Newsmeek



Despite an eye-catching cover, the latest Newsweek cover story basically misses the point completely.

Rather than focus on the criminal antics of the Bush administration, the article plays up the "frenzied days after 9/11" hoopla (again). You know - what was Bush to do???!!! Seriously, crap like this could be scripted by Rove himself:

Still, there was a catch. In 1978, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act... A reaction to CIA and FBI snooping on Americans at home and abroad, FISA was written for the cold war. It contemplated eavesdropping on telephone calls from, say, a KGB agent posing as a diplomat in Eastern Europe and a traveling American businessman. It was not meant for the instantaneous data mining of thousands of phone calls or e-mails as they flashed through the switches of American telecommunications companies. A secret court, set up by FISA, almost never turned down a government application for a warrant. But applying for one could require scores of pages of documents, several signatures, up to the attorney general's, and precious time. The law did allow for retroactive approval (within 72 hours). But as the NSA's computers tracked phone calls from Afghanistan and Pakistan to possible Qaeda sympathizers in America in those fevered days after 9/11, any red tape seemed like an unpardonable snare.

Unpardonable? Pardon me? Or what about this lazy-worded crap, in lieu of pointing out that Bush's actions were simply ILLEGAL:

The legal justification, in addition to the commander in chief's warmaking power under the Constitution, was [not "was claimed to be"]a congressional resolution that was shouted through in September 2001, three days after the attacks. Most members of Congress seem to have assumed [!!!] they were voting to authorize an attack on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. But a former White House official ... said the understanding in the administration was that the president was seeking ... all kinds of power to seek out, detain and kill terrorists.

Newsweek compares Bush's actions with those of other US Presidents at time of war, ignoring the fact that this bogus "war" of Bush's has no end in sight and no define-able point of "victory".

More interestingly, Newseek's story includes an online survey: Should the White House continue ordering selected wiretaps without warrants? At the moment, 85% are saying NO. And that's despite the breathless excitement of the article. Surely a wake up call for the editors?

US News has a more considered article on the same subject.