Bush admits `disquiet’ in nation | Chicago Tribune

But the president insisted his Iraq strategy will work: “There’s a deep desire by the Iraqi people to live in a democracy,” he said. And he urged Americans to be patient as his administration looks for ways to help ease the pain at the gas pump.

Thanks to us, they’re dying for the chance to live free and to suffer less pain at the source of our gas.

Via Huffington Post’s Michael Shaw

Bush Says U.S. Spying Is Not Widespread – New York Times

The article, in USA Today, said that the agency did not listen to the calls, but secretly obtained information on numbers dialed by “tens of millions of Americans” and used it for “data mining” — computer analysis of large amounts of information for clues or patterns to terrorist activity.

Oh! Right! That’s all right then. This is just like an episode in NUMB3RS, isn’t it? This makes me feel much more trustiful about the NSA’s data-mining millions of American citizen’s phone numbers.

So now I suppose the secretive and mysterious mathemeticians at the NSA will go back to illustrating their grand theories of where to find Osama Bin Laden by comparing the ebb and flow of millions of domestic phone calls to a gigantic pinball game, or to a spiderweb where they have to deduce the presence and location of an unknown number of big fat spiders, or something.

Do they illustrate their theoretical presentations with cool graphics, too?

Somehow, I don’t think the people working on this are quite the upstanding defenders of truth, justice and the American way that fictional characters Don and Charlie Epps are. Also, they’re probably not as hot in jeans and an open-neck shirt.

Making a hastily scheduled (emphasis Blogula Rasa’s)appearance in the White House, Mr. Bush did not directly address the collection of phone records, except to say that “new claims” had been raised about surveillance. He said all intelligence work was conducted “within the law” and that domestic conversations were not listened to without a court warrant.

“The privacy of all Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities,” he said. “Our efforts are focused on Al Qaeda and their known associates.”

Osama bin who? Zarqawi/Al Qaeda where?

Meanwhile, Mr. Pretendent, deny everything. Deny that this is not a huge shitstorm. Deny that it is not a threat to anyone’s Constitutional rights to privacy. Deny that you weren’t listening in last week when I was talking to my mom.

She doesn’t like you either, so there.

Now it’s coming out: the NSA’s stated goal is to create a database of every single call ever made within the US. They want the data so they can analyze call patterns, they say.

But the Pretendent of the United States of America is on record as saying only cross-border calls were to be tracked:

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. “In other words,” Bush explained, “one end of the communication must be outside the United States.”

Uh huh. That was a while back ago. This quote is a little more recent:

The White House would not discuss the domestic call-tracking program. “There is no domestic surveillance without court approval,” said Dana Perino, deputy press secretary, referring to actual eavesdropping.

Oopsie. Your bad.

USATODAY.com – NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would call the phone companies to appear before the panel ”to find out exactly what is going on.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the panel, sounded incredulous about the latest report and railed against what he called a lack of congressional oversight. He argued that the media was doing the job of Congress.
”Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al Qaeda?” Leahy asked. ”These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything … Where does it stop?”
The Democrat, who at one point held up a copy of the newspaper, added: ”Shame on us for being so far behind and being so willing to rubber stamp anything this administration does. We ought to fold our tents.”

The report came as the former NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden – Bush’s choice to take over leadership of the CIA – had been scheduled to visit lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday. However, the meetings with Republican Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were postponed at the request of the White House, said congressional aides in the two Senate offices. (source: The Associated Press)

Oh – not even going to send him out to visit the reliable “friendlies?” Afraid of the questions that’ll be asked and the disruptive contentiousness of a press corps that’s finally waking up to its responsibilities to the country? Thank God for that, at least.

Durbin met with him yesterday and took no position; I bet he’s got one today. Time to drop him a line.