The List

Apparently liberals are upset that Bill O'Reilly is planning to make a list of "far left internet smear sites". I think this is great idea. I've compiled my own list of liberal websites. Feel free to suggest additions in the comments section.

Liberal loser websites:

A Brooklyn Bridge, A Tiny Revolution, A-Changin' Times, Adventus, AgendaBender, AintNoBadDude, Alas, a Blog, alicublog, All About George, All Facts and Opinions, AmericaBlog, Am I Patriotic?, Angry Bear, Annatopia, Anonymoses, Atheist, Agnostic & Freethinking Student Association, Ayn Clouter, Bad Attitudes, Barbra Streisand, Bark Bark Woof Woof, BartCop, Beautiful Horizons, Berube, Bitch, Ph.D, Blah3.com, Blog for America, Bob Harris, Body and Soul, Brad DeLong, Brian Flemming, BusyBusyBusy, Chris Nelson, Clareified, ConWebWatch, Cosmic Iguana, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Crooked Timber, Crooks&Liars, Corn Muffins, Cup O' Joe, Daily Howler , Daily Kos, Daou Report, Dark Bilious Vapors, Dave Cullen, David Letterman, DC Media Girl, De-center, Debsweb Demagogue, Democratic Left Infoasis, Democratic Veteran, Demosthenes, Dependable Renegade, Deride and Conquer, different strings, Dohiyi Mir, Doxagora, Dubya's Daily Diary, Echidne, elementropy, Ellis Henican, Eschaton, Estimated Prophet, FaBlog, Fafblog, Fanatical Apathy, Fear of a White Planet, Finish My Wine dot Com, Firedoglake, First Draft, Friends of Liberty, From the Roots, Froomkin, Fundies Say the Darndest Things!, Futurballa, Gene Healy, General J.C. Christian, Get Donkey, Get More Ass, GOTV, Happy Furry Puppy, Hoffmania, Hullabaloo, iddybud, Ink from the Squid, Interesting Times, It's Craptastic!, Jack Balkin, Josh Marshall, Julian Sanchez, Just One Minute, Kicking Ass, Le Google Bomb, Lean Left, Left Coaster, Left Is Right, Liberal Oasis, Liquid List, Looking Glass, Loosen the Beltway, Mad Kane, Majikthise, Making Light, Margaret Cho, Martin Wisse, Matthew Yglesias, Max Speak, Mikhaela, Morning Sedition, Naked Writing, Nathan Newman, Needle Nose, Nitpicker, No More MNB, No, You Can't Have a Pony!, North American Foistboinder, Not Geniuses, Off the Kuff, Officially Unofficial, Oliver Willis, Orcinus, Pacific Views, Pandagon, Peking Duck, Pen-Elayne on the Web, People's Republic of Seabrook, Peripetia, Pharyngula, Pooflingers Anonymous, Public Nuisance, Poor Man, Rick's Cafe Americain, Rising Hegemon, Road to Surfdom, Roger Ailes, RoxPopuli, Ruminate This, RubberNun, Rush Limbaughtomy, Sadly, No!, Seize the Fish, Search and Destroy, Scoobie Davis, Seeing the Forest , Shakespeare's Sister, Sick of Bush, SirotaBlog, Sisyphus Shrugged, Skimble, skippy, Smafty Mac, smegmaster.com, Sonic's Place, Speedkill, South Knox Bubba, Stageleft, Stakeholder, Steve Gilliard, Stinging Nettle, StoutDemBlog, Suckful, SullyWatch!, Sweet Jesus, I hate Bill O'Reilly, International, Take Back the Media, Talk Left, Talking Dog, TAPPED, TBogg, Terminus, Tina's Shark Tank, The Al Franken Show, The American Street, The Big Picture, The Big Picture, The Colbert Nation, The Colbert Report, The Disgruntled Chemist, The Google Bomb Project, The Grumpy Forester, The Huck Upchuck, The League Of Liberals, The Liberal Avenger, The Mahablog, The Poison Kitchen, The Primate Journal, The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party, The Rude Pundit, The Sideshow, The Talent Show, This Modern World, Throwing Things, Today in Iraq, Today's Convincing Arguments, Treason Online, UggaBugga, Unqualified Offerings, Vaara, WampumBlog, War and Piece, War Liberal, Washington Monthly, WHITEHOUSE.ORG, Wilson's Blogmanac, Wolcott, Wonkette, World O'Crap, WTF is it Now?, Xoverboard, Yet Another Web Site

Don't be fooled

Definitely not The True Conservative: trueconservative.typepad.com

Another Phoney Scandal Cooked up by Loser Liberals

Much Ado About Nothing:

People are shocked, simply shocked, to find out that the NSA has monitored the phone conversations of roughly 500 terrorist suspects without a warrant over the last three or four years.

The NY Times was shocked, simply shocked to find gambling here on Thursday. (We won’t mention that the story rolled out linked to a new book published by the NY Times… we’d never be so gauche as to bring something like that up).

The usual suspects were freaked out about it. In fact, I started looking into this as a result of a more or less normally vituperative Balloon Juice post comments section here.

