Covert CIA Program Continues to Grow Amdst Furor
December 29th, 2005The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to a story to be published in the Friday Washington Post.
GST is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs allowing the CIA to capture suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world, including inside the United States.
Covert CIA Program Withstands New Furor: Anti-Terror Effort Continues to Grow
The maintsream press and broadcast media continue to hit this story around the edges, never quite nailing the story down in a way that will turn the independents and libertarians in a way that will create a sea change in public opinion in this country and save us from Bush-style GOP rule for the rest of our lives.
I wasn’t going to even bother posting this next story, and I won’t include the link, because it would require you to decline no less than 10 cookies to read it. But here’s enough of it to make my point.
United Press International, the old wire service I’ve done a lot of work for over the years, moved a story today that ran on Web sites including Science Today, under the headline:
U.S. divided on Bush’s wiretapping
An online poll published Thursday shows 49 percent of U.S. voters believe President George Bush has authority to order wiretaps without court approval.
The Zogby Interactive poll, taken Dec. 20-21, found 45 percent of those asked say he does not have the constitutional authority.
Bush’s decision to skip getting warrants after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was revealed Dec. 16, and the administration has since been defending the move by saying time was too short to wait for court approval.
The Christian Science Monitor found a similar split on public opinion in interviews in San Diego.
Retired construction worker Robert Hobbs said he isn’t concerned about having his phone tapped.
“If you aren’t going to do anything, you don’t have anything to worry about,” he said.
However, Rosey Bystrak, who works for an architectural firm, disapproved of Bush’s unilateral orders.
“Bush thinks he’s a king and not a president, so it doesn’t surprise me,” she said.
Back during the 1960s, UPI gave the AP a run for it, especially on covering civil rights stories. Now, however, UPI is owned by the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, which also owns the conservative Washington Times.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the story, except that it is incredibly lazy. John Zogby is widely known among academic and journalism circles as a pretty liberal guy and one of the least accurate and trusted national political pollsters.
So if he is finding 49 percent in favor of Bush on the spying issue, it is probably higher. Another poll or two over the next few days as the issue fades will most likely show the Bush administration winning the PR wars, in part because they are merciless in how they go about winning.
Oh, you don’t believe me? Try this story on for seismology.
The Freest Press Money Can Buy?
We are way beyond the law or ethics now folks. These bastards simply have no shame in them - no conscience. It is a zero sum game to them. Like Vince Lombardi once said about football, “winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing.”
So my question to you is, what are you willing to do to turn the situation around and win? Please sign in and tell us, if you have any brains or balls at all.
Tags: Domestic Surveillance
