn’t feel free to spy on whomever they want WITHOUT A WARRANT. It’s illegal.

From the Church Committee report:
“In time of crisis, the government will exercise its power to conduct domestic intelligence activities to the fullest extent. The distinction between legal dissent and criminal conduct is easily forgotten,” the committee wrote. “In an era where the technological capability of government relentlessly increases, we must be wary about the drift toward `big brother government.”’

My question is simple. If you won’t allow the government to do ANY type of data mining or survellience without FIRST having a federal warrant, how the heck can you get the warrant? Don’t you need evidence before a warrant is granted? On one had the media, and ABC, complain about the administrations inability to “connect the dots” that lead up to Sept. 11th and on the other they criticize every effort to thwart terrorists attacks?
Personally, as I don’t call anyone associated with Al Qaeda, I don’t CARE if the Government tracks me, listens to me or records me. Only the guilty should be nervous. Is ABC and the NYT Guilty of aiding terroism or are they/you simply guilty of undermingin our security by letting the terrorists know what we are trying to do to stop them? In either case, you should be ashamed.

How can one defend the indefensible? This is not an America with which I’m familiar. And neither are these posters. If they don’t like a free press, one that takes an active look at exactly what our government is up to, then I suggest they move.
I hear North Korea is nice this time of year. You’ll find the press there much less apt to level a critique against the government.
I also think the above posters suffer from belonging to the Bush cult of personality. Within this cult, Bush can do no wrong and is to be trusted. Not that he’s ever given evidence for this, but this is one of the underlying delusions of the posters. Nothing new here, Nixon also attracted rabid defenders to the bitter end.
As for ABC, thank you for your work.

This article is completely dependent upon an unnamed source who supposedly made the claims cited in the article. None of this may be true but ABC doesn’t even suggest this possibility; rather, it publicizes this unproven contention–”ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling”– by concluding it is true, yet there is no way for ABC to know if any of their phones were tapped at all. Since they are willing to go public with contentions “proven” by yet another unnamed source, I am unwilling to get fished into whether or not this is good or bad. But my inclination is to suspect the network is creating a suspicion that isn’t there, and as a national media outlet, they shouldn’t be in the business of unsubstantiated rumors.

I’m amazed by all the people who think illegal spying is ‘okay’, as long as it ‘protects’ them.
Nothing is going to protect them. The terrorists will strike when and where they strike.
President Bush is an incompetent boob who has absolutely no finesse or intelligence, unfortunately and who is ruining America. The fact that he has a bunch of liars, thugs and criminals working for him just exacerbates the problems.
It really is a sad day in America.
My family escaped from a Communist regime and, to see this butchering of the Constitution is just sickening.
Impeach him now!

I can’t beleive the number of comments about hoping to catch media people who leak classified info! How about Presidents, VP’s and Secretaries of Defense and State who leak CIA operatives names for their own political gains? This country and many of the people in it are becoming very scary! The drink the coolaid everyday and somehow miss the point of who is leaking our national secuity, who is lying about wmds and causing untold death and destruction for profit? Its not the news people or CIA veterans who tell the truth to protect America and the Constitution…they are heroes! They know what America used to stand for and are risking their lives and futures to try to save it from the fascists who have somehow taken over the government with their own selfish
agenda.
Peace

Q:
What’s more offensive to our democracy than the Bush administration turning the executive branch into a virtual black op, attempting to seal off world-changing and constitution-altering plans and activities from press and congressional scrutiny?
A:
Well for one thing, the blind and clueless enthusiasm with which Americans like some of the posters here rush to support them, barely a clue in hand about the full story or its consequences.
“Thank you sir, may I have another!”
IMHO, which I see is already, fortunately not alone (as it was when I first when to try to get this post up). If these probably well meaning patriots have to post again to tell me my liberal, civil liberties-over-war-on-terror opinion is twisted, weak, and aids “the enemy” — apologies in advance to all who have to type or read the responses. I know how tiring this all too predictable exchange is by now…

So for all you who think the media needs to be roped in, would you rather the government break the law and violate your rights as a citizen and you NOT know about it?
Whistleblowers can’t go to a Republican run congress, nothing will happen. This is the only way people will know what’s going on.
And if you think this is limited to just news sources and NOT political opponents, then you’re incredibly naive.

Are we seriously supposed to believe this story? How self-promoting can you people get? Look! Look! Everything we said was happening is happening because we say it is!
Nice try.

Looks like the same people who are spying on Americans are posting about his article.
Is there anything Republicans won’t do to destroy this country in the name of one little Chimp dicatator?

Breaking News … Stained blue dress found in the oval office.
Can we impeach him now?!?
Pretty please with a cherry on top.

It is not illegal for government employees to reveal illegal government behavior. It’s called whistle blowing and is protected (or was until the Bushies gutted the statute.)
To those who would nail investigative journalists to the wall I would ask:
Wasn’t it better to know about the abuses at Abu Ghraib so that these abuses stop? There was no indication that the Bushies would have done anything about it if it hadn’t come out in the press.
Wasn’t it better to know about the secret prisons where “shadow” prisoners were held in violation of the Geneva Convention (remember, that is what keeps our soldiers from being tortured when they are captured). Again, without the press, this would still be a secret and we would be violating international human rights standards even more than we are.
Wasn’t it better to know that the Bushies were vioating the FISA act repreatedly and egregiously? Congress offered to change FISA to make it more palatable to the Bushies, but they preferred to go skirt the law intended to stop just the kind of investigating of political and journalistic domestic spying the Bushies are clearly doing now.
Wasn’t it better to know about extrordinary rendition, the kidnapping, abuse, and torture of sometimes innocent people? Those who believe in limited government, the 4th amendment, and/or the first amendment should be railing at the Bushies, not egging them on. It shows that your partisan fervor has drowned out your desire to defend the constitution and civil rights.
Beyond Left/Right

So, um… have all of Bush’s 29% chimed in, or are there one or two of you left?

I think the worst thing about this is that it defiles the basic rights that so many soldiers have laid down their lives fignting for. I think the question is: Where do we draw the line between gonvernment accountability and basic freedoms? When we step over that line, we erode the basic foundation that supports our society.
Any administration that goes unchecked will cross the line, and this system of accountability, though obviously flawed, is what keeps the entities of our government within some degree of control. Our forefathers seem to have undersood very well what so many of you have forgotten.

Anyone ANYONE can legally buy reports showing whom cell phone users called, and were called by. It has NOTHING to do with NSA. Defense lawyers and the media use the service all the time. Where was the outrage then? http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-privacy05.html

The MSM has been incredibly slow about calling this President’s bluffs. Frankly, they haven’t been doing their job, yet they still expect the free press privileges. Well, this is what you get when the free press forgets to function!
The gov’mnt says this program doesn’t “listen in”. No, probably not. This program may simply identify the numbers ripe for tapping… passing them to another gov’mnt program to do the actual taps… maybe even under FISA. What has been shown is that this administration dissembles as a matter of course. Now, why would I believe anything they say? How careful are they being about our rights while they’re breaking the law? Probably just as careful as they’re being about the law itself.

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

This shows bad faith by Bush Administration.
This has nothing to do with spying on terrorists or national security, which is the sole rationale for the program.
This is akin to the Nixon administration and enemies lists abuses of power.
The disclsosure that press calls are being traced is the equivalenmt of learing that Nixon taped whitehouse conversations.
IMPEACH!

The Bush machine will tolerate no dissent. Just like Saddam or Mugabe.

This is why the terrorists are going to win. Every debate in this country boils down to those who hate Republicans and those who hate Democrats. Its not about the war, stopping terrorists or saving lives. Its about the next November.
If and when we all figure out that the terrorists want to kill both sides the same then we will have a chance to win the war against them.
If you don’t like these intelligence gathering programs, then you should propose what you would do instead. Otherwise, after the next terrorist attack, don’t start criticizing the leadership for not doing enough as the Democrats did after 9/11. We have to do something. So what would you do if monitoring the communications of suspected terrorists is inappropriate?

“I’m appalled that so many of you think this is a good development, that journalists should be gagged”
The attacks on “the press” result from, to take one example, the fact that a lot of us have or personally know people who have spent a lot of time in Iraq recently. When someone you know and trust gives you a picture of goings on there that radically differs from what you’ve seen in the paper or on TV, you come away with a feeling that some press entities are actively working for the enemy. I agree with you that the press needs strong protection – but enemy propagandists don’t. I agree that it’s frightening, but it’s also frightening that many reporters do seem to either hate this country or hate this president so rabidly that they’ll damage the country to damage him. It’s the press conflating the president and the country, not their critics.

Welcome to “1984″ … there is to be NO “checks and balances” in this administration is there? are Congress is useless and now the last hope, the media and their confidants are to be hushed too. Next thing you know they’ll start wanting to know who has every single gun in this country. But be wary.

I see a lot of “arguing by affirmation” from the Left on this thread.
Apparently, if you say something emphatic enough, and in enough different ways, then that makes your statement true.
Kind of reminds me of the old sterotype of Americans shouting loudly in an attempt to make a foreigner understand what they are trying to say.
These guys need to take some classes in Logic and History. They are so emotional that they don’t seem to realize how juvenile they sound.
The President’s biggest responsibility is to defend our country in time of war. And to do that he has to gather intel.
More power to him!

Funny how those asserting that the U.S. is becoming an evil fascist state will still vote to raise taxes.

Ari Rabkin says —– “There’s no real dispute that it’s legal for the government to examine call records in the context of an investigation (without warrants)”
Ari – are you under investigation?? Am I ?? I think thats the point, don’t you?
Why do Bush apologists just not “get it” ???? Are you that in love with him?

I fully support privacy, especially for members of the press who are (belatedly) investigating this mistake of a presidency. Do the best you can, ABC! There are terrible things afoot and you know it!

“Personally, as I don’t call anyone associated with Al Qaeda, I don’t CARE if the Government tracks me, listens to me or records me. Only the guilty should be nervous.”
If the government isn’t guilty of anything, they shouldn’t be nervous about their secrets being leaked.

UMass Amherst did the same thing A DECADE AGO when someone leaked the Basketball Team’s grades.

I am ashamed of the people that defend what the Bush administration is doing in spying on American citizens and the press. How do you think that Watergate was discovered and brought down a President that was totally out of control with no bounderies?
What you are defending is fascism. Look up the word in a dictionary. How do the citizens find out what their government is doing with the three branches of government under one party? No ethics, outing a CIA Operative, no WMD’s, attacking a country that was no threat to America, etc.
Do you know that this administration considers Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Democrats, anti-war domostraters, environmentalists, liberal churches all terrorists? Do you feel safe under a totalarian government, because that is now what we have become? Are you all so scared of the so called enemy that you will give up basic american rights?
There is not a single person in this administration that has not lied to us and to other world leaders. Beware when we no longer have a free press that can track the illegal acts that this administration does.

ADDRESS COMPLAINTS TO:
Who’s the person running the NSA’s data collection program?
James M. Cusick, assistant deputy director of the NSA for data acquisition. He’s Mr. Data Acquisition. He’s the specialist in charge of building collection systems that can acquire vast amounts of data, and his unit is the one that is running this program.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/15/
aid_interview/print.html
MR. JAMES M. CUSICK
922 VANDERWOOD ROAD
BALTIMORE, Maryland 21228-1326
U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
SENIOR EXECUTIVE
07/06/2004 500.00
TOTAL CONTRIBUTION 1000.00
Committee: BUSH-CHENEY ’04 (PRIMARY) INC.
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:MSucjNYnIUUJ:
herndon2.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00386987
/131995/sa/ALL/13+%22James+M.+Cusick%22&hl=
en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=21

I really could care less who or what the Government spies on. Even if they were upfront about it and it was “legally” done, there would still be something illegal about it – in someone’s eyes. Ask yourself this question, when was the last time I knowingly talked to a terrorist outside this country? As for the media, they get what they deserve – nothing but a bunch of snot nosed brats who hide behind the 1st amendment, while pointing the finger at someone else – their establishment is just as bad, if not worse, than our current governmental administration. I see no need to worry, as a private citizen, because I know I have done nothing wrong – have you?

