Word: nsa
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...although there have been protests from civil libertarians and some criticism on Capitol Hill, early indications suggest the revelation could actually give a political boost to a President who hasn't had many of those lately. The day after USA Today broke the story that the National Security Agency (NSA) aimed to "create a database of every call ever made" within the U.S., as one of the paper's sources put it, a Washington Post--ABC News poll found that 63% of those asked said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to fight terrorism...
...recent slide in the public's confidence in Bush, asking the public to trust him to balance the values of privacy and security could turn out to be a dicier proposition than it was in December, when the New York Times revealed that the President had authorized the supersecret NSA to conduct no-warrant wiretaps of hundreds and perhaps thousands of phone calls and e-mail messages between people inside the U.S. and parties overseas...
...news also comes at an inopportune moment, given that Senate confirmation hearings are expected to begin this week for General Michael Hayden, the former NSA director whom Bush has nominated to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency. (See related story "Thinker, Briefer, Soldier, Spy.") Some in Congress were already concerned that putting a general in charge of the CIA would further demoralize an agency that is feeling encroached upon by the Pentagon, which is pushing to expand its own human spying capabilities. In private visits with lawmakers last week, Hayden had put many of those doubts to rest with...
...anger of a conservative's conservative like Luttig wasn't enough, another development out of the Justice Department was nearly as stunning. On Wednesday, the Justice Department's point man on government accountability, H. Marshall Jarrett, wrote to Congress saying that he was shutting down his review of the NSA spying probe because his staff was denied access to the agency's files and personnel...
...review the bidding: Bush's Justice Department is blocked from investigating its own controversial spy program; a leading conservative jurist resigns, reportedly in part over the government's handling of civil liberties; and a big NSA program of eavesdropping on Americans' phone-calling patterns is revealed. Will this be enough to turn public opinion against Bush on civil liberties and terrorism? Given the collapse in public support for the President on so many issues, it wouldn't be surprising...