Shouldnt Bush be impeached for spying on US citize

[Occhidiangela]

There's been a lot of jibber jabber lately coming out lately rationalizing Bush's "Spying" by claiming that Clinton did the same thing.  Just thought i would clear this up for anyone that is following the whole bruhahah.

What Clinton approved was entirely different than what has happened under Bush (whether Bush broke the law or not).  This is what Clinton signed:
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The key excerpt from above is the "certifications required by that section".  And if you look at what those certifications state you'll find that the only way they can enact these searches is if
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(this link may ask you to make a donation.  just click "no thanks")
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Thank you. Same law being dealt with, not the same article or procedure under the law.

Occhi

[Taem]

This is kind of a mess but. It seems pretty clear they blatently and purposefully broke the law.
I think impeachment is the only way to even hold someone accountable for this.(I could be mistaken of course.)

Clinton was impeached a laughable crime, it would seem rather absurd to let this slide.
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I just read a nice little article that sums up perfectly what I've always thought about the Iraq war and the CIA's involvement. I know this topic isn't "new" news per say (which is why I attached the info. here), but General Mike Hayden worded his speech so eloquently, I felt the need to share it. I was flipping back threw the archives until I came to an appropiate post to hitch this little link onto.

Go, Mike Hayden!
Yesterday in his appearance before the Senate, this active duty general, this high ranking government official, this career intelligence officer, this nominee to be CIA director straightforwardly criticized decisions and actions of the Bush administration, even gingerly suggesting a truth that everyone on the planet except for the occupants of the White House already knows: The Iraq war is a disaster and a diversion undermining and not enhancing any potential American action to stem global terrorism.


Gen. Michael V. Hayden’s refreshing candor in an administration that can not bear to acknowledge any mistakes or take responsibility for any errors makes his unequivocal defense of NSA domestic collection all the more credible.


Let’s hope that the Bush administration comes to rue the day it nominated Hayden to be CIA director.

How many times have we heard a serving Bush administration official actually admit a mistake, criticize a government effort, point to a false direction?


When Gen. Michael V. Hayden called the tenure of Porter Goss at the CIA “amateur hour on the top floor," or when he criticized a Rumsfeld inspired ad hoc intelligence office set up in the aftermath of 9/11 to “find” Saddam Hussein links to al Qaeda and build the WMD case for Iraq, they were small but rare and delicious moments.


Hayden then went on to say that the CIA was bogged down dealing with day-to-day wartime support in Iraq and Afghanistan – the agency has built its largest overseas station in Baghdad since 2003 – saying that much of what the agency is doing could indeed be better done by the military.


The intelligence community, Hayden said, was too focused on the immediate and not enough looking to the future.  It was an ever so subtle criticism of a core Bush administration position that Iraq and Afghanistan are THE fronts in the war on terrorism.  We may have made them that, Hayden seemed to be saying, but throwing the preponderance of resources into these battles merely perpetuates a culture of satisfying immediate needs while neglecting a longer term and broader view of the challenges posed by radical Islam.  Unstated but indisputable is the implication of this view: Our ongoing wars “against terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan are themselves triggers for global animosity and more terror.


It was in particular his response to questions about his criticism of the intelligence shop set up by Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, though, where Hayden provided a glimmer of insight and hope about a better future.


Feith’s small team was let loose to mine every snippet of raw intelligence collected over the years to pull together "every possible ounce of evidence" against Saddam Hussein, and they proceeded to elevate unconfirmed rumor and discredited reporting from questionable sources while dismissing finished analytic products and professional judgments of long-time analysts.


Using this method, Hayden said, it is easy for anyone to build an ugly and convincing case against even the most innocent targets.


"I got three great kids, but if you tell me, 'Go out and find all the bad things they've done, Hayden,' I could build you a pretty good dossier," he said.  "You'd think they were pretty bad people because that's what I was looking for and that's what I built up. That'd be very wrong, OK? That would be inaccurate. That would be misleading."


