Authorized illegal wire taps:
Latest News: 8/18/06 - In response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the wiretaps are unconstitutional.

1. The Bush wiretaps violated US law because he was required to get approval from FISA. He can start a wiretap of a suspected terrorist at any time but must then seek approval to continue within 72 hours.
2. Attorney General Gonzales claims HJR114 gave Bush authority to conduct the wiretaps. But HJR114 only grants use of the "Armed Forces". HJR114 does not explicitly suspend the Constitution. Also HJR114 requires "The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 3". Congress was not notified of these wiretaps. [HJR114]
3. Bush may have bypassed FISA because he wanted to listen to and analyze all international signals, not just those of suspected terrorists. He knew this was blatantly illegal so he hid it. Bush says "We use FISA still. But FISAs is for long-term monitoring. What is needed in order to protect the American people is the ability to move quickly to detect." Then later "There is a difference between detecting, so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to note the distinction between the two." The distinction is that "detecting" requires listening to lots of calls with a computer to see if someone says certain keywords like "bomb" in Arabic, or maybe even "impeach Bush" in English. Monitoring is listening to a specific suspected terrorist. The problem with detection is that you have to listen to all calls, including yours and mine. [This NY Times article confirms this interpretation. Also CNN.]
4. More evidence that Bush wants to listen to all signals is in Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War," on page 303. " Bush summarized his strategy: 'Listen to every phone call and close them down and protect the innocents.'" [WaPost]
5. Investigators may have found that Bush applied for an expansion of wiretap capability from FISA, was rejected, and then went ahead and did it anyway. [FindLaw] [FAS]
6. Bush claims going through FISA is too slow but legal emergency wiretaps helped capture terrorist Mosquera.
7. According to a report in USA Today, the NSA is collecting the phone records of tens of millions of Americans - most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders. The stated goal is to be able to identify who is involved in a network of terrorists. But this same technique can be used to determine who is involved in a network of political activists who might, for example, oppose the Bush administration. Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits. All of the major telecommunications companies cooperated with this program except for Qwest. Joe Nacchio, CEO of Qwest, was troubled by the fact that there was no FISA approval and that the program was so pervasive.
8. 8/18/06 - In response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the wiretaps are unconstitutional.

Other crimes:
# Bush violated the Geneva Convention by torturing prisoners of war.
# Bush violated International Law by invading a sovereign country for illegal purposes.
# Bush held prisoners without formal charges and without legal representation. [CNN]
# Bush illegally used government funds for domestic political propaganda related to the administration's Medicare package, paying commentator Armstrong Williams, etc. [NYT, requires free registration] TruthOut: [1] [2] [3]
# Bush used uniformed military personnel for Republican party political purposes. [TalkingPointsMemo] [Coloradoan]
# Bush was negligent in his slow response to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
# Bush shows contempt toward our Constitution and our democratic ideals.

-- compiled by anonymous source

"impeach Bush to boot?"

Something tells me this will become a lot more possible if the democrats win in November. Without majority it's a pretty hard thing to do.

"Yeah - we said Bush lied!
I never meant it personally, I just improvised!"

The only 'evidence' of Bush 'lying' about pre-war intelligence came from Joe Wilson. Remember all that? "Plamegate"? One of the many other scandals the left cooked up which they thought would be the issue they would use to get Bush impeached, Karl Rove 'frog-marched' out of the White House, Cheney charged as a criminal, and so on and so on and so on.

And where is Joe Wilson now? Where are the criminal charges the left and the media were so SOOOOO sure would be levelled? All gone. Because it has been proven that Bush didn't lie. He was right. It was Joe Wilson who lied. It has been documented in British Intelligence that Saddam's Iraq DID try to get uranium from Niger.

The simple truth is, the Dems and the lefties were given access to the same pre-war intelligence that Bush had. And they still voted FOR the war. If it was as flimsy as all that, then why did they vote for it? Why won't they publically recant their votes? Why don't they level criminal charges against Bush or impeach him? After all, if you're right, he's a criminal and a war criminal to boot - right?

Again - if you're so sure that Bush lied, the bring forth the evidence. Bring it to your congressman. He's there to represent you - right? To represent your point of view. Bring your evidence to them, and to the media. Lay it all out on the table and then demand that they go in front of those cameras and declare it to the world. No one's going to believe you if you use comic-book characters like Michael Moore. He's too over the top and frankly he's no more trustworthy than Joe Wilson was. You need to get credible people in Congress or the House to take your conspiracy theories and start using them in their debates and campaign appearances.

Go ahead - try it. Get your elected representatives to use your theories and run with them in the upcoming elections.

But you won't do it. Because you know these theories can't be proved. You can stand there and say "Bush lied" all you want. But you know as well as anyone there are perfectly reasoned and logical counters to them. Any debater worth his salt could blow them out of the water.

Which is why, even if you DO take your arguments to your Congressman, they'll ignore it. They wouldn't dare to use that kind of clap-trap in an actual political debate.

Think about it. Have you ever heard your leftie politicians repeat any of the stuff you see on the left-wing blogs? Your bloggers are the ones who supposedly have 'all the answers' - right? So why aren't they using them to recant their votes, demand an immediate withdrawl from Iraq and impeach Bush to boot?

Clinton got a blowjob, then he lied about it. How many puppies did your God kill because of this? None. so noone died, noone got hurt. the republicans then used that to raise hell over nothing just to get him impeached.

Bush, partially because of his complete incompetance, got a 9/11, then he lied about it, and used it as an excuse to attack a country and dictator who in bush's own words had NOTHING to do with 9/11. he lied about it all, and anyone with the slightest objection was an unpatriotic, terrorist-sympathising, anti-american piece of shit.

So far, 45000 people (possibly much, much more) and counting have died because of BushCo's pack of pure lies including 2700 americans, all for nothing, absolutely nothing.

Admit it, America, after 9/11 you thought it would be safe to pick up the soap while showering with the corporate-run administration, but as we expected, you got fucked.