Comments on: GOP skepticism over NSA program widens

A New Hampshire senator questions whether feds should use resources to assemble vast databases of Americans' phone calls.

[markdoiron]

NSLs Easy?

"...they could have "easily" used National Security Letters under the Patriot Act to obtain phone records."

If it was so easy, why not do it and avoid the negative ramifications of not doing so (especially after the Quest lawyers considered the request illegal)?

mark d.

[Mystigo]

NSLs are not easy

> If it was so easy, why not do it?

Because it is not easy. The senator is lying.

From the ACLU site: "Before the Patriot Act, the FBI could use
NSLs to obtain records concerning suspected terrorists and
spies. The Patriot Act amended the law to allow the use of NSLs
to obtain information about anyone at all".

The NSL statute has been successfully challenged at least once
in court in 2004. So it is already on shakey ground at best when
used narrowly as intended. The FBI could not issue 10s or 100s
of millions of NSLs for every individual citizen known to own a
phone. Nor could they issue one blanket one that simply
specified "everyone with a phone". It could not possibly
withstand judicial scrutiny when used to go on a widescale
domestic fishing operation that has as its target "everyone with a
phone". Unless of course the judiciary is stacked with
conservative partisans. But that is a different issue to be
lamented years from now.

[JackfromBerkeley]

Republicans -- Help Us Save US from YOU

People of good conscience, regardless of party -- we must Remove
the Cancer. Get Cheney First! Fitzgerald will take him down over
the Plame affair. That leaves the president, who should be
impeached for each of his illegal power grabs. Where are the
patriots when you need them?

[robot999]

We're Still Here

We are here...on the internet. They fear us (believe me), and
want to regulate speech on the internet because it is much more
difficult to control than the media. What do I mean? I'm talking
about Net Neutrality! I'm not one for govt. regulations, but I'm
all for keeping the internet free from corporate (govt.)
"prioritizing" of content. I urge all readers to fight this battle for
true freedom. Oh, and vote your HEART! Don't listen to them
say you are wasting your vote, it's a scam to get you to think
that there is a difference between democrat and
republican...there isn't... just the rhetoric is different!
VOTE LP www.lp.org

[ajbright]

How many lies does to take to get impeached.

Clinton told a fib about having sex, or rather he said he didn't think that particular act was sex and oh well whatever.

Bush has a list of lies to Congress as long as his pseudo homeland's Great Wall of China.

Look, everyone knows terrorists don't use landlines, they use pre-paid cellphones, they're untrackable, untraceable and unwiretappable.

So all this crap about needing this or that for national security is just another of Comrade Bush's lies to the American people.

My suggestion is rather than investigate the NSA thing (they'll just kill it by denying clearance to the relevant paperwork anyway, like they did with the Justice Department's wire tap investigation), why not find out how a team of ex-Soviets in collusion with Red China have managed to replace our entire Administration and the nation's Attorny General with communist clones..

Oh well, I suppose the alternative would be to let Bush know this was not what we meant when we asked for more intelligence in the White House..

[robot999]

Legal, Moral?

Look guys and gals. I keep hearing that this "spying" is LEGAL!
OMG, do you realize what this means!?!? In my mind it means
that our constitution is being used as toilet paper by the traitors
in D.C. The bottom line is the Traitor Act (Patriot) is
unconstitutional. The 4th amendment (along with others like
the 1st and 2nd) are and have been under attack! Why can't
others see this outrage. Not many people seem to care? Heck,
most people have not even "analyzed" the events of 911 to see
what really happend! I'm seriously considering leaving the US
out of FEAR! Seriously what is next, tanks in the streets?
Sorry for the rant, but this is getting crazy! IMPEACH BUSH
NOW!
And vote LP www.lp.org

[CBSTV]

a meek response so far

It will take much more than a few Congressmen speaking out to
scuttle the Federal government's domestic spying programs. Is
America sufficiently outraged to take action?

[davaal]

nothing new

this is nothing new. its been done before.

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
- Adolf Hitler

i'm sick of you cowards letting the Bushies scare you into complying with his Twerror alert BLue-Greens and theats that an attack might happen today, maybe, kinda...

have some respect for yourself. whats worse: the chance that another 3000 out of 26million people might die or living in a world akin to a bad sci-fi movie.?

the sickening part is that Bush is a moron. no one with his limited intelligence should have the final say on what happens in this country. its scary that he's the only person between Cheney and world domination. maybe after we've lost enough troops, and arrested enough innocent people and TORTURED them, you silly bastards will step up.

i've been to Iraq - their phones arent taped.

[aabcdefghij987654321]

CNET liberal bias

Has CNet become yet another liberally biased news organization pushing special interest stories as if they were "news"? The vast majority of right thinking Americans fully support the limited domestic surveillance that is being used to identify and capture terrorists. A couple of extremist members of the GOP hardly discredit this important work.

[JackfromBerkeley]

liberal media bias a fascist myth

Fascists have the media here in Amerika. It's the billionaire's boys
club. Freedom of the press only exists in the UK anymore. I like
The Economist weekly and the Financial Times daily newspapers.
They are both as unbiased as can be found on this planet at this
time. Hooray for them.

[bemenaker]

Time to grow up

Uhm, that old STUPID argument of a liberal media has been dead and buried for about 15 years. There is NO liberal mainstream media. In fact, the media these days is very conservative, sensationalistic, but conservative. Where were all you (liberal media) whiners when the media was more concerned about telling us who was giving Pres. Clinton a BJ instead of actually reporting on the work he did in office.

If we had a liberal media, the press would have been asking Pres. Bush *** he was thinking on Day 1 of talk about Iraq, but no, they just towed the line. Didn't want to be called a commie by Bush.

There is no such thing as liberal MSM anymore, there are academic studies out there on the Net that prove this statement. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, turn off Foxnews, and do some research of your own. You want to see liberal media, try following European news for a while.

In fact, why don't you read news from Europe, and from Asia, and from Al-Jezera, (the english version, which is seperate from the all arabic version). The more you read, the clearer the picture becomes.