I certainly hope THIS will be your lead story tonight, not the immigration pandering done by the administration.
If you can’t get the news, you can’t tell US the news.

I see the President as an honest man that is trying his best to protect us from those that would,could, did and will do us great harm.
His job is not made easier by the political left; they have always been a noisey bunch that seeing conspiracies everywhere. This stems all the way back to the Vietnam War. The whole reason we lost that war was due to the fact that the politicians running the war lost their resolve due to the bosterious left and all their antics.

This is outrageous! How much more of this are we willing to allow? They can use 9/11 as an excuse to monitor every aspect of our lives. Enough is enough. They are infringing on our rights more and more. It is time to get answers from them. They have crossed a line that should not be crossed.

“BTW, with all the spying on Americans taking place, has anyone seen Osama?”
Yes! He’s in Vegas, and what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. BTW, he thinks its hilarious that we have destroyed our own society and way of life by “hunting” the very thing we created with our policies and desire to ‘give up freedom for security’. I guess Franklin was right. We deserve neither if we continue to be apathetic and allow our country to become fascist. All Heil Bush comrades!

I’ve long suspected that the right wing cares about nothing except the second half of the second amendment…But these comments prove that it’s much worse than that. The right wing is openly hostile toward EVERYTHING in the Bill of Rights EXCEPT the right to have a gun. Of course, it was THEIR president who called the US Constitution “g-ddamn piece of paper.”

We used to make fun of the Soviets for this sort of thing. Now, it’s us.

“that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Abraham Lincoln
I hate what these neocons are doing to this country. How dare they distort and bend the constitution.

¨If they broke the law, they should be prosecuted. And that included reporters. Period. ¨
Ok well, >I tend to disagree. There is sometimes a moral high ground, above the ¨law¨ I wonder what your take is on Rosa Parks, um Boston Tea Party, Pentagon Papers, um French Revolution… With that logic, Rosa Parks should have just sat at the back of the bus, and we should still be British. Give me break. What is America to you. Wake up. By saying that Michael Moore isnt in prison means that were a free country is just as insane as A German under Hitler saying, well they didnt bring sò-and-so to the concentration camp, so its not really fascist. Please grow up and read the dictionary, then a history book. Why is it that some conservatives have to lose their objectivity, is there never a bad republican? Iwas conservative, that is until they became all about big government and deficitsand corruption. Is there not any other conservatives here that cringe at what ¨republicans¨have done? For once I think the MSM is doing us a favor here. Wake up and see that liberals are not the enemy here. I hope to God that there are some independant minds out there on the right. For the sake of this country we should be fighting over small details such as government spending programs, religious programs. How the heck did we go from Roe vs Wade, to defending secret eastern european prisons, domestic spying, and the lack of dissent. Weren´t we always against government invasion of privacy, isnt that why there are so many conservative contitution ¨ëxperts¨, what did they do, lose their copy?? Just scary all I can say is i would have least expected the traitors to have come from the right. Just sad.

Fight back. Change over to laptops, an open Wifi connection, a series of skype (or other VOIP service) accounts and (most importantly) a mac address spoofer. You should be able to find a geek capable of explaining all this to you. They only rights we have left are those we can individually defend.

All you people who want to prosecute the leakers and the press, how about starting with Cheney, Libby, Rove, Robert Novak and Judy Miller?

Yeah, thought so.

“Nur die Schuldige mussen Angst haben.”
NSDAP 1930
Only the culprits must fear.
Fascism creeps in subtly and incrementally. It does not arrive overnight.
The mere suggestion that the executive branch of government is spying on who reporters are contacting, and for political gain, should be cause for serious alarm.
And then to compound it with some of the statements I read here.

does al queada exist? are there terrorists in this country? the media can’t prove it and the government won’t prove it. both sides have yet to make a point, but the battle for ‘the hearts and minds’ continues. it is homegrown, not overseas.
the administration has succeeded in creating a divided and distracted amercian population so it can go about it’s business unfettered.
as long as there was bread in the breadlines under the czar there was no popular revolt. similarly, as long as people can buy cheap goods at walmart, download music to their cell phones and buy gas cheap, no american is going to give a damn what the politicians or the media do.
the media and americans rolled over the consititution over 25 years ago when they allowed media market consolidation and accepted the lies from the administration of ‘the great communicator’ and his cronies, many of whom are currently running the show. the results are plain to see in these postings: american ignorance stands as the lasting legacy and witness to the end of the great american experiment.
the united states is dead, americans just haven’t figured it out yet.

Here’s my prayer, “Dear God, please shine the light of truth on this situation. With a constitutional system designed to be of the people, by the people and for the people, it is very troubling to many Americans as we witness an American government that tells us it can only do its work in secret If the Bush administration is doing data-mining of millions of Americans for only the purposes of tracking terrorists, then help us see that. If the Bush administration is doing data-mining of millions of Americans for illegal or political reasons, please help us see that. We Americans need to see through the veil surrounding those once-secret policies which may take our nation in a direction we do not want to go. Amen.”

Only an fool would believe that terrorists didn’t realize they were being electronically tracked. And only an idiot would think that this information, once released by ABC, would be advantageous to terrorists that are already using encryption and throw-away cellphones to avoid government spying. The ONLY threat being posed by these revelations is to the criminals in the White House that have taken Nixon and McCarthy’s dirty tricks to a new level in order to maintain the power they grabbed. They don’t care about our security; you can see that in how they spent our money, how poorly they’ve looked after our security at our ports, how Bush & Co. eliminated 9000 border patrol positions last year, how they installed FOBs in critical positions instead of people with competence and experience (heckuva job, Brownie), and most importantly, the extremely poor response to disasters in this country. What they want is dominion, over the money and communication channels, in order to further enslave the working people. Ask youselves this, patriots, “Am I better off now than I was 5 years ago?” And more importantly, “Why are the FOBs much better off than our guys risking their lives in Irag and Afghanistan?”.

OK, we don’t want government fascism. You ignored Bush all these years, his madness. Now maybe you can start paying attention and calling him on it.

If America doesn’t clean up it’s own act pretty soon, it may find itself up against the Allies.
Remember us?

Welcome to 1984. Absolutely outrageous, irresponsible power grab by the goverment. Bush should be impeached.

America needs a free press to keep a check on government abuse, which is exactly what this is. The press has not cost any American soldiers their lives — only Bush’s incompetence and phony wars have cost American lives!
This really has to stop. Freedom of the press is what seperates us from the Soviets and the Nazis and other repressive regimes throughout history.

You know, look at the first batch of comments to this thread. Notice that some are “eerily” similar to one another in their use of language. Many of those first posts were written by the same person.
This is absolutely terrifying. I wonder how many people are being paid tax dollars to sit around and surf the net. Blogging and tattling to the New World Order’s Freedom-Extermination team.

ABC should pull the plug on the President’s address tonight.

People who have NOTHING to hide…hide NOTHING…track me all you want…and keep me safe

Bush and his gang are leakers too and hopefully will soon be brought to justice in the CIA/Wilson/Plame case. God bless the patriotic government whisleblowers who are risking their lives and careers to help get the truth out.

After 9/11, I had conversations with people who eagerly waved off privacy concerns with “the government won’t bother with normal people like me, just muslims and freaks like you.”
Tyranny always begins to extinguish the rights of the weak, feeding on the indifference of others until all are threatened (as in the current calling scandal, and the possible new war with Iran, etc.). The poster above is correct: if we (as a society) do not respond with an effective veto of these policies, the Democrats (or whoever inherits the white house in Jan. ’09) will not only inherit these rules and seucrity infringements, but will expand on them.
Liberty dies when power goes unchecked.

Ok, This is it people, The commies actually managed to do it didn’t they? And all this without even firing one nuke at us. They have taken over…..or, err??? Is it the Nazis that we are about to become? Whatta heck, it does not matter any more, we are all to be well taken care of inside our own ironwallcurtain….see ya when it is down, cause I am one of those really free who are happy to be on the outside…bye!

I use to think that communist (China) and facist/dictatorships (Zimbabwe) states are the only ones that want to control the media, spy on its citizens,…

These actions undermine the whole Constitutional concept of “Freedom of the Press.” These leaks and stories aren’t ‘aiding the enemy,’ they are an exercise of democracy (remember, that thing for which we are fighting this war in the first place?)

im from scotland and picked up this thread on fark.com.i cant believe there are people in the usa NOT outraged by this.as for “communist” jibes does no one care that george w bush is coming on like josef stalin in his show trials days.comments supporting this only succeed in draining the once proud colours of your flag.didnt use my real name as i dont need the hassle from fundamentalists of any kind.

Perhaps the NSA should start tracking international phone calls from known drug dealers to their foreign suppliers. And while we’re at it, they could also targget Americans calling/emailing Canadian pharmacies to refill their prescriptions. Once the government has a good database they can direct Customs Service which packages from our northern neighbor need to be inspected before importation. Then it won’t be any problem to nab those folks who illegally order their medical prescriptions from Canada.

NSA Concerned Over Pattern of Calls to Domino’s Pizza
As part of the warrantless surveillance program, the NSA has been mining data on the number of calls to Domino’s by some demographic populations. The calls are concentrated in mostly liberal cities that are known as college towns.
Conservative commentators, putting the pieces together, are calling for investigations. They believe that such a high concentration of calls could indicate that the liberal 18-22 year old demographic is supporting terrorist causes.
Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-show host, chimed in on the issue on his show yesterday. “Have you ever called a Domino’s? You know,” he said, “I’ve been calling them for years, sometimes twice in one day, and I’ve yet to speak with one American.”
Limbaugh continued, “The NSA says a lot of these calls are going out just before midnight straight from college campuses. Let’s see if we can make a connection here. Liberals calling foreigners at astonishingly high rates at odd hours? You do the math, folks.”
The NSA said its data mining project has turned up high-value information in the fight against terror, but it was very concerned about the data missing from the area dominated by Qwest, which refused to hand over the phone records.
An NSA spokesman said, “Qwest, headquartered in Denver, CO, is the carrier for the University of Colorado at Boulder. CU Boulder is known for its party atmosphere and occasional rioting after football games. We can only assume the pattern of late night calls to Domino’s is present there, but we don’t know who is doing it. To be without this data about calling patterns there is cause for grave national security concern.”
“We know they hire males of Middle East descent,” the spokesman continued, “and we’re concerned that the transactions they do, which are usually all in cash and sometimes involve tips of up to two dollars, may be going to fund terrorists. This money is untraceable”
Another NSA official, speaking to us on the condition of anonymity, said, “We called a Domino’s in Boulder, trying to get the information any way we could. There was a guy named Muhammad answering the phone. We asked for call recordings, but he insisted on getting our delivery phone number first, and we had to abort the operation.”
President Bush, speaking in the Rose Garden, said, “Just this one patternistic finding justifies the whole program, and I think the American people realize that we’re doing everything in our power to protect them from the evil-doers—no matter where they’re hiding.”

We went from 2006 back to “1984″. Forget freedom of the press. That is a thing of the past.

Ever since Bush won the presidency the LIBERAL media(ABC<NBC<CBS) has been out to nail Bush. Its about time to turn the tables on the media. You reporters are low lifes that care more about their man(Kerry/Gore)losing than us winning this war on terror. I hope they put all you low lifes in jail. The only news I believe any longer comes from FOXNEWS….Jeff Valovich

My earlier post was not posted.
This president Bush must be removed from office and tried for treason. He has repeatily publicly admitted that does what he thinks is right and not what is lawful.
He has voilated his Oath of Office. He must be put on trail.