How much influence Feith’s shop ended up having is still an open question, but the process of demonization had a profound impact.  Prey to a kind of celebrity gossip stream of intelligence and blind to any balanced picture that might suggest a different course of action, the administration convinced itself that containment was not sufficient with Iraq.


Far more importantly, post 9/11, the same mentality has been applied to al Qaeda.  The Bush insiders have lapped up every piece of intelligence affirming a conclusion that terrorists threaten the American way of life, that they are only a hair away from obtaining WMD.


A more balanced assessment might be to conclude that there are only a few thousand terrorists out there, angry, motivated, evil, but not an army worthy of overstatement.  We could create a self-perpetuating intelligence stream that reinforces the notion that we are in a fight to the finish against an implacable America-destroying enemy.  But a more balanced view is that these extremists can be contained and ultimately undermined through a more low key effort, through less rhetoric and more strategy, through less war and more clandestine work, through a quieter, slower, less bombastic effort that doesn’t itself serve as the stimuli for recruitment and expansion of the enemy.


Hayden says he intends to improve CIA clandestine operations while reforming the analytic side of the house.  He pledged to "reaffirm the CIA's proud culture of risk-taking and excellence."  He spoke of reinvigorating the “traditional CIA realm of strategic intelligence” and called for “high-quality all-source analysis"


There was one statement of Hayden’s that I completely disagree with.  It is one that I also think reflects a Beltway attitude of someone who lives in Washington and spends all of his time around the secret world.


Hayden said it was time to move past “the archeology of every past intelligence failure and success," including those related to 9/11 and the WMD intelligence (and other) failures on Iraq.  CIA officers, he said, "deserve not to have every action analyzed, second-guessed and criticized on the front pages of the morning paper."


I disagree.  The nation is confused and highly polarized over these matters and over the real threat of terrorism and what to do about it because the Bush administration itself has been lost since 9/11.  It overreacted to 9/11 itself, imagining that al Qaeda was more of a threat to AMERICA than it really is.  It blinded itself on Iraq, as much misleading itself as the American people about the immediate threat of Saddam Hussein.  It has become bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, as much fighting for American honor of not losing as it is fighting to defeat terrorists.


If Michael Hayden can see the light and make even a small contribution to reversing this course, if he can open up the intelligence agencies just a little to the public, if he can avoid the corrosive effect of responding to every immediate fear and rumor, it he can develop a balanced view of the future freed of a 9/11 and WMD nightmare, he could be the most important government official since the end of the Cold War.

By William M. Arkin |  May 19, 2006; 8:35 AM ET

[Occhidiangela]

I just read a nice little article that sums up perfectly what I've always thought about the Iraq war and the CIA's involvement. I know this topic isn't "new" news per say (which is why I attached the info. here), but General Mike Hayden worded his speech so eloquently, I felt the need to share it. I was flipping back threw the archives until I came to an appropiate post to hitch this little link onto.
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Arkin's disagreement commentary is a crock, typical know nothing tripe. Hayden's assertion that the CIA needs to be doing its work without being on the front page of The Post is dead right. Arkin's assertion that a spy agency can be an open source effort flies in the face of how spy agencies work: they are only effective when you (and most particularly their targets) don't know what they are up to until they have pulled off their missions success.

This puts a great burden on Congressional oversight behind closed doors, which Congressmen and Senators don't like to do. It isn't something they can brag about or point to in public, nor bring up in open debate on the floor of their chamber for money / patronage struggles.

That said, I wonder if Hayden can successfully do what he says needs doing. CIA has become a favorite whipping boy du jour since 9-11, regardless of what Feith, Goss, and others have done to screw up the National Intelligence Estimate. Getting the heat lamp off will require a few hurricanes, so DHS and FEMA can be the whipping boys while Hayden tries to get CIA working at what it used to do pretty well: spying.

I also wonder at the discussion, this late in the game, of the War on Terror being that quiet, long term, low key conflict. That is what I assumed it would be when the term War on Terror was first used, and what it should have been. Quiet knife work, payoffs, et cetera.

Occhi