More information from James Risen’s book, which comes out today and was also the source of the NSA spy scandal story itself. Another detail from the book about the NSA spy program:
In the book, which quotes extensively from anonymous sources, Risen said the NSA spying program was launched in 2002 after the CIA began to capture high-ranking al-Qaida operatives overseas, and took their computers, cell phones and personal phone directories.
The CIA turned the telephone numbers and e-mail addresses from the material over to the NSA, which then began monitoring the phone numbers — in addition to anyone in contact with the telephone subscribers, the book said, saying this led to an expansion of the monitoring, both overseas and in the United States.
The book said the NSA does not need approval from the White House, the Justice Department or anyone else in the Bush administration before it begins eavesdropping on a specific phone line in the United States.
This alone shows that Bush was lying in the video linked in “Breaking Down,” below. They were monitoring “anyone in contact with the telephone subscribers,” this means people in the United States, because doing so overseas would be perfectly normal and legal without warrants of any kind, including FISA warrants. More importantly, if the last sentence is true that is a felony crime in and of itself that has led to thousands of other felony crimes. It is major news and has not been reported previously, even in the New York Times reporting by Risen.
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