If you don’t understand why this is a bad thing for citizens of a state, then you need to brush up on world history.
And if you can’t figure out what I mean by that, then your country’s educational system has already failed you.
The right wing supporters will get what they deserve, and when they do, they won’t realize that they really just gave it to themselves.

Re: Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You’re Calling
The whole world is watching. America – land of the free. Freedom of the press … How about all of the journalists that have been killed in Iraq? Bottom line: ignorance is dangerous.

I hope that ABC and the rest of the corporate media has the good sense and decency to report this outrage as widely as possible, and not just on the internet. If not for the love of our country, do it at least in the service of self-preservation.
We now know that George W. Bush was lying when he said, “Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaida and their known affiliates”. Bush’s illegal spying on American citizens is yet another step towards to eliminating free speech and the freedom of the press. It is another step towards silencing political opposition and establishing one-party rule under a single “unitary executive” authority.
Wake up America!

Journalists need to remember that with rights come responsibilities. One of the most sacred responsibilities of the journalist is to report only fact, not supposition, rumor or innuendo. The American press has for far too long adopted the practice of reporting gossip as though it were news, innuendo as though it were fact, and supposition as though it were authoritative analysis. So-called “un-named sources” are not sources at all, they are political hacks and the news media supports these hacks by transcribing their every word and reporting as though it were authoritative, factual, and newsworthy. Frankly, I think the whole lot of you belong in a prison, not the hallowed halls of our Fourth Estate.
You are being treated as traitorous scum and political assassins because you are acting like traitorous scum and political assassins. Don’t be too shocked when the people whose reputations you are attacking – along with the Nation whose job it is for them to protect – object mightily and call you to account. Just be glad Franklin Roosevelt isn’t President. He’d have J. Edgar put you in the slam without trial or benefit of the doubt.

Would you have impeached Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy too???
The word “privacy” does not appear in the Constitution.

In my short 45-years on this planet in the USA, I have learned that the majority of the “news media” is simply a tool… of the rich media moguls/corporations to spread their own personal opinions and to advance their own agenda(s). I have also learned that the media moguls/corporations see themselves as self-important as Hollywood celebritys see themselves. They use the same media to spread their own hate, lies, and agendas, instead of actually expending the energy to do something constructive rather than destructive. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that all news media is niether unbiased nor fair and balanced. None can be trusted to report what is reality, without any degree of slant in their reporting.
It is very rare to see any media report all the good along with all the bad, unless it’s sensational and makes money. It is impossibly difficult for the media to report anything whatsoever in full illumination, unless it suits their needs.
Lastly, I am wholly and completely convinced that the media will report ANYTHING that will make them more powerful, and richer, no matter the cost to our security and our country’s cohesion. Media plays directly into the hands of the socialist movement and all people (using the term “people” loosely) who would see this country turned upside down and destroyed.
Yes, it’s about time someone reigned in the vastly liberal media, and the subversives in the media who perpetuate calamity and downright treasonous irresponsible behavior. Kudos to my government for doing so when it is so sorely needed, but it should have been done sooner.
However, I do admit, my opinion would be different if I was actually doing something illegal and subversive to this country and my fellow countrymen… but I don’t have to worry because I don’t. I gladly welcome the agencies responsible for mine and my family’s security from foreign and domestic terrorism to listen, watch, and review everything I communicate while it is necessary, if they deem it so. Why shouldn’t anyone… unless they have something to keep secret for fear of penalty under law.

It is unlawful to classify information relating to criminal activity by government officials and/or agencies of government. It is a sacred duty to expose criminal activity by government officials and/or agencies of government.

Forget telephone monitoring. . . Someone needs to expand the current investigation to ask why the government monitors our email use and the URLs that we visit. And, if ABC News really wants to blow this investigation wide open, go ask DirecTV and TiVO the number of customers for whom they’ve handed over viewing logs to the NSA. The answer, if the damn questions were ever asked, would chill bone marrow, let alone the first amendment.

You write that “under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.” Wouldn’t you better serve your readers if you went on to note what legal scholars think of thepractice? Since when is the standard what a given President “thinks” what the law is?

We need reporters like you to rise up against the fascism that is quickly gripping our nation.
Don’t succumb to fear for.. the spirit of fear does not come from God.
“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

ABC..Govt. is paying people to blog against you..Listen to their phrases..Get some guts ABC or let someone else do it..

Karen;
And who’s going to silence the media from the rest of the world? it must be some giant conspiracy against Bush? The news we recieve is still incredibly biased in favour of America and the West, every film we see, do you ever see insurgents being interviewed? films being made about them? I come from Ireland and when I think of a terrorist.. I don’t think of an IRA man in a balaclava I think of an unshaved Muslim man, thats indoctrination, and thats the media.

Well it seems like they’re just referring to phone records, calls made from one phone to another. That’s always been available in criminal investigations. While I don’t doubt that they have voice recordings, at least they have the decency to not tell us this time. But in a murder investigation or a missing persons there are checks on who the victims/suspects called. As for the massive amount of comments about roping in the communist press. I really just have no idea what to say. The US has never stopped the free press except under John Adams’ Alien and Sedition Act which illustrated just how important a free press is to a democracy. Otherwise we might as well call Bush our king and let him be dictator. Democracies are about intelligent voters making decisions for their future, and in order to do this properly, they need to be informed by as many sources as possible. I don’t think Bush is a dictator, though he has been widening executive powers, but I do think that the Rove/Bush press machine is portraying all the tyrannical qualities of dictators as strong and steadfast policies of a good leader. And that is far more scary than domestic spying. As if they didn’t already do that.

It’s amazing that anyone would defend the way this government continues to break the law. It makes you believe what other nations are saying about the U.S. that we really are a nation of total idiots to have any trust in this lying, conniving and totally corrupt government. Thankfully people are starting to wake up – ol’ Georgy Porgy’s approval rating is a mere 29%. I just hope the village is ready to have it’s idiot back and his little dog Dick too!

Forget whistleblowers — why does out government have *secrets*?
Oh yeah, probably to protect me
from the truth. I can’t handle the truth.

Anyone at ABC news familiar with the LEAKED Downing Street Memo?
If Bush was willing to invade Iraq for political reasons (as opposed to vital national security reasons), then all bets are off. Spying on reporters is likely the tip of the iceberg.

First thing you do is arrest the people ‘authorizing’ the tapping of our telephones. That is breaking the law. Then you can investigate whether or not reporters are divulging secrets. Why is it ok for bush to commit treason, yet when reporters (part of our free press) tell the truth, they are vilified.

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
– Benjamin Franklin (1755)
“Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you”
– Benjamin Franklin

Wow, the freepers are really hitting this site with the right wing nut spin.
It discusts me to see American turn into a communist/facist nation with a file on every citizen.
Anyone that supports the current administration is a traitor to the United States.

I find it completely ironic that so many anti-Bush lefties complain about their privacy being infringed upon through analysis of calling patterns, yet seem pleased by the unlawful leaking of information that actually puts our troops in harms way.
How sad it is that any American can actively work to make the U.S. less effective in their attempts to keep us it’s population safe.
Shame on you all!

I don’t know what’s more chilling – the fact that the government is monitoring reporters calls or the fact that so many posters on this blog support this activity. Bush and his fellow felons have done a phenomenal job of brainwashing their base. Scary . . . very scary.

Some of you are shocked by postings defending unlimited spying on Americans, and unrestrained executive branch power. (Variations on “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about” or “We’re at war, don’t be a dirty traitor”.)
Keep in mind that nowadays there are a lot of people paid to blog and comment on the internet, in an attempt to make it appear that the injection of paid talking points into the public discourse are in fact personal opinions.
Distributed spin-control blogging is a growth industry.

Agreed that people are really naive to think that this is it. Email surveilance (especially free services – like hotmail – I wondered why the anti-trust suit was dropped), phone tapping and data mining, probably satellite images of people…There is so much more to this. These people need to be arrested and sent to prison for a long long time.
Preferably in an Iraqi prison.

I’d comment but I don’t want to get in trouble…

There you liberals go again using facts an reason to argue with! It’s no fair! I’m going home!

Is this what happened to Mary McCarthy? Will someone stop this madness of loss of our freedoms & liberties? What will Al Qaeda envious for now?

maybe if you don’t want journalists reporting the secrets you illegally leak, then maybe you should stop illegally leaking them instead of blaming reporters for reporting. duh.

CentristDem,
Let me know when the MSM is going to investigate 9/11. Still waiting.

I never dreamed I would live in a police stare. But here it comes. It is paramount that ABC and other news organizations take the government to court to preserve the freedom of the press and the right of privacy of all Americans, even those who side with the government in this latest travesty.

I cant believe what I am reading..our civil liberties are being stripped from us and people cheer this on!! The ones that need to be arrested are sitting pretty on capital hill.
When will the American people stop being so complacent and live up to the ideals our forefathers fought and died for?

Everything the government does or does not do should probably be secret, according to the government.

One can only hope those who call the press names and want to kill the messenger will someday get caught up in a case of mistaken identity that ensnarls them in a nightmare from which they struggle to emerge. The people “leaking” things to reporters are the true patriots, horrified at what they see being done to our country. Thomas Jefferson said “the Constitution was not written to protect the government from the people, but to protect the people from the government.” Be afraid folks, be very afraid.

big brother? fascist state? Welcome to the KGB? crazy power?
Get a grip people. Could they monitor the phone calls of our guardians of state secrets… the press? Sure they could, just like they could come in the dead of night, kidnap them and spirit them away to an undisclosed secret prison in Eastern Europe and bring out the dreaded panties of infamy. But they won’t. They are trying to protect us from more terrorist attacks.
Geeze.

The point is: THE GOVT. IS BREAKING THE LAW!!! This is the problem!! Are you really so blind that you cannot see beyond this one issue? That when we start to say idiotic things such as “good, you deserve it” rather than intelligently finding solutions in wartime to freedom of the press(have you heard of it?? do you even remember Vietnam???) we hand over the rest of our constitutionally granted rights as well. THINK, People!! I am so tired of ignorant America and their inability to think through things thoroughly. It is going to be You who hands over this country, on a silver platter, to a DICTATORSHIP!!

Anyone notice a trend?
First, we learn they’re only listening to foreign conversations without a warrant.
Then, they claim they’re listening to phone calls to or from the US without a warrant.
Then, they admit that well, maybe they might have listened to a few purely domestic calls without a warrant.
Now we hear that they’re attempting gathering data on EVERY SINGLE CALL made in the U.S. without a warrant.
Do we actually need to wait until it comes out that they are monitoring all phone calls, everywhere, all the time without a warrant or oversight of any sort? Can’t we just assume that dot will follow all the rest?

I have an equal amount of respect for our soldiers in Iraq, the “leakers” within the CIA who see wrong and try to right it, and the reporters who report it to you and me. All are equal in their love for their country. If one does not see that, then all the sacrifices that the millions before us have made so that we can even have this conversation are in vain. GW

I find it funny how ten years ago, conservatives were blathering on about “Big Brother” this, and “Big Government” that, and “Government has no business being in your home”. Oh, what a surprise it is to see that this was all a charade, and now to see those same conservatives are falling all over themselves, defending this on high, and making every excuse in the book for it.
But of course, the media is out to get the poor President; he didn’t choose to be the center of attention. He didn’t choose to run for public office. Aww. So I guess that makes everything okay, because we need to protect him from those evil bastards at the Associated Press. Therefore, I guess we actually need to have government-level subterfuge to prevent the evil media from diverting the government’s agenda.
The question is this: suppose a liberal Democrat started a similar program and claiming to be “fighting terrorists” and all that other stuff; what side would those conservatives fall on? The “Get the Feds Out of My Life” side? Or the “We’re trying to fight terror–it’s still good, it’s still good” side?
Think about that one for a couple seconds.

