For anyone interested, C-SPAN has the video of the full debate over the NSA scandal between myself and University of Virginia Professor Robert Turner, which took place on last Monday's Washington Journal show. The video clip can be found here. (UPDATE: Link is now working -
Once you are on that page, you click on this:
Robert Turner, Univ. of Virginia Law School & Glenn Greenwald, Constitutional Law Attorney Robert Turner, Univ. of Virginia Law School, Associate Director, Center for Nat'l Security Law & Glenn Greenwald, Constitutional Law Attorney discuss the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on domestic surveillance that starts later today. 2/6/2006: WASHINGTON, DC: 45 min.
They constantly add new content so you may have to click to the next page to find that segment.
If nothing else, the comments from some of the callers -- my favorite being the woman who said that anyone who is opposed to Bush's law-breaking should have been in the World Trade Center on September 11 instead of the "decent Americans" who died -- is reason enough to watch.
* * * * *
A commenter here posted a portion of the transcript from a Bush Press Conference from, I believe, 2002, in which the President said that there was no way for the Administration to have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Despite having just read through 500 or so comments, I was unable to find the comment that has the cite. If anyone has the link to that Press Conference (or another link where Bush made similar comments), I would appreciate it if you could please e-mail it to me or post it in the comments section.
I laughed out loud several times while watching that video.
ReplyDeleteIs anyone else having trouble reaching c-span.org at all, or is that just me?
ReplyDeleteI clicked on the link when Glenn posted it earlier today, and watched the video, but now I'm getting an error. Looks like c-Span's site is down temporarilly.
ReplyDeleteI believe Think Progress had a post that cited some of these. Still there today, near bottom, holding links to relevant stories:
ReplyDeleteBush, Ashcroft, FBI Director Said 9/11 Attacks Were Not Preventable
President Bush and other senior administration officials have tried to defend illegal domestic spying by arguing that it could have prevented 9/11. Bush included the argument in his State of the Union address:
It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. … So to prevent another attack — based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute — I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program…
This argument is false, as several sources, including the Washington Post, have pointed out. But it also runs contrary to the administration’s previous line on the attacks. In 2002, President Bush and other top officials told Americans that September 11 could not have been prevented:
President Bush, 6/4/02:
Q Had the reform been put in place beforehand, if the FBI had been –
THE PRESIDENT: I haven’t seen any evidence –
Q — could the attacks have been stopped?
THE PRESIDENT: I’ve seen no evidence today that said this country could have prevented the attack.
FBI Director Robert Mueller, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, 6/2/02:
U.S. intelligence agencies could have better analyzed information that pointed to Sept. 11, but they probably could not have prevented the attacks, the attorney general and FBI director said Sunday. …
“The information we now have does not indicate that there was a substantial likelihood of detecting this,” Ashcroft said.
So, to recap: President Bush was wrong in 2002, and he’s wrong now. The 9/11 attacks could have been prevented (as the 9/11 Commission found), but his illegal domestic spying program would not have done the job.
Filed under: Intelligence
Posted by Nico February 7, 2006 1:02 pm
Permalink | Comment (65)
Thanks, Wayne - that was the except I was looking for.
ReplyDeleteHere's another quote:
ReplyDelete"I mean, one of the things about Elisabeth's question was, I step back and I've asked myself a lot, is there anything we could have done to stop the attacks. Of course, I've asked that question -- as have many people of my government. Nobody wants this to happen to America. And the answer is that had I had any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country -- just like we're working hard to prevent a further attack."
4/13/04 press conference
Did they remove that content?
ReplyDeleteThey post various segments from each show in the "Recent Programs" section and leave them up there more or less permanently - if you click on the "Recent Programs" link from the front page of their site, the whole thing comes up as an error, so that part of the site seems not to be working at the moment. It was working earlier today.
RE: the debate video - truly outstanding! For a "mind-numb lefty robot" [aside: yeah, I'll bet "she" WAS KKKarl] you do a pretty fair job of articulating why that whole "you're defending the rights of terrorists" canard is such a crock. Kudos to you Glenn, you ROCKED!
ReplyDeleteThe surveillance program does warrantless domestic wiretaps:
ReplyDeletehttp://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/wash-times-1-bush-is-spying-on.html
I'd like to commend you on your conduct on CSPAN, I think your points were well articulated while being respectful to all involved.
ReplyDeleteOk, all sweetness and light aside, I thought it was pretty cheap that Turner got both the first word and the last word. And I don't have the numbers, but a majority of the callers labasted you, and put you in a position to respond, but only one really made Turner do anything.
I'm sure I would not have kept my composure as nearly as well as you did when that one caller said the Cold War was over in 1978. Classic.
Glenn, outstanding work, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI have a very different take on the C-Span debate. The two women who called - one even made Prof Turner wince - sounded entirely too much like every day people. Not Freepers, nor professional trolls.
My own mom (!) and good friends of mine make arguments like theirs and it always leaves me dumbfounded as to how willfully ignorant they are of the facts.
As an example, the women callers did not even slightly take into account what you had said before they made their comments. Glenn, you could not have been more clear that it was OK for the Pres. to do what he was doing, but with oversight. And secret judicial oversight at that. Meaning the details of the spying are not going to be in the public domain. Yet they argued that you were arguing that the Pres. should not spy on terrorists.
If their listening and comprehension of the debate were an SAT test, they would not get into any university.
In conclusion, what I'm saying is that the problem is SO much bigger and much more difficult than the comments and suggestions here are attempting to address. When regular folk, that we otherwise love, don't even listen to what we are saying, it doesn't matter how brilliant you are or how carefully you couch your arguments. Therefore we have a bigger, different, and much more difficult problem.
Here's the link to the press statements made by Bush that Wayne quoted.
ReplyDeleteHi Glenn,
ReplyDeleteProf. Turner got the final word in the debate, and he said the FISA review court had stated that the President does have unlimited foreign intelligence wiretapping authority. I found the case in question and read through it. On the hand hand, the language seems to support Prof. Turner's assertion. On the other hand, it's mentioned only in passing (since it was a central issue in the case) and I see that Media Matters has listed this as one of the bogus talking points that are used to defend the NSA program. But Media Matters doesn't really explain why it's bogus. Can you shed any light on this? Thanks!
Oops - I meant to say it was *not* a central issue in the case...
ReplyDelete