For years, Bush said court orders required for spying
US President George W. Bush...used to assure
Americans wary of expanded anti-terrorism powers that tapping telephones
required a judge's go-ahead.
US President George W. Bush...used to assure Americans wary of expanded anti-terrorism powers that tapping telephones required a judge's go-ahead.
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"Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order," he said on April 20, 2004 in Buffalo, New York.
"Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so," he added.
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On April 19, 2004, Bush said the Patriot Act enabled law-enforcement officials to use "roving wiretaps," which are not fixed to a particular telephone, against terrorism, as they had been against organized crime.
"You see, what that meant is if you got a wiretap by court order -- and by the way, everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court, for example," he said in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
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Vice President Dick Cheney offered similar reassurances at a Patriot Act event in June 2004, saying that "all of the investigative tools" under the law "require the approval of a judge before they can be carried out."
Of course, we expect our politicians to flip-flop and lie to support whatever it is they're doing illegal or unethical. The reason so many True Believers are called "ditto-heads" is that as soon as the excuses for the lies are offered up, they're immediately parroted as gospel.
Posted: Wed - December 21, 2005 at 06:38 AM