The problem is this – Without a free and unfettered press, who has the ability to investigate wrongdoing on the part of the government, corporate entity or private person – we are no better than any of the communist, stalinest or facist states that have proceeded us.
If the press steps on a few toes while doing this – so be it. tell you, I’d rather know what my government is up to, behind my back, than wake up to find myself in an american Gulag because I don’t support the current president.

Like the old adage… I didn’t object when they came for the liberals because I was not a liberal…
The bush/fascists are now coming for the corporate media.
Serves them right…but the American people will be the ones who suffer most.

These are some very interesting and disturbing responses. The fact is that collection of mass amounts of phone records does not help defeat terrorism, and neither does looking for those individuals in government that have leaked information about the illegal activities of our government. Ask any law enforcement officer, nothing works like good old fashioned detective work. The idea that this has to take place to protect us is an insult to all the hard working agents at the FBI and local law enforcement who use legal means to track down criminals every day.

In the words of Ben Franklin, those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither security nor liberty.

Face it folks we’re screwed. Your cell phone is equipped with a global position system, and these phone records are associated with your finanical, medical and voter records.
Last time I checked, the constitution demands that ALL votes be counted. Like it or not, Al Gore is our President.

With regards to the “treason” comments:
The comments above are frightening. Do you folks seriously wish to live in a police state? It sounds like you’d welcome it.
I fear for my country. Indeed, listening to this administration and its supporters talk, I am no longer welcome in it.
And no, I’m not going to give my email address.
–
Anon-E-Mouse

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”
– Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials, 1946

And what’s the point behind all this? The problem is accountability. One of the branches of government (the executive) has forgotten that is a co-equal with the other 2 branches (you know, the legislative and judicial). The Bush Administration has been tossing around this idea of the Unitary Executive. Bad idea. Works great in the UK, but not here. Where is Congress? Where are the courts (not to mention the FISA Courts)? Where is the Fourth Amendment? Where is the accountability?
Finally, are we, or or we not a nation of laws? Yes. But don’tget me wrong, there are bad people out there – but damnit, follow the law! It’s the Founding Fathers would have wanted and expected – and those guys knew a little something about terrorism.

The U.S. is the new Soviet Union…

How long you people are going to watch a government which lies and spies to you, invades countries preemptively under pretenses?
That’s how Nazi germany started, with a depressed nation wanting a strong leader, fabricating facts to invade its neighbours.
Your governement is reaching the point where they have overdone it – do you realize it?
There are frogs in a pan with water, and the water gets slowly hoter, but the frog can’t destinct, until the water boils and the frog missed the point to jump the pan and dies.
It’s hot in your pan, people of the USA, it’s damn hot.

So each act of this production of a play we call ‘Life on Planet Earth’ continues scene after scene following the Orwellian script in a never-ending nightmare of a Shakepearean tragedy of every star & stripe one could not possibly have imagined, even in the most sadistically pathological Machiavellian sense of an identically humanistic accomplished cyborg psychopath – advanced well beyond the most outrageous combination our Hollywood entertainment/propaganda machine could dream up in the best they have ever known – say the Terminator……
Did anyone read all of that without feeling its effects of disorentation, confusion, attention diverted from the issue?
Exactly my intention – look over here, take your eyes off the ball for a second…
Just like the administration is doing, has been doing, for many, many administrations before Bush. And we are ALL falling for it – HOOK, LINE & SINKER!!!
Why is that? Because we are afraid. Afraid of the unknown, afraid to know because of what unknown will result from that, and afraid to feel any more uncertainty than we already do. So the easiest thing to do is ‘Stick Our Heads In Sand!’
But quite sooner than later – much sooner than later – will be the last time we have the luxury of sticking our head – in sand. Even sticking our heads in sand is a choice we get to make only if we get to make choices. By the time it is too late to choose ‘SAND’ we will find there are no choices left.
Why do we find SAND so compelling and irrestible? I believe it is because history repeats itself. Not sometimes, not every once in a while. Always. Repeatedly. Guaranteed.
Just as with our own personal lives and the growth we experience involves making some mistakes over and over until we learn our lesson, so does our population – collectively. That is exactly what is happening right now and it will continue to happen, on schedule, right off the pages of a script as though it were written and played out verbatim.
What can we do? Not a damn thing any of us can individually do to change anything. But that does not mean there is nothing we can do. No, far from it.
We need to do for ourselves that which will allow each of us to evolve and allow our awareness to expand and see with new perspective that which we were blind to see before. This individual awareness will collectively unite the people and all living things on the planet, eventually transcending our existence to otherworldly dimensions.
Or, if you prefer, please go ahead and bury your head in sand once again. We won’t bother any one any more with any more from any one.
The choice is ours and yours and hers and his and mine and all who can choose must choose – Evolution or Sand?

Wow, it’s’ sad to see that the loudest and most active people on this board are also the blindest, most mind numbingly ignorant, portion of our society. We, who look at both sides of every story and make up our own minds better get with it and speak out louder and more intelligently than these “tell me what to believe, Rush/Bush/Cheney/Orielly/Hannity” members of our society.

If Bill Clinton had this power, he could’ve tracked Matt Drudge’s sources and pressured them into keeping quiet about Monica Lewinsky.
I feel sorry for the dullards who’ve commented on this board that can’t see past their own political partisanship and see the wider dangers of clamping down on a free press.
Will we now go after the soldier who leaked the Abu Ghraib photos in the name of “national security”? Wake up.

Thanks for this info. It confirms our worst fears: our government is using the apparatus of our spy agencies to ensure that the truth about its own activities will be hidden from the people.
If we do not know what our government is doing. If we allow our government to secretly arrest and try whomever it choses – including the media. Then, we will live under a tyranny that we cannot oppose, discuss, or acknowledge without fear of disappearing, ourselves.

If you’re going to use the old “you should only be worried about surveillance if you’re doing something wrong” axiom, it applies to those in power, too.
And Lord knows they’ve been doing all kinds of wrongs these past six years. The press is merely doing its job, and the administration are orchestrating cover-ups in the name of “national security”.
So Dubya, if you’re not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. :)

I’m shocked to read the comments of these people supporting the erosion of our civil liberties. Green Day is right. There is an Idiot America. For all of you who continue to rant about how “if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t be worried” consider this, I’m proud of my body, it doesn’t mean I want my neighbor looking through my window when I shower.
Terrorism as a weapon doesn’t gain ground, topple governments, or accomplish anything other than to terrorize the target. This administration has gutted the consititution in response to a criminal act. Do I feel safer… no. I feel afraid and sad for my country. The terrorists won. Our president is terrified, and as cost us all our liberty.

How many fascists are responding to this? If this was Clinton doing this you guys would be out in the street marching asking for his death. I guess torturing and killing people is OK and very American as long as Republicans do it. We don’t have to be like the enemy to win. We’re only going to lose.

I’m pretty shocked by all of this.
I was raised to believe that “lose lips sink ships” in a very conservative household. I used to think that leaking national security secrets actually hurt our country and our people and never cared much about legalisms or the Constitiution or the Bill of Rights other than knowing they existed. But I now think differently. I’ve come to understand that misguided people within the government have and can break the law and because those bad actions are classified as secret, these bad people within our own government can get away with some really horrible crimes without justice being served.
I believe George Bush and his administration has committed crimes and is now trying to silence the people by silencing the press. I think Bush should be impeached just for that. But if he is actually subverting the Constitution like you guys are saying, he should be tried in a criminal court. I am not being paid by anyone. Thank you.

You ever wonder how the “marketplace of ideas” gets narrowed to a dictatorship of state sanctioned truth? Stay tuned folks. Those who’ve studied history recognize the signs. Those who haven’t could very well be on their way to receiving a crash course in the fall of republics.
This is how dictatorships come into being people. History bears it out, all you have to do is look.
One party rule, dogmatic leader who effectively dissolves congress and makes law, secret torture facilites, secret courts, secret surveillance, due process suspended indefinitely for potential enemies of the state, wars of aggression, and a terrified and xenophobic populace…
Good times indeed.

Why are americans so proud of their country? You have no historical knowledge, no geographical knowledge and you only speak one language.
The wars your government fights is understood by almost no one in your country. You don’t know their culture, language, history, geographical location or why they supposedly threaten your “Freedom”.
The level of knowledge of the average american is sad and pathetic but americans act as if their military power gives them a moral supremacy. This is why americans are hated around the world.

1. Connect the dots.
2. But don’t find the dots.

Can you name one other factual inconvenience or definitive loss of privacy in your life?
The truth is, we have been asked for terribly little in the way of sacrifice to ensure national security. And, as Americans, that is the way we like it.
Americans have lost their ability to be anonymous and not have big brother tracking their every movement. You cannot make a bank transfer or pay a bill of over $10,000 without it being reported to the government, you can’t get a telephone, even a prepaid one, without providing ID, you can’t open a bank account or a brokerage account without the information being provided to the government. You cannot travel anonymously on an airplane, bus or train. Now, of course you can’t call ABC News without the governmet knowing about it. Your loss of freedoms isn’t as overt as being put in a cage, but that could be arranged very easily, too.
I’m willing to sacrifice – just not the Constitution.

I don’t know what is worse: Seeing the large cross section of people on here behaving like sheep and actually swallowing the outright attack on civil liberty with no independent/humanitarian or Christian thought.. Or, the fact that, the US government/corporations can get away with anything without effective protest. People tend to turn the other way rather than question things these days. This is all very shocking and very disheartening. I brought kids into this world and I fear the worst for them. What next? A Coke Advert projected onto the moon?

The comments of those who support the usurpation of freedom of the press here show just how well the Bush Administration has done its job. They now place journalists on the side of terrorists because they are exercising their right to report news that they don’t agree with. It is frightening to see their blindness to the dangers inherent in this article and their myopic vision of what constitutes truth.

Personally, I find this a staggeringly corrupt power grab.
Here is me open question to the defenders of this program (in all seriousness). Where would you draw the line?
In answering this question, I throw four elements into the mix for consideration. (Perhaps they are baseless assumptions though?)
The first is that clearly our government is built to sacrifice some level of security for liberty, after all a police state would be much more secure, but we chose to avoid that route.
Second, it seems equally clear that military orders and national security do not always trump concerns of law, liberty and basic human principles. This seems to me best demonstrated by the fact that we do not accept a soldier’s saying that he was “just following orders” as an excuse to a criminal action.
Third, there must be *some* point where government secrecy cannot trump disclosure. If no such line exists we would have the absurd result of a government that could literally do anything at all regardless of legal, ethical or Constitutional boundaries simply by classifying the information or declaring a national security priority. After all, if no one knows you broke the law there can be no enforcement, and without enforcement the law is meaningless. So there must be such a line somewhere.
Finally, there similarly must be some point at which the government cannot claim that information is a security risk. Once again, without such a point *somewhere* we would have the absurd result that the government could literally classify anything and everything, as there would be no way of ever contradicting a claim that information is a security risk.
So, as I said earlier, my open question is where would the defenders of this program draw the line? Personally, I feel that this program well exceeds where any line would be. I feel that the combination of illegality of this program and the targetted use of it at administration critics in the press more than satisfies Point #3. While Point #4 might save this, I do not know of any information or evidence at all that this phone-tapping program has had any effect whatsoever in increasing national security. (Apparently it has also caused a flood of useless data which is backlogging the FBI according to the NY Times.)
So, thoughts?

