Article: Bush Lies part I (Patriot Act)

We've all heard of the 935 lies that Bush told to con the country into war with Iraq. But how many other lies has Bush told? Try to keep count as we run through them in this series of articles that keeps growing like a certain puppets nose.

LIE: The Bush administration repeatedly argued that it could not release the names of detainees – even those who had not been charged or accused of terrorism – because doing so would harm national security.” The Justice Department in a sworn affidavit contended that when detainees are publicly identified “terrorist organizations with whom they have a connection may refuse to deal further with them.”

FACT: That rule does not apply when the administration needs to make disclosures for political purposes. When forced to come up some justification for its elevation of the threat level immediately after the Democratic convention based on information that was three years old, National Security Advisor Rice stated that the alert was due to the capture of Al Qaeda operative Mohammed Khan. The Justice Department’s affidavit was correct; however, since Rice’s disclosure of Khan harmed ongoing investigations. Once again, politics triumphs over security in the Bush White House. (Daily Mis-Lead 08.08.04)

LIE: "By the way, the reason I bring up the Patriot Act, it's set to expire next year. I'm starting a campaign to make it clear to members of Congress that it shouldn't expire. It shouldn't expire for the security of our country." President Bush.

FACT: Less that 10 percent of the Patriot Act expires; most of the law is permanent and those portions that do sunset will not do so until December 31, 2005. (Cassel – Counterpunch 04.26.04)

LIE: "And that changed, the law changed on- roving wiretaps were available for chasing down drug lords. They weren't available for chasing down terrorists, see?"

FACT: Roving wiretaps were available prior to 9/11 against drug lords and terrorists. Prior to the law, the FBI could get a roving wiretap against both when it had probable cause of crime for a wiretap eligible offense. What the Patriot Act did is make roving wiretaps available in intelligence investigations supervised by the secret intelligence court without the judicial safeguards of the criminal wiretap statute. (Cassel – Counterpunch 04.26.04)

LIE: "... see, I'm not a lawyer, so it's kind of hard for me to kind of get bogged down in the law. I'm not going to play like one, either. (Laughter.) The way I viewed it, if I can just put it in simple terms, is that one part of the FBI couldn't tell the other part of the FBI vital information because of the law. And the CIA and the FBI couldn't talk."

FACT: The CIA and the FBI could talk and did. As Janet Reno wrote in prepared testimony before the 9/11 commission, "There are simply no walls or restrictions on sharing the vast majority of counterterrorism information. There are no legal restrictions at all on the ability of the members of the intelligence community to share intelligence information with each other.

"With respect to sharing between intelligence investigators and criminal investigators, information learned as a result of a physical surveillance or from a confidential informant can be legally shared without restriction. While there were restrictions placed on information gathered by criminal investigators as a result of grand jury investigations or Title III wire taps, in practice they did not prove to be a serious impediment since there was very little significant information that could not be shared." (Cassel – Counterpunch 04.26.04)

LIE: "Thirdly, to give you an example of what we're talking about, there's something called delayed-notification search warrants. ... We couldn't use these against terrorists [before the Patriot Act], but we could use against gangs."

FACT: Delayed-notification - or so-called sneak-and-peek search warrants - were never limited to gangs. The circuit courts that had authorized them in limited circumstances prior to the Patriot Act did not limit the warrants to the investigation of gangs. In fact, terrorism or espionage investigators did not necessarily have to go through the criminal courts for a covert search - they could do so with even fewer safeguards against abuse by going to a top secret foreign intelligence court in Washington.For criminal sneak-and-peek warrants, the Patriot Act added a catch-all argument for prosecutors - if notice would delay prosecution or jeopardize an investigation - which makes these secret search warrants much easier to obtain. The president's sneak-and-peek misstatement clearly demonstrates that the Patriot Act is not limited to terrorism. In fact, many of the law's expanded authorities can clearly be used outside the war on terrorism. (Cassel – Counterpunch 04.26.04)LIE: In announcing his support for the Defense of Marriage Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage, Bush said he was reversing his previous position because of the actions in Massachusetts, New Mexico and San Francisco. FACT: President Bush told the amendment sponsor, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave that he would support the amendment several months prior – before any state actions. (Daily Mis-Lead 03.02.04)LIE: When asked by David Frost about the demonstrators protesting his visit to the UK, Bush responded that “Freedom is a beautiful thing, I would first say, and aren’t you lucky to be in a country that encourages people to speak their mind. And I value going to a country where people are free to say anything they want to say”.FACT: Under Bush, the FBI has been monitoring political demonstrations and other legal activities such as using the Internet for fundraising for the first time since the Nixon-Hoover era. In addition, after 9-11 then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said that Americans “need to watch what they say, watch what they do.” Similarly, Attorney General Ashcroft labeled any criticism of the Patriot Act as aiding terrorists. (Daily Mis-Lead 11.24.03)LIE: Attorney General Ashcroft told there “is no evidence of racial bias in the administration of the federal death penalty”.FACT: A September 2000 Justice Department report concluded there was racial bias in the administration of the federal death penalty. (People For the American Way – Report on Attorney General Ashcroft’s First Year)If you're tired of the lies, the greed, and the arrogance then join millions of your fellow American's this Sept. 11th through the 15th in saying 'Enough is Enough'.Join in a campaign of national civil disobedience to bring democracy back into our Republic. General Strike 9/11-15th 2008.

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