FISA Delays

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnel's statements about FISA delays and the need for sweeping new powers continue to be fact-challenged, as Spencer Ackerman and Pamela Hess at the AP confirm.

Comments

The NSA doesn't need a FISA warrant to monitor foreign communications. It has never needed a warrant to monitor foreign communications. Repeat 4 brazilian times. These guys are either lying or incompetent beyond belief.

I regularly get the feeling looking at these guys that I'm seeing a prelude to the ooky future history book photographs of our era's Goebbels and Hess and such. Friggin' Rove, for example, looks like the fat Nazi from "The Raiders of Lost Ark" (if fat Nazis huffed NO2).

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 28, 2007 1:07 PM

Actually, the AP story is a confusing mishmash that reads like a police interview of a crack addict.

The AP story doesn't explain why surveillance of insurgents in IRAQ was held up by a FISA system that governs surveillance in the USA.

It also doesn't explain why a special request was delayed for 2 hours because it had to go to AG Gonzales --instead of the Justice Department having someone on duty 24/7 to rule on such requests immediately.

It also doesn't explain why such unnecessary clusterfucks are still occurring in the Bush Administration 6 years after Sept 11. Or why Democratic members of the Intelligence Committees aren't loudly criticizing such clusterfucks.

I know, I know. Because Bush classified all details of such clusterfucks and no one can discuss them in public. Which abuse is a major clusterfuck in and of itself that Democrats should also be criticizing.

Since when does Bush and Cheney get decide what a Member of Congress can or can not say re the public interest?

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 1:12 PM

These guys are either lying or incompetent beyond belief. - Jeff Davis

Remember with these people, there is a such thing as strategic incompetence. These people have no interest in being competent, because if they Cheney-up everything, it just gives them more fodder for their arguments -- specifically in this case why FISA is such a hindrance ... and in general, why "gummint doesn't work".

Posted by DAS | September 28, 2007 2:14 PM

Mike McConnel's predecessor as Director of National Intelligence -- John Negroponte -- was wondering around at his son's prep school graduation (the one in New Hampshire) without any protection.

I could have stuck a shiv in the fucker's carotid myself when he walked by with that silly looking hat -- but, as Richard Nixon noted, it would have been wrong.

Plus, I have a real soft spot for anyone who (a) sodomized former HPSCI/ Director of CIA Porter Goss with a telephone pole (b) learned the clandestine arts in the Harkness Club and (c) fucked Jane Harman with an even bigger telephone pole (see FIA recon satellite contract mod).

But Negroponte's unguarded status strongly suggests to me that those in the know aren't that worried about "terrorists". Same for our unguarded southern border. Although certainly some interests are milking this Reichstag Fire for all its worth.

While Negroponte and his son went to the school in New Hampshire, his younger brother attended Buckeley yet turned out well.

Which means there may still be hope for our young Matthew (Dalton). One day he too will have a real job -- instead of his Upper East Side "Gossip Girl" gig here at the Atlantic.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 3:17 PM