I find it very difficult to understand how anyone with any brains could possibly endorse the behavior of this regime. Some of us are soooo willing to give up all that our founding fathers have fought so hard for. Willing to turn over our rights to a regime that has done nothing but lie to us. Oh, they are the moral party aren’t they. I guess if they lie it is morally acceptible.

Lets listen in on Cheney’s calls to Halliburton to see if they have made enough money yet in Iraq…then we can determine the exit plan for the war.

One word about the domestic spying: Outrageous. One word about people condemning the media for reporting it: Outrageous.
ABC News must stay on this story to ensure this activity stops and doesn’t spread further.

“we need to get Tough” Blah Blah Blah. When the ruber hits the road Most Americans are a bunch of cowards. The Minute you mention Terrorist..We will give up everything including our own freedom, money, kids and the ability to address a president before taking us to war(media). I’m the last brave American. I’m not willing to give up one freedom and I’m not afraid to fight those Terrorist here in America.

Apparently a Free Press is no longer necessary. The most disturbing thing is how many people have come out in SUPPORT of this blatant attack on our rights to a free press.

There must be a line between holding our National Secrets and the public’s right to know. When that line is crossed, then the offenders must be prosecuted for they endanger the average citizen by supplying our enemies with valuable information.

“We are at WAR with a enemy who whants to take over the world by force or kill all of us” and his name is Bush!!! Any thing kept secret is poison that dies in the light of exposure. Secrets are used to keep evil alive. The Lie IS DEAD! IMPEACH BUSH!

I’m quite concerned about the comments posted here supporting eve the most obvious abuse of authority. I’m more concerned by the chorus of bobble heads in Congress that are happy to cheer anything on if it will keep emotional issues on the front burner in a sucessful attempt to obscure their actual votes on continued benefits for the richest in the country.
I’m not certain at what point this nation decided that a large segment of the population just isn’t woth supporting but it does seem like we’re becoming more fractured each year. We have an elected government that is more concerned with diverting tax revenue (which is becoming more and more borrowed money) to private industry. We see this again with the mandated hiring of contractor border guards. It would seem to me that we have a border guard program already in place that would be a better place for the additional funding as report after report tells us that contractors are more expensive.
As the saying goes, democracy ends with thunderous applause but it is not restored so easily.

I can’t believe the number of people supporting the government, but then in Geore Orwell’s 1984 fear is used to control people. In this case it’s an unrealistic fear of terrorism. Bush and company can do anything when using the word terrorism.

Looks like nsa,fbi,cia, couldn’t listen to your phone conversations. Encrypted? Finding the other person might be a better avenue. Or they wouldn’t do such a thing. Right.

The issue is: this phone tapping is being done without judicial oversight. It has nothing to do with whether going after leakers is good or bad. Without judicial oversight, there is absolutely NOTHING to stop the government from spying on you, and then using that information to destroy your life. Maybe you trust this government to operate in your best interests. But do you trust every future government? Think about it. Demand that such information be gathered based on a warrant.

There is too much hate showing up in these posts. What is going on with you people that have to bash someone to feel good about yourself.
There is no simple answer.
You have lawbreakers in those that leak the classified information.
If Bush/Cheney leak it is ok because they can reclassify from secret to not secret. duh.
I understand the big brother issue, but there has to be a middle ground.
Try posting a comment that tries to find a middle ground instead of hate.
For you far right and far left that cannot see past the end of your nose, you get what you deserve.

Now that we know that Bush has been tracking every phone call made by every person in the United States, or at least those made by ATT&T and Verizon customers it makes you wonder what’s next? Has Microsoft or Apple collaborated with the NSA to plant spy software into Windows or Apple OS-X? Are they tracking everything we do online? That would be the next logical step in the progression of illegal spying. So I would ask Apple and Microsoft, hopefully before the fact, if they intend to cooperate with the NSA to illegally tap our computers?

It is getting more and more funnier. I mean…NOBODY is raising any voice to stop this?
Everybody is blind? or what?

Cell phones are tied to your identity. Getting a new one won’t do any good.
Social network analysis (a.k.a. link analysis) is used by the FBI when investigating organized crime.
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/aug05/links081805.htm
“”Any kind of number structure data you can get, it will link it together,” said Jack Israel, the FBI’s chief technology officer.”

Do you all not see the evil genius of Bush and his cronies? Just as the Iraq war is an effort to stop terrorists attacking on US soil, the trampling of the constitution and bill of rights is an effort to stop terrorists from attacking us because they hate our freedom. Basically, erode our freedom so that terrorists won’t attack us for it. Like I said, evil genius.

You’ve got to be kidding. Freedom of Speech is our first, and most important right. What’s next? Censorship. Huge parts of articles disagreeing with the Government’s way of running things vanish, singular people who posted to newspapers, letters ot the editor, and even people who voted AGAINST the president end up being slowly ‘corrected’.
Sources are kept silent for a reason. As there IS still respectability in Journalism, despite what some may say. There are still news reporters who go out to inform the public and do not put anyone in danger. There are those that will lay their lives on the line like any in the military.
I suppose there’s still respectability in politics, but after this big brother project, I’m not so sure.

People need to understand the difference between leaking the name of a CIA officer (illegal) and a whistle blower telling the media about illegal activities that our own government is engaged in. There is a big difference. When the media tries to create accountability for our government that doesn’t help our enemies or lead to servicemen being killed. It is the decisions and actions of our own government that is leading to the thousands of dead service men.

“The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers… [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.” –Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632
This standing army is Judith Miller, Fox News and embeded Journalists. It is scary how true his words are today

What so few people ever mention,
and I assume fail to grasp, is
the dangerous precedent this
sets regardless of which side
you are on. Let me explain to
those who don’t seam to be able
to think beyond the end of their
nose. Even IF you trust this
particular administration
establishing the power to
monitor citizens without over
site sets up the potential for
abuse and control, the type of
control that the Nazi
established to take control.
Now!, NOTICE I am NOT calling
this administration Nazis. I am
saying THINK AHEAD, this power
is dangerous because IF someone
were to come into power that was
willing to abuse it without
oversight there is little well
intending people could do
against it.

They know the number not WHO one is calling. If they needed to find out who, THEN they get a warrant. And they can’t listen. Do the numbers folks. We are talking many, many millions of calls.

While it’s certainly easy to condemn government employees leaking classified information, and those employees doing so should have their clearances revoked, one has to look at their motivation. Perhaps concern for the legality of it? Even moreso, one has to look at what the leaked info itself tells us about the activity of our government.
Like it or not, our government is spying on its own people. Period. Bottom line is that this would be wrong to do regardless of the administration, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative. You can say you have nothing to hide, but I doubt you’d really be comfortable with the government listening in on your private conversations regardless of how benign they may be.
How many of those who say the NSA (or CIA or FBI) should be allowed to tap phones have ever had a conversation on the phone that involved private health or sexual matters? How comfortable are you with those conversations being stored by the government and listened to by NSA agents?

I loved this one:
“One of the most sacred responsibilities of the journalist is to report only fact, not supposition, rumor or innuendo. The American press has for far too long adopted the practice of reporting gossip as though it were news, innuendo as though it were fact, and supposition as though it were authoritative analysis. So-called “un-named sources” are not sources at all, they are political hacks and the news media supports these hacks by transcribing their every word and reporting as though it were authoritative, factual, and newsworthy. Frankly, I think the whole lot of you belong in a prison, not the hallowed halls of our Fourth Estate”
Yeah, I would have liked it if the press hadn’t simply repeated all the lies about weapons of mass destruction that the Pres and his crew spouted. I would have liked to have seen some investigation there. Also, it was terrible that they reported as news the baseless innuendo about a connection between Iraq and terrorism. Being as no such connection exists I’m wondering why the supposedly “liberal media” who is hostile to our President didn’t take him to task for such flagrantly misleading statements.
What information has the press leaked that is harming our troops? As far as I can see it the greatest danger to our troops is Donald Rumsfeld. He ignores the advice of generals and sends the troops in in insufficient numbers to do a job that changes every day. They’re not fighting terrorists, they’re fighting guerillas. How the heck could disclosing that the gov’t is tracking reporters phone calls endanger troops?!? Is any action that our President finds annoying sedition and treason?

Ever wonder how many of these comments are planted? I don’t have to wonder – I can see it happening with my own eyes. Amazing that we have low level staffers doing this kind of low-level propaganda, and getting paid for it with your tax money. Kinda makes me feel queasy inside.

More dangerous than terrorism is the threat of an informed electorate. To protect our way of life, citizens have no right to know anything the government is doing, and the government has every right to spy on every American in order to protect this great nation. If anyone bothered to read the U.S. Constitution, they would understand that the purpose of this country is to make the friends and family of the president rich beyond their wildest dreams. The president must be able to hand out no-bid contracts to his corporate sponsors, and to operate with sleazy back-room slush funds, or our nation is at risk. Americans need to shut-up, go shopping, and watch Fox News.

Wow. I don’t know what’s more disturbing, this article or the mis-informed responses claiming that this is the media’s just comeuppance. I didn’t realize our nation was so accepting of totalitarianism.

The people who think this is “good” development to reign in the “traitors” represent that minority of the population who do not really believe in democracy. These people want a police state so that people they don’t like (journalists, political dissidents, homosexuals) can be subjugated.
There is no point in engaging these dangerous authoritarians in debate. The point is to organize to protect our democracy and our liberties from the attacks of these people and their president.

“Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.”
– Spinoza

I cannot believe that there are people who are actually thinking the government has the right to monitor our calls. Dissent is how this great country began. We are FREE to question and challenge. Speak truth to power and a free press if a major part of our freedom.

The Bush administration gets creepier and spookier and more treasonous all the time. I am grateful that every once in a while a major news organizaton still manages to print illustrative of how our nation is lurching toward fascism. Thank you.

The liberal scare mongers never cease to amaze me. I love it when they claim the Bush administration is using information gathered from phone records to suppress dissent. They’ve got to be kidding, the Bush administration has allowed and suffered through more dissent than any other president since Richard Nixon. Remember the GOP convention in New York or how about Cindy Sheehan, who has been following Bush around like a newborn puppy blaming him for everything. President Bush can’t go anywhere without some bozo waving a stupid sign and whining about Iraq. There’s not another president I would trust more with my personal information than Bush. Despite the continued lies from the left, Bush is the most honest president since Harry Truman. What needs to happen is the government needs to catch whoever is leaking this classified info and lock them away for good. The NY Times and the Washington Post think they are doing us such a service by reporting what the CIA and NSA are doing but the only people they are really helping are our enemies. The next time the terrorist are successful at killing thousands more Americans we should take it out on the liberal media for exposing our nation’s security secrets.

When the President and vice president leak information it’s okay. Even thought they are trying to crush critics of their administration. Probably getting people killed in the process.
When the press reports information about secret prisons where we are most likely torturing
suspects. The leakers are considered to be traitors? I would rather be a traitor. We condemn other countries for mistreating or torturing their prisoners. But it’s okay because we are doing it. We should punish the individuals that have committed these crimes in the name of the US; instead of the people reporting it.

Most Germans during the 1930s and ’40s were convinced that shipping Jews and Poles and Gays, etc. was A GREAT IDEA. The Soviet Union supressed it’s people with tales of imaginary capitalist enemies. People spied on their neighbors.
We are almost there. Have a beer, watch the game. It’s almost over.

As a person who believed that the outing of Plame was an immoral and dangerous act, I would say that investigating the leak is a good thing, as long as it is done LEGALLY and ethically. Rooting out whistleblowers of illegal government activities by rifling through databases containing the phone records of all americans seems a *little* different to me. By the way, we all already know who leaked the info about Plame, including Bush, and he doesn’t seem to worried about that leak does he? I just want to mention one more thing that noone seems to recognize. There is no “war on terror”. There is only the worldwide escalation of american military aggression which is justified by the “promotion of terror” by our government. Think about it, if you were Osama, would you be all twisted up over the fearmongering that this government is engaged in? All you have to do is make one attack and then your “enemies” will use it forever to scare their own population, what could be better for you?

