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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (721999)	1/17/2006 11:43:56 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769667

Rights groups prepare suits over domestic spying 11 minutes ago news.yahoo.com President George W. Bush's domestic spying program faces legal challenges by two U.S. civil liberties groups who said on Tuesday they will seek court orders to stop it immediately and permanently. The American Civil Liberties Union said its lawsuit would be filed against the National Security Agency in U.S. district court for eastern Michigan on behalf of journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations that frequently communicate by telephone and e-mail with people in the Middle East. The lawsuit, which also names NSA Director Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander as a defendant, seeks a court order declaring that the spying program is illegal and ordering its immediate and permanent halt. Separately, the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which has provided legal aid to people detained or interrogated in Washington's declared war on terrorism, said it would file a suit in federal court in Manhattan. That suit, naming Bush and the heads of security agencies, challenges the eavesdropping program and seeks an end to it, said an attorney for the group, Shayana Kadidal. Bush acknowledged last month that he had authorized the NSA to monitor the international telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without first obtaining warrants in an effort to track al Qaeda members and other terrorism suspects. News of the program set off an outcry among both Republicans and Democrats, who questioned whether the administration was violating the Constitution by spying on Americans. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes it illegal for the U.S. government to spy on Americans without first getting approval from a secret federal court. The ACLU said its legal complaint charges that the spying program violates Americans' rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth amendments of the Constitution. The ACLU also charges that Bush exceeded his authority under separation of powers principles. Plaintiffs in the case believe their communications are being intercepted by the NSA and that the program is disrupting their ability to talk with sources, locate witnesses, conduct scholarship, and engage in advocacy, the ACLU said. Plaintiffs include authors and journalists such as Christopher Hitchens and Tara McKelvey as well as James Bamford, a leading expert on U.S. intelligence and the National Security Agency. Nonprofit groups that have joined the lawsuit on behalf of their members and staff include Greenpeace and Council on American Islamic Relations, the ACLU said. Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (721999)	1/17/2006 2:22:51 PM
From: steve dietrich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Looks like Bush 'scatter gun' approach did nothing but violate civil liberties, and send agents on wild goose chases.

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (721999)	1/17/2006 3:02:39 PM
From: DizzyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

N.Y. Times caught in photo fakery Pakistanis shown with 'missile' allegedly fired by U.S. Posted: January 16, 2006 8:18 p.m. Eastern © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com The New York Times is accused of running a staged photograph of beleaguered Pakistanis standing with a missile in the midst of their damaged home after a U.S. predator-drone attack aimed at al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The problem, say analysts, is the "missile" actually is an old, unexploded artillery shell, possibly with its fuse intact. But on its website, the Times captioned the photo by Agence France-Presse this way: "Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border." The photograph adds fuel to the anti-American protests by Islamic groups over the purported CIA airstrike Saturday, which Pakistan claims killed innocent civilians. Investigators are trying to determine if Zawahiri was among at least 17 people killed in the attack, which destroyed three houses in the Pashtun town of Damadola. The Times corrected the photo caption after Thomas Lifson, editor and publisher of The American Thinker brought attention to it. The photo can be seen here, with a new caption saying, "A picture caption on Saturday with an article about a U.S. airstrike on a village in Pakistan misidentified an unexploded ordinance. It was not the remains of a missile fired at a house." Lifson says the old artillery shell "must have been found elsewhere and posed with the ruins and the little boy as a means at pulling of the heartstrings of the gullible readers of the New York Times." Ned Barnett, an expert on military technology and frequent contributor to The History Channel, told Lifson that based on his extensive experience in researching military technology, "I can verify that this is a 152mm or 155mm artillery shell – unfired – and by the looks of it, fairly old. It also looks like it has a fuse in it, suggesting that the guys in the photo are either ditch-water dumb or have a death-wish." Barnett said the Times' "claim that it was the remains of a rocket is nonsense. Rockets are frail, light-weight, flimsy things (for obvious reasons). Artillery shells are robust, mostly cast steel (the explosive weight is really rather small considering the overall weight of the shell), again for obvious reasons." Pakistani officials said today "four or five foreign terrorists" were killed in the U.S. strike. worldnetdaily.com