You won’t see this anywhere else:

A federal judge on Wednesday said the George W. Bush administration illegally eavesdropped on the telephone conversations of two American lawyers who represented a now-defunct Saudi charity.

The lawyers alleged some of their 2004 telephone conversations to Saudi Arabia were siphoned to the National Security Agency without warrants. The allegations were initially based on a classified document the government accidentally mailed to the former Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation lawyers. The document was later declared a state secret and removed from the long-running lawsuit weighing whether a sitting U.S. president may create a spying program to eavesdrop on Americans’ electronic communications without warrants.




  1. jman says:

    “You won’t see this anywhere else”

    except from every news source available, seen nothing but this for 2 days

  2. Winston says:

    Yawn… The potentially millions of us who probably had our data and calls illegally monitored by the NSA have no proof that they did, so other judges have decided that everything is just AOK since we can’t and, besides, the telcoms have been had their illegal behavior retroactively legalized.

  3. Greg Allen says:

    It’s easy to say “move on” if _YOU_ didn’t have your civil rights violated.

    As for the Bush-Hitler analogy, I don’t agree and never have. But, I’m an American living comfortably in the homeland.

    The millions of grieving and exiled Iraqis surely have some strong and valid opinions about Bush — opinions we’d be wise to listen to.

  4. RSweeney says:

    Thank heavens the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation wasn’t a terrorist front… oh wait, it was.

    No explanation of WHY the Foundation is “now defunct”… seems a bit dishonest, doesn’t it?

    http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/hp1043.htm

    As for Bush-Hitler, imagine the outrage if in 1942, the FBI had tapped the phone conversations between the US German-Bund lawyers and Germany.

  5. Rabble Rouser says:

    This ain’t over until each and every member of Bushco, Inc. is in the slammer!
    Screw the lawsuits, it’s only money. The only way that these criminals, and their followers will learn, is if they spend a long, hard time in the Crowbar Hotel!

  6. ramuno says:

    Bush clearly threw out the constitution. The story here is that Obama’s Justice department has a choice to continue this by appeal or will there be “change you can believe in.”

    The ball is in your court Mr. President.

  7. lynn says:

    No one else is concerned that the gov’t mailed this document to the people they were wiretapping? I can’t believe no one posted “and these are the people who’ll be running our health care.”

  8. Phydeau says:

    #35 Great! As long as they’re guilty, it’s OK to trash the constitution, right? And we all know that government spying is only done on guilty people, right? Right?

  9. gmknobl says:

    I won’t see it anywhere else but I certainly heard it on NPR.

  10. Benjamin says:

    It is obviously photoshopped.

    #21 “kjackman said, on March 31st, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    Wow, this story isn’t something I’d normally take seriously, but damned if that Hitler picture didn’t change my mind!”

  11. bobbo, April First? Hard to tell says:

    Benji, Benji, Benji.

    Reportage 101: Never start a sentence with “It is obvious that . . . . ” unless you are being obviously sarcastic==which only occurs 50% of the time.

    I thought about posting: “Holy Cow!–They’re wearing the same jacket!!”

    See the difference?

    ((It should be obvious!))

  12. RSweeney says:

    Amazing how many of you people refuse to see that this is not a matter of crimes and rights but a matter of WAR. Real war between Islamists and those who refuse to submit.

    The constitutional right to protection from search and seizure doesn’t apply to espionage in war. And the “now defunct charity” was a fund-raising arm of Al Queda, its lawyers in league with the sworn enemies of America.

    Lawyers to the front! There are enemies who need representation and release on technicalities!

  13. bobbo, making the world better one criticism at a time says:

    #44–Sweeney==its been said many times. Corrupt Leaders need war, real or imaginary, to justify the removal of rights from the people.

    Don’t be a sucker.

  14. Uncle Patso says:

    Who knows? Maybe there is hope for the rule of law after all.

    Eventually.

    At least President Obama takes American law seriously, unlike Bush’s give-a-shit attitude, where every department just got sloppy. For example, current immigration law is now actually being enforced — deportations are up, way, way up from two years ago. I don’t say that’s bad or good, but at least the law as it stands is being carried out seriously.


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