Welcome to Fascist States of America

We as citizens must know what our elected government is doing. And we as citizens must defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in particular, or we don’t deserve to remain citizens. Many of the above comments are so misguided and out of touch with what makes this country strong that I wonder how we have managed to survive as a nation and a culture this long.
Blind devotion to a flag or a uniform or a manner of speaking means nothing. Defending the Bill of Rights is where it’s at, this country’s essence. The fourth amendment is at stake here, and that is the thing which I and others served and serve to defend, along with the second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth amendments, et al.
What appalls me is that so many respondents aforementioned sound, unbeknownst to them, like the fascists, communists, monarchists, and nazis who we have fought to defeat these many years, in order to defend this land of liberty. Indeed, give me liberty or give me death! Don’t those words mean anything any longer? You’d sell it all out, give away your rights in a misguided quest to be “safer.”
Go back and read the magna carta, and then read the Constitution, and then read the Bill of Rights, reflect on the fact that I and many other good citizens consider those the basis of our citizenship, and then ask yourself if you are really willing to kick all of that to the curb to allow the present Administration to monitor all of our phone calls, which if it is deemed legal and acceptable could easily lead to a complete lack of privacy, the abrogation of our rights as free Americans.
What I lament the most, though, is that we let fear-mongers come between us. The Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Germans have all waged war upon us in the past, and we have faced them down. Now, a relative handful of extremists, poorly organized and without real resources, can’t hope to put asunder the USA. We can defeat them easily, and United we will.
Unless a lot of worried internal extremists convince us to give up the rights we have husbanded down through the generations, convince us to give up our freedoms, among them the right to bear arms. This would open us up to harm from within, the beginnings of a new fascist state.
I say, have some confidence in this land and its principles. In our toughness. A few Islamic extremists are a problem that must be dealt with, but not a threat which should cause us to abrogate our rights under the Constitution. Truth and openness are what we should fight for always, and honesty in government. The press should be able to go about its business, and reporters should never have to worry about their phone lines being tapped, if they are acting under constitutional guidelines and the rule of law, as they pursue that truth and openness in government.
If you disagree with this, then say so, and reflect that your right to do so is writ down in the Constitution that you seem so eager to denigrate.
Wake up America. Freedom! Liberty or Death! No tapping of phones without court-approved warrants. That is what I will fight for, along with Brian Ross’s right to do his work in an honest and legal way. Brian, you have my thanks. Keep at it.

America is in a sorry state. I can’t believe that we have lost our way to such a degree that asserting basic freedoms can be portrayed as a treasonous act. We have grown lazy and ignorant. Is there any hope that pragmatism, individuality and open intelligent dialogue may once again become part of the political fabric? They should have hung Thomas Paine and submitted to the rule of a divinely appointed autocrat. 230 years wasted.
Should I be afraid that I must submit my email before posting?

Ed said: “His job is not made easier by the political left; they have always been a noisey bunch that seeing conspiracies everywhere. This stems all the way back to the Vietnam War. The whole reason we lost that war was due to the fact that the politicians running the war lost their resolve due to the bosterious left and all their antics.”
No. Not at all, and don’t you think you should have a clue what you are talking about before doing so? The Vietnam War was lost because our policy was to kill everyone, and forcibly expell whoever was left from their homes (Strategic Hamlet Program). The communist’s strategy, as always, was to garner the support of the peasants. We stomped communism into Vietnam because the insane morons we elected at the time had the resolve to think killing everyone would get anything accomlished. And who were those leaders? The worst president ever, LBJ, and the current president’s role model, Nixon.

Those of you who are so eager to demonize the press should bone up on the very basis of our society: the U.S. Constitution.
The First Amendment say…”Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of…the press.”
Under our form of democracy a free press was seen by the founders as essential. You may want to ponder why.

People (some) here are the epitome of Orwellian doublethinkers. “I’ll give up my liberty for freedom.” Wake up people.
“His mind slid into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and the Party (BushCo) was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the time it was needed, and then to promptly forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed.”
Orwell ‘doublethink’
Mindless, thoughtless, robotic, herded sheep…..the other 29%.

Patriot said it right! These comments where people are praising the government and saying that the press should be put in jail for life are low level government employees that have been paid to post these things. It is part of the Homeland Security Act. It is the war on terrorism to control the flow of information on the internet. It is disturbing how sophomoric their postings are. You can identify them everytime. Just rantings with no real gist.
Everything we are hearing is just the tip of the iceburg. The U.S. might appear to be a lamb but in fact speaks like a dragon. The fact is that this is not a free country anymore…no more so at least than the old Soviet Union. I am terribly afraid that things will only get worse…much worse.

Our government was founded on the principle of checks and balances. The creators of this system understood that a system left unwatched or unbalanced is a system that has no measure of control over it. Imagine a totalitarianistic United States of America – it’s not hard if you try. Our basic liberties were secured by people who broke the law in the face of the King of England, and here we are handing those liberties back over to a nameless and faceless entity on a silver platter! Do I believe we need to have secrets, to protect our troops and our civilians? Yes. But should we always assume that the people in charge are doing “The Right Thing” ™? No, and I applaud those individuals who have the gumption to step forward and speak out when something is amiss. I’ve never been a soldier, but I’ve heard of more than one who disobeyed an order, because he knew it was not an order worthy of obeying. I’d give my life for freedom, but I won’t give my freedom up for life.
Ironically, I don’t think most of you even understand what your freedom means! Would you publish to everyone on your block, or in your apartment building, your town or city, every conversation you’ve had with other people? or even just post your phone records for all to see? What about your bank statements, how you spend your money? I think not. Where do you draw the line? How much do you enjoy locking your doors at night, being alone and knowing that no one is listening? Would you allow yourselves to be governed from dawn to dusk in everything you say and do, for fear of being imprisoned for having ideas or notions that might run contrary to the current whims of the people in charge? Would you let yourself be told what to say, what to think, what to eat, how to live, under pain of imprisonment or death? Would you give up the ability to choose what you do, where you do it, and how it’s done in favor of a regime that has made all those decisions for you (and, mind you, not necessary to the benefit of the you or people in general)? Would you stand up and fight for that? Would you be willing to give your life for that?
The road we are on is slippery, and has been getting steeper all the time. And while people are busy being distracted by this war or that issue, this debate or that report, the gears are still turning – things are still happening. The people on the inside, where “We the people, of the United States” cannot go without some special priviledge, are trying their damnedest to protect our freedom, no less than the soldiers who give their lives for this great country. And it is a great country. But it, like all great civilizations, will fall if we do not educate ourselves on the issues at hand. If we refuse to keep watch over our government, we are then no longer in control of our government – perhaps we never were, and it’s just an illusion that is in the midst of dissolving. I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader.
If you all have so much faith in our government “Doing The Right Thing”, perhaps you’d better look again at history, and the history of all the politicians that run around up there. Take a real good look at who is in control, and listen for what they DIDN’T say. You might be surprised what you hear. Sometimes it takes breaking the law to protect the freedom of us all, and those who can’t live with that notion should not have applauded the downfall of Saddam Hussein. China does a pretty darn good job controlling the media, so why are you all complaining about the violations of human rights there? The hypocracy most of you exude is astounding, and terrifying – leaving this country up to such notions as I read here would drive us all right into the heart of what we supposedly do not want: the loss of all our freedoms.

Maybe History is repeating itself. Are any of you fimiliar with “The Law for the Protection of People and the State”? NO? Hmm. Well this law and a few others with similar names were established to restrict the press from “leaking” information to the people that the government thought to be “Confidential” or “secret” or part of “National Security.” Now do you know who passed these laws? Sounds like what our government is trying to do, doesn’t it? It may surprise you then to learn that this law and a few others with like names were the beginning of Hitler’s reign of Terror, which later turned into WWII. The law actually read as follows: “Law for the Protection of People and the State abolishes the following rights: free speech, free press, sanctity of the home, and security of mail and telephone…” NOTE>>> re-read the last bit, mail and telephones are not private. Again, sounds like our government! I have heard people in the past say how they couldn’t believe the German people just let Hitlor do all those terrible things. Well, he didn’t start out killing people. He started out by snooping into people’s lives and stopping freedom of the press. Making arrests and putting people in jail without a trial for national security reasons. And at first, like many of you today with our own government, the people thought he was doing it for their own protection. That Hitlor was doing it for their elected government. I will repeat that for anyone who may have missed it :: The Nazi Party was elected because at first the people thought that he was helping them!! What happens when Bush takes away more rights, puts more people into jail without trial? Will you stand up then? Or, will it be to late, because, like the German people did with Hitlor, you let Bush get to far before you tried to stop him? Will history repeat itself? I guess it depends on how long it takes for the American public to open their eyes and putting a stop to it.

Hmm… I guess my post yesterday never made it on the board. The gist of it was that Bush and his Neo-Con cronies have absolutely played themselves into U.B.L.’s hands by making BinLadin’s dream a reality… we now live in a nation terrorized by our own government.
Oh yeah, and if you have any doubts about terrorists living within the borders of our nation, just google the Bush family’s dealings with the SaudiBinladin group.

Anyone who thinks spying on US citizens is a good idea because ‘an honest person has nothing to hide’ should go live in Saudi Arabia. They agree with you. They also punish criminals in a way that you would likely also agree with. They chop off the hands of shoplifters and behead adulterers. Consequently they have very little of those types of crime. If it isn’t our Bill of Rights and other constitutional freedoms that makes America great, sets us apart from other nations, I don’t know what it is. Anyone who thinks we’d be better off without freedom of the press, or protection from government invasions of our privacy, isn’t thinking like an American. They’re thinking like the very people they hope to be protected AGAINST.
Anyone who supports Bush and his repeated attempts to turn our government into a dictatorship run by decree of the president should save themselves the trouble. Emigrate to one of the middle eastern countries where you will find many others of similar mindset. Let the rest of us keep America American.

This country was fought for and founded to recover and defend individual freedoms. Every drop of blood that fell in freedom’s name is being spat on by “patriots” who believe they are above the law. Our FREEDOM is being spat on by those who insist that domestic surveillance outside the law is legal or in any way acceptable.
Anyone that exposes a threat to or breach of our Constitution should be considered a hero as patriotic as our forefathers. Thus anyone that supports actions that fly in the face of our noble birth as a nation should be considered treasonous. Stop goose-stepping behind this administration and open your eyes to the real threat to America. Our freedoms are being sold and stolen from within.
In addition – why are leaks only a problem when the GOP agenda is exposed but they’re acceptable when trying to sell a war or smear an adversary? Are those opposed to leaking information actively trying to get Rove, Libby, Cheney and W exposed?

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”
– Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”
– Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

The comments posted by a lot of the readers are scarier to me than the news story itself!
Many of you think that illegal government activities deserve greater protection than the constitution. Think about where that road leads.
It must give Bush hope — maybe he’ll be “re-elected” to a third term just as Nixon plotted for himself before his administration imploded. Hell, let’s do away with terms! Long live Caesar W!

i can’t believe my eyes! this is the most incompetent administration, and so-called leader the world has ever known. he is a black mark on our nation’s history. the only dopes still falling for this clown’s B.S. is the religious right. and that’s because they can be scared into doing anything…DOPES!!!

