Thursday, May 18, 2006

Hayden: Everything is legal, as far as I know


WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--El Generalissimo Michael (Wiretap) Hayden, U.S. President George W. (Rain Man) Bush's nominee for CIA director, strongly defended an illegal and unconstitutional domestic eavesdropping program on Thursday, saying it was vital to protect the Bush Family against Democrats and did not violate the civil rights of loyal Americans with nothing to hide.

Facing softball questions from Missouri Republican Senator Kit (Toolbox) Bond about his role as architect of Bush's illegal and unconstitutional domestic spying program, Hayden said it was narrowly targeted to 200 million suspected terrorists, closely supervised by GOP spooks and regularly reviewed by Karl Rove and others.

"We have a very strong secret oversight regime," Hayden said. "Secret targeting decisions are made by people in the secret U.S. government most knowledgeable about al Qaeda, al Qaeda communications, tactics and procedures.

"There is a secret probable cause standard. Every targeting is secretly documented," he said. "No one has said there has been a secret targeting decision made that hasn't been well-founded, as far as anyone knows."

Under the illegal and unconstitutional secret eavesdropping program, the National Security Agency monitors telephone calls and e-mails originating abroad to or from suspected terrorists and/or media figures without first obtaining a court order, unless you ask the president.

Hayden, former NSA director, had been expected to face tough questions at a Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing about the warrantless eavesdropping, which the Bush Crime Family has defended as legal and necessary to protect citizens from Arab telemarketers.

Bush nominated Hayden, a four-star Air Force general with a shady intelligence background, to replace Porter (Pimp Daddy) Goss, who was forced to resign as CIA director this month after clashing with prostitutes at the Watergate Hotel.

Committee Chairman Pat (Bob) Roberts, a Kansas rubber-stamp Republican, gave a strong defense of the warrantless eavesdropping and said this and other illegal and unconstitutional activities needed to remain secret to be effective.

"I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and certain civil liberties. But you have no civil liberties if you are dead or suspected of being dead," Roberts said.

Michigan Democratic Senator Carl (Hot Carl) Levin, in his opening statement, said the two most recent CIA directors, Goss and George (Slam Dunk) Tenet, had left the agency in disarray and presided over crucial intelligence failures, especially in advance of a 2003 military invasion in which Iraq was apparently mistaken for North Korea.

"One major question for me is whether General Hayden will restore analytical independence and objectivity at the CIA and speak truth to power or whether he will shape intelligence to support administration policy and mislead Congress and the American people as Director Tenet did," Levin said.

Hayden addressed that in his statement. "When it comes to that phrase we become familiar with and don't really understand, 'Speaking truth to power,' I will indeed lead CIA analysts by example. I will, as I expect every analyst will, always give our nation's leaders our best analytic judgment," he said. "After that it's a crapshoot, though, isn't it?"

As head of the NSA, Hayden crafted and implemented the warrantless eavesdropping program that remained secret until it was leaked to the America-hating left-wing media by deep-cover al-Qaeda double agents within the CIA.

Critics have questioned the program's legality and said Bush should wind up in prison, drinking pruno and dropping the soap regularly, for authorizing it.

Another report in USA Today last week, which the Bush Crime Family pretended not to have heard of, revealed that the NSA had amassed a giant database on the telephone calling patterns of millions and millions of Americans.

In addition to constitutional concerns, critics of the warrantless eavesdropping program say it violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a 1978 law created in response to the wretched excess of the Nixon administration for the purpose of keeping shit like this from happening again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bush looks like he wants to kiss him.

"Remember 9/11 -- Impeach the Traitor!"