Quote of the Day

by: Juan Melli

Thu Feb 14, 2008 at 05:15:07 PM EST

The man's on a roll. Today's quote of the day comes from Congressman Rush Holt [press release]:

Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today disputed President Bush's warning that the intelligence community will "go dark" if the "Protect America Act" expires. The intelligence community will still have all the tools it needs to continue current surveillance and begin new surveillance on any terrorist threat, Holt said.
"The only way our intelligence collection against Al Qaeda will 'go dark' is if President Bush doesn't pay the FBI's and NSA's phone bills," Holt said.
According to a January report from the Department of Justice's Inspector General, telecommunication surveillance payments have not been made on time and "have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence including an instance where delivery of intercept information required by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order was halted due to untimely payment."

Juan Melli :: Quote of the Day

Tags: Rush Holt, FISA, (All Tags)

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Quote of the Day | 1 comments

Bush league fear: When in doubt, scare 'em (4.00 / 2)

For the past seven years, we have been living in a nation in which fear is the means, and the giving up of our freedoms is the result. Therefore, today, my hat is off to our New Jersey own, Rush Holt, Steve Rothman, Don Payne, Frank Pallone and others for slowing Bush and the Bushies down in their zeal to make our phone calls, our internet searches, and our emails wide open to government snooping without warrant or any form of judiciary review. Also, this so-called "Protect America Act" goes a long way toward protecting the telecom industry, which certainly should have known better and not been so quick to violate federal law and their own company and industry rules, and hand over massive amounts of data to the Government when it asked nice and said, "please."
George Bush told the Congress that if it did not approve the bill immediately, America would be vulnerable to attacks. He also told the Congress that he would veto the bill unless it granted full immunity to the telecom companies involved.
So, Mr. President, which is it? Tell us. We need to know. It is time to choose. Which is more important to you and yours: Protecting the citizens of this country whom you allege, as you so often do, are in grave and imminent danger without this legislation; or protecting Verizon and AT&T?
I think we know your answer. And it is certainly not pretty.

by: Dennis Shulman @ Fri Feb 15, 2008 at 16:17:00 PM UTC