What is this administration protecting, you or itself?
It has broken the law numerous times and hides behind the fear that your enemies are watching. There is no rocket science in saying that you can tap phones, that is why Osama doesn’t use technology.
The torturing of suspects around teh world has been going on for years and has been reported for quite a while too. It just recently came out in the US. Check out this link
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2005
/11/torture_bill.html
This administration has broken all kinds of laws, from exposing spies to illegal tapping, yet I hear how the whistle blowers should be strung up. Wrong, this administration should be strung up. They have deceived its citizens since day 1, and rules by fear ( quite effectively).
Where is there accountability.

[[Let's see: for all of you calling him a Nazi or a fascist, get a clue. The Nazis were socialists, much like today's liberals. It was the National Socialist party. Nice try.]]
No, YOU get a clue. The National Socialist German Workers Party was “socialist” in name only. In reality, it was a partnership between Hitler’s authoritarian nationalists and the nation’s most prominent industrialists. That’s “fascism,” for all those who weren’t out back smoking dope during middle-school history.

Collecting records of calls does not provide any information whatsoever about the content of calls, for starts. Hence it is useless for preventing terrorist attack. Secondly, warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act are relatively easy to get. The only real function of collecting who’s calling what number is for after-investigation or for collecting blackmail information. “Do you want us to tell your wife you’ve been calling Trixie? Or do you want to give us your boss’ files?”
The largest threats to liberty come from those who are willing to do anything at all to protect it, including destroying it.

It doesn’t matter what any of us crow right now.
Senators say they know the full scope, and are ok with. Polls show for some odd reason that the nation is split again on the issue.
(Good job bush)
When it comes down to it, Bush is supreme ruler, no longer a US President. He’s commander of everyone now, he has the power.
The NSA can do whatever it wants and if we don’t agree, or Senators… he’ll point a finger at laws passed and say he’s immune.

The government has hit a new low in attacking the fundamental values upon which this country was based. Let’s recap shall we?
We have a Born Again Christian leader who follows none of the teachings of Christ. In fact his actions are an abomination to God.
We have a man who has sworn to uphold the rights and freedoms of every citizen while he does everything in his power to take them away.
A man who took an oath on the Bible to uphold the constitution and yet lies and subverts at every turn in order to render it a useless piece of paper.
The freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the rights of the individual, the sanctity of our very way of life. These are the things that have been, and are being openly attacked by the Bush administration from behind a shield of lies and fear.
This is not a man to be honored. He has no honor or dignity himself. Why should we give him any? The freedom of the press and of the individual are now at stake. It’s time for this administration to be held responsible, before it’s too late.

To those of you who say that they have done nothing wrong:
Remember the Jews? What was their crime? How about the Armenians, Cambodians, Macedonians, Timorese, Rwandans, Polish, Arabs, Ethiopians and even Blacks in this country? What were their crimes? Their only crime was not being the ones in control of their government.
What do they all have in common? They were the downtrodden and poor, the oppressed and under-represented poor. They had no one to speak for them and no value in the eyes of the rich. As long as our government is married to the corporations, and the rich, WE are at risk of becoming the next victims of our own placidity.
The Germans were extremely efficient at keeping detailed records of the associations of their citizenry also. This information only serves as a tool for government to control people.
Think of how much information the government has on each of you…
Everything you have purchased with a credit card.
Every phone call you have ever made, to whom and for how long.
Every word of every email and fax you have ever sent.
Every medical record and immunization.
Every class you have ever taken, every book you have read.
Every web site you have ever been to.
All this and more is available to them without warrant and without oversight.
Of course you don’t mind if they tap your phones, you are already under their control.
It is the people who still want the ability to make choices who are worried about the liberties they have lost. You are sheep, you eat what you are told, go where you are told, and die when you are told. Perhaps sheep do not see the fences around them either.
To those of you who feel that this information is too extensive for the government to datamine, you are fools. The personal computer you use today has the ability to keep track of billions of pieces of information, if you so desired. Do you think that the government does not have the ability to track trillions of pieces of information? They have programs which allow them to track voice conversations and pick out keywords in language, “tagging” the conversation for human review. They use it to track calls in foreign countries now, who knows where else they use it?
To those of you that agree, I ask you “What have you done to change our government? How have you made a difference?”
Posting in a blog will not change anything. Railing against the tyrannical will not stop them, they cannot hear you in their lofty towers.
Something more is needed…

Those of you asking for a government policed only by itself deserve exactly what you are asking for. I pray fervently that you get to someday live under such an arrangement. Perhaps it will make genuine patriots out of you.

Geeze people, how can you be so credulous? All those pro gov’t comments at the top were posted by the same person. All seconds apart. What are the odds there would be seven anti free press comments in a row when the entire remaining thread is the exact opposite? Haven’t you picked up by now that the entire conservative/republican M.O. is deciet and dishonesty? Lies and deception? This was just another minor example.
The current admin are not Republicans. They are not conservatives. Heck, they aren’t even Americans. They are just criminals whose only goal is to divert as much of the pubic purse into the pockets of their croney’s as is possible. No matter what the cost to our military, our society, our freedoms. But I certainly agree with the poster who said the the media shouldn’t come crying now. If they had done their job when we needed them, we wouldn’t be at this point.

To all of you self-proclaimed conservatives lemmings who flocked here to post your negative opinions and voice your support for the president’s policies. I have a few words for you, not that I expect you to understand them fully.
While you may assert that there is in fact no such thing as a journalist-source privilege under current federal law, your collective shortsightedness and lack of ethics prevents you realizing that these wiretaps are nothing but a witchhunt to find and punish those whistleblowers for exposing illegal or potentially illegal actions taken by our administration.

I find many of the comments here disturbing to say the least. This country was founded upon certain freedoms and rights. Each of them support the others to guard against tyranny. For one to suggest that it is ok to relinquish some of them in order to obtain some degree of imaginary security is crazy.
We have whistle blower protection laws to protect those who come forward with cases of gevernment misconduct. To punish the messenger who brings a valid case is counter productive to a democratic state. If however, a person comes forward with an unfounded claim, they should be punished for such. It has to work both ways. Every case brought forward by a whistle blower should be thoroughly investigated, and if justified the perpetrators punished. If it is not a valid case the whistle blower then loses his protection under the law and is therefore open to prosecution.
This is how the system is set up to protect us all. To suggest that all whistle blowers should be tried for treason is not even an option under the law.
We have these laws to protect us from a government run amok and they are needed not more than any time in the past 30 years.
Richard Nixon was impeached for far less than George Bush has accomplished, where is the outcry for our country?

It seems people miss the point. If the government destroys confidentiality agreements between sources and media, the media is, in effect, hog-tied.
The media is not here to cheerlead government efforts under some vague guise such as national security.
If some Americans don’t wake up soon, they will find that they live in a dictatorship where national security and terrorism are nothing more than buzzwords used to keep the populus in line.
Suggested Reading: 1984 by George Orwell.
Suggested Viewing: Brazil, a Terry Gilliam film

God Bless America ! and our Valiant Leader … President George W BUSH !!!

Keeping it simple and Plain. If what the government is doing is Illegal. Prosecute, Convict and Sentence ANYONE who took part in this so called “Data Mining” AKA: SPYING.
If you are trying to tell me that the government feels it’s neccessary to spy on EVERYONE in America for the sake of National Security…You’re wrong.
If this is the only solution the Bush administration has to offer. I say gather them ALL up and Give them ALL the Pink Slip.
Lets think about this. The administration Lied and got caught. The Administration torchered prisoners and got caught. The administration is playing a game that obviously is OUT OF THEIR LEAGUE.
So get these wanna be Historic Legacy clowns out of office and elect someone who has both the Knowlege and INTEGRITY to address and resolve these “National Security” issues.
This administration is using the Fear Factor. They tried it on the rest of the world and failed. So it seems that they will use it on American Citizens. What a shame it is to be a leader who cannot LEAD. In my opinion the best way to insure “National Security” Is for the current Administration to resign. Collin Powell knew that he was amongst a bunch of TRUE Idiots and he did the right thing. He got out. Furthermore, we have a problem with Illegal Immigration. Bush’s solution: Hire 6000 more people to police the borders and have the national Guard assist but not enforce. My solution: If you get caught trying to sneak into the USA. You go to jail and the illegal immigrants country will get the bill for his incarceration. I read a story not too long ago about how the NYPD hired an illegal as a Police Officer. Lets stop this madness and send a STRONG message to the Politicians That we will Prosecute, Convict and Sentence any Elected Official who abuses the PRIVALEGE to represent the People Of The United States Of America.

All you people who want journalists to be prosecuted and sent to prison for releasing classified information…it’s not going to happen. Unless the information released puts our nation in “clear and present danger” a journalist, nor his or her source, can be prosecuted for releasing such information.
The media does not always do a good job of reporting acurate news, i.e. FOX News, but there are still thousands of journalists out there who are just trying to give information to the public that the government itself is denying us. We have a right to know what the gov’t is doing and what they intend to do. We also deserve to know what is truth or lies.
These journalists are just doing their jobs…and might I say…doing it well.
Kudos to all you journalists out there!

I’m not sure which disturbs me more… that the Bush “We are a nation of laws” Administration has turned this country into the very thing that the founding fathers saw fit to succeed from England over, or the fact that the media has been entirely complicit in allowing it to happen by not allowing for any public debate over the matter. The ironic thing is that it is the same said media that is amongst the first to get bit in the rear-end by their lack of action. As a few other comments suggested, maybe this will finally serve to be a wake-up call.

You have to be ready to die for freedom or you will lose it.
You have a free will. You can do what you want. Ask youre soul and you will get ansers from god.

I wonder which Republican party interns are recruited to type this stuff, and do their fingers get tired?

I cannot believe the amount of people who agree with what the government is doing. To say they are doing this for our own good is ridiculous. And these zealots who think that sacrificing our freedom and liberty for security are sadly mislead. The government isn’t doing this for freedom. They’re doing it to reign us ALL in…not just the press. Left to thier devices it’s only a matter of time before free speech zones and internment camps for dissenters are the norm….YIKES! Be vigilant fellow Americans. Big Brother is watching and LISTENING to you.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
quote by Ben Franklin

Yet another leak to the media from a nameless “senior federal law enforcement official”.
This is cute: “Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.”
Uh, no — under Supreme Court ‘guidelines’ dating from 1979. And under Bill Clinton’s ‘guidelines’ from the 1990s. You could look it up and spare us some bias.
IF you’re being investigated, it’s because IT IS A CRIME to reveal classified information. And it’s a crime because you HELP OUR ENEMIES by betraying this information to them.
How about if you media types stop, you know, publishing classified information? It’s like you WANT us to lose.

anyone who thinks that this is fair should be prepared to post their personal information for all of us to see so that we can in exchange help out our beleagured intelleigence officials by surveilling them

Big brother will keep listen to unprotected cellular communications for many years to come regardless of all the public attention. If you want to protect your information you can use powerful new technolgies that can prevent eavesdropping on cell phones. You can visit http://www.snapdefense.com and check out solutions that are in-use today by military and private organizations who want to keep their communications secure and private.

Yet another leak to the media from a nameless “senior federal law enforcement official”.
This is cute: “Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.”
Uh, no — under Supreme Court ‘guidelines’ dating from 1979. And under Bill Clinton’s ‘guidelines’ from the 1990s. You could look it up and spare us some bias.
IF you’re being investigated, it’s because IT IS A CRIME to reveal classified information. And it’s a crime because you HELP OUR ENEMIES by betraying this information to them.
How about if you media types stop, you know, publishing classified information? It’s like you WANT us to lose.

