Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

SANTA CAUGHT IN SPY NET

The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed
large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out
of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush
approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist
activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication
data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than
the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by
tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main
arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for
domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation
of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams
of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

The government's collection and analysis of phone and
Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial
officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications
growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has
legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through
American-based telephonic “switches,” according to officials familiar
with the matter. …

Spy
Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report

Caught in a red state without a second id, Santa was cornered,
handcuffed and dragged off the roof of Harry Reid's house on Christmas Eve.
Harry and Santa were about to have a pow-wow on what the Democrats wanted for
Christmas, when in burst Dick Cheney in FBI drag, with a pack of burly beer
drinking border guards. Karl had been left back in Washington in charge of the
Christmas carolers and keeping W. away from the egg nog. Because it was turning
out to be not a very merry Christmas for the head “conservative.”

Bill Kristol, Brit Hume, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin and Ann
Coulter were all nestled in their one bed, passing the jug of Christmas cheer
and bitching to high heaven about the British queers. If England okayed gay
marriage, could America be far behind?

Robert Novak was wrapping coal for his ex-CNN anchor crew, before
he took off for the big Fox “News” Merry Christmas – Happy Holiday
party, which was hosted by Wal-Mart and Ahmed Chalabi.

Condi was ensconced at command center, with headphones on trying
to listen to Bill and Hillary, but the reception was lousy. She switched over
to try and get the Russ Feingold frequency but it wouldn't come in. He'd taken
to debugging his home and office every other day, having long ago hired Richard
Clarke as his security man.

As for the rest of America, there was a low hum throughout the
land, as everyone turned their stereos up a notch and gathered around the fire
to talk about Christmases past, when things were simpler. When you could call
uncle Ted on the Cape and you knew big brother might be listening, but at least
Big Bush was not.

But that was so yesterday.