Ports Tussle Overshadows Action In Congress On NSA Spying Furor (Newsweek)

[kpete]

Whatever happened to the NSA spying furor?
Ports tussle overshadows action in Congress on secret surveillance program

By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC
Updated: 4:15 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2006


WASHINGTON - When the New York Times revealed late last year that the Bush administration was conducting a surveillance program to listen in on American citizens’ conversations with suspected al Qaida operatives, it sparked a furor.

Some Democrats said President Bush had willfully broken the 1978 law banning warrantless domestic surveillance by ordering eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Moveon.org, the grass-roots Democratic advocacy group, demanded the appointment of special prosecutor to go after the alleged lawbreakers in the Bush administration.


But now, two months later, another furor — over a Dubai-based firm’s acquiring of leases on terminal facilities at several U.S. ports — has blown the NSA story right off the front pages.

Spying apparently continues

Yet the NSA apparently continues to eavesdrop on Americans, and Congress seems increasingly likely to open the way to after-the-fact approval of the surveillance in legislation that may reach the Senate floor in the next several weeks.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11607917/

[The Stranger]

1. We've been had.

[converted_democrat]

2. Fuckers.. n/t

[TahitiNut]

3. Each pile of elephant manure covered by another pile of elephant manure.

The most 'productive' rape and pillage strategy of all time - just keep on committing crimes and lighting fires. The police and fire departments spend all their time mode-switching and not a single crime gets solved or fire gets put out.