What everyone who thinks this is a good thing fails to mention is what is being leaked. What is being leaked is other crimes: Torture, outing CIA operatives, warrantless wiretapping and phone record collecting, violations of the first amendment.
Yes, leaking classified information is a crime, but when the classified information itself constitutes a crime, a leak is thereby justified.
Have you people no conscience? No morals? You must weigh which crime is worse, leaking information, which in this case, gives absolutely no aid to our enemies, or allowing some of the most sacred precepts of our country. Which is less patriotic? Betraying a commander in the wrong, or allowing such crimes to continue?
The thought that we should obey leaders regardless of whether or not they are right or wrong is very ignorant.

Did you notice the large volume of support for the government that followed the first people who disagreed with the spying? If you’ve ever read ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’ from the PNAC, or been keeping up with news about spying for national security, you’ll find that the government considers the internet to be a weapon that needs to be controlled. Brian hit it right on the mark when he called these guys government paid writers. In a few exercises if I remember correctly, these same people led a fake assault against high traffic blogs in order to control information and influence opinion. Is every person who agrees with spying an agent? Certainly not, but it helps to be aware that major blogs ARE being targeted and infiltrated.

Does anyone know how many cellphone calls are made in one 24 hour period in the mainland US? What about emails, faxes, land-line calls? Heck, parents can’t even keep up with their kids calls. Maybe this could solve our unemployment problems. We would have to hire a crapload of people to keep up with all this data!!! JMHO

I want to thank abc news for this forum, it has been a very insightful read…….

“Um, who is planting the comments above?”
Like I said, people paid by the government to attacks widely read blogs. They’ve done exercises with this before, and seem to be doing it now.

I can’t believe every single American reading this report isn’t scared by it.

Meanwhile, General Hayden is taking the stand and claiming that the NSA’s warrantless recording of phone calls is strictly to target terrorists and Al Quaeda. Same thing that our President claimed. Obviously, they are both compulsive liars; the information is being used to maintain secrecy, and target those who reveal inconvenient truths about this administration.
It is all a page from the playbook of Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, who said
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Cheers to you, ABC, if Bush & co consider you to be enemies of the state, you must be doing something right.

I want to thank abc news for this forum, it has been a very insightful read……

I’m shocked at the number of negative responses.
I have to say, the press has itself to blame. It let democracy slip away. It let all this happen.
Now, public sentiment has had seven years to degenerate into this – accusations of sedition against the press.
American journalists need the three networks and the White House Press Corps to be leaders. It is necessary to turn the tide, as otherwise any attempts would be crushed. We would be behind you, but instead, you have been staring at a cup of cold hemlock for six, seven years, too chicken to drink it.
Never in my life have I heard members of congress complain that the press is too passive. Is it unprecedented? Could be. It is truly pathetic, truly shameful. Careerists who rose on a feeder system of news outlets that are increasingly corporate and consolidated, that reward careerism and punish true community service, lead to this. Rosters at the biggest outlets full of cowards with no moral bearings, no ethics, no sense of duty. That’s what you get.
Brian, there you have it. You are screwed but fight the good fight and best of luck.
Going back to potted plants wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I am amazed at the people who believe the media are somehow playing into the hands of the enemy by doing their jobs. It is useless for us to combat an enemy who seeks to deny our liberty when we lose ourselves from the inside. When we shackle ourselves in the name of protecting our liberties, we have already lost. It’s then just a question of which power-monger gets to run the jail.
May the media, flawed as it is, continue to keep the spotlight of accountability on those who would claim the responsibility of government. As Mark Twain is reputed to have said, “Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”

There are many, many other ways other than bombing a federal building or crashing a plane somewhere to commit an act of terrorism.
Where nobody is watching. I won’t list all of the ways , because that could give potential terrorists ideas, but with enough creativity, they can attack anywhere. Surveylance won’t help there – unless it’s extreme sureylance, the kind that requires literally every person to be stopped and searched.

I believe when something is wrong it should be leaked. These organiztions have people with consciences and they should be rewarded for leaking info that is taking away our freedoms. The government is of, for and by the people. We didn’t vote to make Bush king or czar. I don’t want to wake up tommorow and find out we are under communism because we needed protection against the stupid terrorists. For heavens sake we haven’t been protected since 9-11 at our borders or our seaports. What is wrong with you guys????

The real problem is that our enemies have a right to hate us/Israel. If there were public support for this war we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Garbage in Garbage out
It’s nice to know that the REAL bad guys just have to call wrong numbers every few calls to throw off the fed’s data and implicate innocent people. Have you ever gotten a wrong number or dead air call. Hope it ‘s an honest mistake and NOT a terrorist. As with all data collecting garbage in garbage out.

Either shut up and sit down or do something about it. Next time the opportunity arises to vote, do it. This country abdicated its right to free speech when most decided it was not worth the effort to vote. Make your voice heard any way you can.

Shouldn’t the they be looking for terrorists instead of reporters. I believe most of that would take field work which this countries security are not equipped to do. They either are not trained, dont speak the language, have no contacts or are have poor leadership. Lets look for the bad guys not at reporters.Some of that Pentagon money should be going to the CIA to better equip them to focus outward towards real threats.

As if this story isn’t chilling enough, what is even more frightening is the number of responders posted here who ‘kill the messenger’ and ignore the horrors, ramifications, and CRIMINAL behavior of this KGB method practiced against citizens, including the Fifth Estate. Note that very, very few among those who condemn ‘anonymous’ sources have the courage of conviction to post their full names, thereby remaining ‘anonymous’ critics. The Bush Administration has done everything within its power to relegate the Constitution to the function of toilet paper. Fundamentalist judges indeed! Contra-Constitutionalists is more apt. This administration is putrid with corruption, criminality, and fascist (YES! Look it up!) activity. And they call themselves people of Christ and true Americans!?! Generations will be necessary to toil tirelessly to repair the devastation wreaked against the United States of America by the coven of Bush / Cheney demons , if enough bones and sinews and soul remain to restore.

We the people…are to blame the facts have been there the whole time but We the people …were content to be spoonfed our info and fear and now We the people are left without the rights Americans before us died for and the whole point of America in general.

Poster chartsand said:
“I see no need to worry, as a private citizen, because I know I have done nothing wrong – have you?”
Chartsand, how can you be so naive?
“Wrong” is a very subjective concept and is totally dependent on who’s deciding what “wrong” is.
Additionally, everyone, EVERYONE, has done something they’d rather no one know about. Recreational drug use or drinking, nasty personal habits, marital infidelity, dishonesty, unusual sexual practices,seeking information about obtaining an abortion, making dishonest excuses to a creditor(lying to avoid bankruptcy), etc, etc. I wonder how many of the extremely small range of examples i’ve given might be prosecuted if “accidentally” captured by the NSA and “shared” with other law enforcement agencies under our govenments new and novel constitutional interpretations?. I don’t know and neither does chartsand or anyone else. Why? Because the Catch-22 is that we are not allowed to know anything being done in our name for national security reasons and therefore can’t protest what we don’t know.
When citizens must substitute speculation for knowledge of the domestic workings of their government, then something is undeniably wrong.
I agree that, by and large, the press are a bunch of elite, supercillious, overpaid, vain, selfish, and self centered idiots. I work in the television news business. But you can’t chuck one group to the dogs because it’s expedient without putting everyone else at risk. If it’s ok to punish this press because you don’t like how they act then you open the door to future press purges based on entirely different metrics as to what constitutes a “good” press. We have to live with the Rushes and O’Reillys as well as the …. well, sorry can’t really think of a rabidly left wing news personality currently on the scene, but if there were one, then he or she.

Just to clarify. A leaker is someone who says something that actually harms us. A whistle-blower is some one who reports an injustice or abuse of power. Dick Cheney/Scotter Libby/Carl Rove are a leakers. The person/s who told us about the ilegal phone and data monitoring/illegal prisons in foreign conutries/etc. is a whistle-blower. If it weren’t for whistle-blowers we wouldn’t know about things like Big Tabacco’s cover up of the addictive properties of nicotine, Richard Nixon’s corruption, or corruption of any kind anywhere.
The truely sad angle of this story is that the Media does a very poor job of investigating or doing any sort of repsectible job covering any story. They fail to ask the important questions of the current administration. Were are the journalistic heroes like Edward R Murrow?

Anyone who believes that the government will use the tracking of reporters’ phone calls only benevolently, to “protect us from terrorists”, has the critical faculties of a child.
Nixon alone proved that those in power can, and will, act out of self-interest, breaking the law and setting themselves above it in the process.
Far beyond any real actions that might be taken, the chilling effect this will have on both sources and reporters is mind-numbing.
For all the scorn people have for “the media”, without them, what way do we have to know what’s really going on? When there is spiritual wickedness in high places, it must be seen, or else it cannot be combatted.
Lincoln said that the dead of Gettysburg “gave the last full measure of devotion” “that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” The same is true for our dead in Iraq and Afghanistan–and all our wars and conflicts. Without an effective, independent media, “government of the people by the people for the people” is an impossible joke. A crippled media is one more step in the direction of all those lives being lost in vain. Is that really the America we want?

our government(ha ha) if they can spy on the people why cant we spy on them??? like you said if you have nothing to hide what the big deal.

Get angry.
Who is Congress listening to? It is time to make certain Congress listens to you
power of the press

In Soviet America you don’t play the game, the game plays you.

Thank you for your reporting.
Like yourself, my daughter works as a reporter. Free to write the truth because of the lst amendment.
I believe it’s shameful and disturbing that there are fellow citizens who find this spying acceptable. Possibly when we go into marshall law will they get it. How many of our freedoms need to be incremently taken away?
Please continue to bring us this news on our “national security”.

It might be of some interest for you that the European Union (precisely and ironically, the Committee of the European Parlaiment for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs) recently has set a directive enforcing the EU national gvts. to collect and retain *every* contact information (mail, phone, internet traffic) during one year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Telecommunications_data_retention).

Politicians cannot hide their criminal behavior under the veil of “national secrecy”. If a government employee is asked to break the law by a politician, it is their duty to disclose details to the public and law enforcement.
The discussion shouldn’t be about how the story broke… the discussion should be about what laws were broken, what damage was done, how the politicians will be brought to justice and what can be done to prevent illegal behavior by politicians in the future.

“WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”
Get it and fight back. It’s time.

this is how the game goes there are not enough spys as normal free loving people ,dont get scared,thats how big brother works all an illusion to scare us

Bush is doing what is ness to protect us. The Dems and their mouth piece, the flamin’ media is all at fault. God Bless the U!S!A!

Historicaly politicians lie. The government lies. The president lies.
Be true to yourself is an aspect for good self esteem. That means do not lie to your self. Beleive the politicians and your are now lying to yourself. Believe the lies and you are ignorant(a useful idiot) or knowingly mislead (a useful idiot).
Think, don’t believe anything you hear or think you see. Do not believe lies. Do not tell lies. Do not gossip. Do not believe superstitions. Because when you believe unquestioningly you lie to you. You are a piece of God. Do not lie to God.
Thank You, my brothers.
Alejandro Garcia

“Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
- Benjamin Franklin

i dont like how the government spys and listens to our conversations and i dont think that he would like us listening in on his conversations. and i dont like how he spys with camera’s.

i dont like how the government spys on you all the tme and he can when ever he wants. and i dont think that he woudl appreshiate if we did that to him.

I am the government. I am the dictator of the United States of South America. I am The Man. I am darkness. I am the night. I. Am. BATMAN!!!

I can’t be bothered with anything these days, but such is life. I don’t care. So it goes. More or less nothing seems worth thinking about. I’ve just been hanging out waiting for something to happen, but that’s how it is.

How many native-born American citizens have been arrested on American soil and held in solitary confinement with no access to counsel or family or any human contact FOR YEARS?
And how many people did this happen to under Clinton?
And to how many of us right here right now will it happen to in the future?
I never thought I’d live in a world where I seriously wondered about the answers to these questions….

Hi:
I have been reading most of the posts here.I’m not f