Then President Bush spoke about it in his weekly address today, apparently quite angry that he is getting hammered for doing something that he believes is very legal, that he’s proud of doing, and that is an integral part of our counterterrorism strategy, and Oh By The Way was an extremely highly classified defense secret until Thursday morning. Huh? What’s that? He has the power to do that? Yes, he says, and he’s issued 20-some certifications to do so on 500 some individuals since 9/11 according to the Times.

So, I spent this nice Saturday afternoon doing a little legal research on your behalf.

It seems the President probably does have the power to order NSA to monitor suspects, without a warrant, in terrorism cases, where the communications are between controller/co-conspirator, and target, and the terrorist group is tied to foreign countries or particular factions in foreign countries. It’s tied to particular circumstances though, so it’s worth knowing more about the details if you wish to comment intelligibly on the issue.

Generally, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires a warrant for the monitoring of U.S. persons on U.S. soil, but does not necessarily require a warrant for monitoring agents of foreign powers in similar circumstances. Keep in mind, this is intelligence monitoring, not wiretapping the phones of your local mafia hoodlums.

According to 50 U.S.C. 1801, the definitions section of FISA, an agent of a foreign power is:

b(1) any person other than a United States person, who—. . .

acts for or on behalf of a foreign power which engages in clandestine intelligence activities in the United States

OR

(b)(2) any person who. . .knowingly engages in sabotage or international terrorism, or activities that are in preparation therefor, for or on behalf of a foreign power. . . [or who] knowingly aids or abets any person in the conduct of activities described [herein].

Note that there are two categories – intel agents of foreign powers, and terrorism agents of foreign powers. U.S. persons cannot be subjected to warrant-less monitoring under FISA in the traditional intelligence context. In stark contrast, U.S. persons who are engaged in terrorist activities (broadly defined, admittedly a civil liberties concern) may be defined as an agent of a foreign power. This is so because FISA clearly and unambiguously protects U.S. persons in one subsection discussing the pure intelligence context, yet in a parallel section relating to terrorism extends the definition of agent of a foreign power to “any person” – in other words there are strong textual and structural arguments that show the Congress believes that U.S. person status is irrelevant in the counterterrorism context. This is not the atrocity under the 4th Amendment that it might seem to be; the keystone of all 4th Amendment tests is reasonableness, and the Court hasn’t exactly examined this particular question in any great depth, so Congress was basically free to speak it’s mind on this issue.

The power to monitor without warrant under FISA, even for U.S. persons involved in terrorism, is not unfettered.

In addition to existing restrictions under Executive Order 12333 and other internal limits, FISA states in 50 U.S.C. 1802 that, “the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that—
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at—

(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 . . .”

Got that? The definitions portion of FISA (sec. 1801) defines an agent of a foreign power to include people believed to be involved in terrorist operations, regardless of U.S. person status – a broader classification than the traditional pure intel definition of agent of a foreign power. The Act then goes on to provide for a presidential and AG certification / approval process for monitoring the communications of such persons – which sounds a lot like what Bush was describing in his speech today. There are also procedures for notifying the courts and congressional overseers – two other procedures Bush invoked in his speech.

Are there legitimate concerns over the breadth of the definition of terrorism under FISA? Yeah, I’d say so. Is there a weakness in this interpretation of the law? Yep, there’s that too, but it’s pretty minor and I think our national security has been undermined enough for one day, so I’m going to let that go.

It’s not surprising Bush is angry – it sounds to me like he followed the letter of the law, only to be hit by the NY Times, the grandstanding senate with its PATRIOT Act shutdown, and bitter, bitter criticism over his use of this tactic. Never mind the fact that the secret is now out, and this is one more source of intel that will dry up.

More Liberal Hate Speech

Here's some typical liberal filth.

Remember this?

I just got this in my email.

I was at a UNC lecture the other day where they played a video of Oliver North during the Iran-Contra deals during the Reagan administration. I was only 14 back then but was surprised by this particular clip. There was Olie in front of God and Country getting the third degree. But what he said stunned me. He was being drilled by some senator I didn't recognize who asked him:

'Did you not recently spend close to $60,000 for a home security system?'

Oliver replied, 'Yes I did sir.'

The senator continued, trying to get a laugh out of the audience, 'Isn't this just a little excessive?'

'No sir,' continued Oliver.

'No. And why not?'

'Because the life of my family and I were threatened.'

'Threatened? By who.'

'By a terrorist, sir.'

'Terrorist? What terrorist could possibly scare you that much?'

'His name is Osama bin Laden.'

At this point the senator tried to repeat the name, but couldn't pronounce it, which most people back then probably couldn't. A couple of people laughed at the attempt. Then the senator continued.

'Why are you so afraid of this man?'

'Because sir, he is the most evil person alive that I know of.'

'And what do you recommend we do about him?'

'If it were me I would recommend an assassin team be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth.'

The senator disagreed with this approach and that was all they showed of the clip.

It's scary when you think 15 years ago the government was aware of Osama bin Laden and his potential threat to the security of the world. I guess like all great tyrants they start small but if left untended spread like the virus they truly are.

The senator: Al Gore

It's clear the reason this isn't more well known is because of the liberal media hiding facts like this from the American people.