It's hard to overstate the significance of this article in the Washington Times' magazine.
1) The article makes clear that Bush is spying on Americans talking to Americans inside the United States, even when neither of the two Americans are members of Al Qaeda or an affiliate.
That totally contradicts what Attorney General Gonzales told Congress this past week, and what the president has been saying for over a month - namely, that the ONLY phone calls being tapped are ones with one party abroad and one party being a member or agent of Al Qaeda.
The sources provided guidelines to how the administration has employed the surveillance program. They said the National Security Agency in cooperation with the FBI was allowed to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of any American believed to be in contact with a person abroad suspected of being linked to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.2) The article makes clear that Bush's domestic spy program is totally ineffective and unnecessary as Al Qaeda stopped using the phones and email a long time ago.
At that point, the sources said, all of the communications of that American would be monitored, including calls made to others in the United States. The regulations under the administration's surveillance program do not require any court order.
The Bush administration's surveillance policy has failed to make a dent in the war against al Qaeda.3) The article says that the Bush teams knows of specific Al Qaeda members in the US at the moment, but because of Bush's incompetence he has been unable to find them.
U.S. law enforcement sources said that more than four years of surveillance by the National Security Agency has failed to capture any high-level al Qaeda operative in the United States. They said al Qaeda insurgents have long stopped using the phones and even computers to relay messages. Instead, they employ couriers.
"They have been way ahead of us in communications security," a law enforcement source said. "At most, we have caught some riff-raff. But the heavies remain free and we believe some of them are in the United States."....
The assertions by the law enforcement sources dispute President Bush's claim that the government surveillance program has significantly helped in the fight against terrorism. The president said the program, which goes beyond the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, limits eavesdropping to international phone calls.
The law enforcement sources said the intelligence community has identified several al Qaeda agents believed to be in the United States. But the sources said the agents have not been found because of insufficient intelligence and even poor analysis.Rush Limbaugh, FOX News, the right-wing blogs, and the rest of the Republican cheerleading team can all huff and puff as much as they want to defend this president for their own partisan political reasons, but his incompetence is putting our lives, and our way of life, at risk more and more each day. And all the Republicans who voted for Bush can play politics all they want in an effort to cover Bush's ass, but we're talking about our lives here and our future. You voted for this man. Now do something about it.
