Dec. 17, 2005 - 19:45 MST

DTs

According what the newspaper says the torture ban has passed, (subject to correction - see tomorrow's news). And the Patriot Act seems to be an item of snarl and haggle, outcome still in doubt.

Now inserted in the mass of mess is an article discussing another matter -- but closely tied to the Patriot Act and its powers.

The article by Katherine Shrader of the Associated Press in today's Rocky Mountain News. Quoted in full (italics and bolds mine):

FOCUS IS ON NSA'S POWER

Some lawmakers want probe into eavesdropping

WASHINGTON -- "Dismayed lawmakers demanded on Friday that Congress look into whether the highly secretive National Security Agency was granted new powers to eavesdrop without warrants on people inside the United States."

"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He promised hearings early next year."

President Bush refused to discuss whether he had authorized such domestic spying. Saying that to comment would tie his hands in fighting terrorists."

"Nor would other officials confirm or deny whether the nation's largest spy agency was permitted to gather communications from Americans under a presidential directive signed in 2002."

"Instead they asserted in careful terms that the president would do everything in his power to protect the American people while safeguarding civil liberties."

"I will make this point," Bush said in an interview with The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,"That whatever I do to protect the American people -- and have an obligation to do so -- that we will uphold the law, and decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people."

"The program, first disclosed by The New York Times, is said to allow the agency to monitor international calls and e-mail messages of people inside the United States. But the paper said the agency would still seek warrants to snoop on purely domestic communications -- for example, Americans' calls between New York and California."

"I want to know precisely what they did," Specter said."

"Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he wanted to know exactly what is going on before deciding whether a probe is necessary."

"Theoretically , I obviously wouldn't like it," he said of the program.

"Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a member of the Judiciary Committee, said, "This shocking revelation ought to send a chill down the spine of every American."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

? "To protect the American people," or to protect bureaucratic jack boots and corporations ?

Seems to me that there are more holes in the dikes than there are fingers to plug them. I am beginning to wonder just how many more secret things were done, directed or red taped after 9/11 that will come back to bite us in the tochus later on ? The machinery is being put into place that could make fearful slaves of all of us, if misused.

It appears to me that we have on our hands an interwoven, overlapping blanket of secrecy which could allow American citizens to be wide open to governmental persecution by unscrupulous administrators.

Who are the people who are seeing snakes, evil things ? Just who has the DTs . . . . . . . . . .

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