Bush was speaking with CNN in an interview from Zambia, and said that there "needs to be a balance" between privacy and security, "and as the president explained, there is a proper balance."

Bush was asked about the NSA's phone and Internet surveillance program specifically, and replied: "I put that program in place to protect the country. One of the certainties was that civil liberties were guaranteed."

He also commented on Edward Snowden, who first leaked information on the program to the press. "I think he damaged the security of the country," Bush said.

Watch:

Continue Reading...

The Democratic president was to fly Monday into Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the last stop on a weeklong tour of Africa that wraps up Tuesday. His Republican predecessor coincidentally also plans to be there for a conference on African women organized by the George W. Bush Institute.

Their wives plan to team up at the conference Tuesday for a joint discussion on promoting women's education, health and economic empowerment. President Bush plans to be in attendance, before delivering his own speech there the following day, after the Obamas will have left.

Initially aides said the men had no plans to meet, but Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes indicated Sunday that could change. "There may be something," Rhodes said.

Having both presidents in town "sends a very positive message that both political parties in the United States share a commitment to this continent," Rhodes said.

During his African visit, Obama has credited Bush with helping save millions of lives by creating the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Continue Reading...

If you've never heard of the PCLOB, you're not alone. We hadn't either, and that's probably because the Bush and Obama administrations have done everything they can to keep it that way. As the Hill's Justin Sink reports, the board was created eight years ago on the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, but has "remained largely powerless" thanks to White House obstruction. Indeed, this is one of the board's first meetings, as Sink reports:

Continue Reading...

It's long been known that the Bushes' ancestors owned slaves -- as did at least 25 other presidents' families -- but according to Slate reporter Simon Akam, "Walker, George H.W. Bush's great-great-great grandfather, was the captain of, master of, or investor in at least 11 slaving voyages to West Africa between 1784 and 1792."

"This is the first time an ancestor of Bush has been directly linked to the brutal trans-Atlantic trade in which millions perished," Akam writes.

Akam's conclusion comes from the discovery that two prominent Thomas Walkers -- one who settled in America and produced the Bush clan, and one who owned property in Sierra Leone and worked in the slave trade business -- are likely the same person.

Continue Reading...

“Every president in this century should be put on trial,” Ayers told Real Clear Politics. “Every one of them goes into an office dripping with blood and then adds to it. And, yes, I think that these are war crimes. I think that they’re acts of terror.”

“I like him personally,” he added. “I mean, he’s a really good guy.”

Continue Reading...

"As everybody who's been associated with the program's said, if we had had this before 9/11, when there were two terrorists in San Diego, two hijackers, had been able to use that program, that capability, against that target, we might well have been able to prevent 9/11,"  Cheney said. He continued with a pointed criticism of President Obama. "I find a lot of it is, in other areas — the IRS, Benghazi — not credible. I'm obviously not a fan of the incumbent president."

Asked about Edward Snowden, who leaked information about the NSA program to the press, Cheney called him a "traitor."

"I think it's one of the worst occasions, in my memory, of somebody with access to classified information doing enormous damage to the national security interests of the United States," he said.

Continue Reading...

Around the world, government spies and eavesdroppers were tracking the email and Internet addresses used by suspected terrorists. Often, those trails led to the world's largest software company and, at the time, largest email provider.

The agents wanted email archives, account information, practically everything, and quickly. Engineers compiled the data, sometimes by hand, and delivered it to the government.

Often there was no easy way to tell if the information belonged to foreigners or Americans. So much data was changing hands that one former Microsoft employee recalls that the engineers were anxious about whether the company should cooperate.

Inside Microsoft, some called it "Hoovering" — not after the vacuum cleaner, but after J. Edgar Hoover, the first FBI director, who gathered dirt on countless Americans.

Continue Reading...

So the question is not so much whether the GOP should change but, rather, how? Two options commonly proffered are as follows: Republicans could follow the lead of Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and push for even smaller government (I call this the “more cowbell” school of thought). Or they could look instead to the small but influential group of right-wing intellectuals claiming to offer a new path: the “conservative reformers.” The decision looks so simple. Either one step forward, or two steps back.

Continue Reading...

Mounting domestic and international pressure against the PRISM surveillance program has forced the Obama administration to concede that the revelations have sparked “an appropriate debate.” Concern – and in some cases, outrage -- at these measures has been expressed by general members of the public and politicians, many of whom made no secret of their anger or mistrust toward them. Given the seriousness of the allegations, the outrage expressed at such a situation is obviously justified; the courage of the leaker and those taking the fight to government, commendable.

Continue Reading...

CBS News reports:

The library of Former President George H.W. Bush, who's celebrating his 89th birthday Wednesday, solicited pictures from well-wishers of their colorful socks to celebrate Bush's birthday.

"Join us in wishing President Bush a Happy Birthday by wearing your most colorful or outlandish socks," reads a message on The George Bush Library Foundation's website. "All are invited to submit a photo wearing crazy socks to share in the birthday festivities."

"George has taken to wearing the weirdest socks," said his wife Barbara Bush.

Continue Reading...

Among other things, the Center for Constitutional Rights coordinates the legal defense of the hundreds of detainees held at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. After the New York Times revealed the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program in late 2005, CCR had reason to believe that the agency had intercepted its attorneys calls and emails with people outside the U.S., including clients, clients' families, outside attorneys, potential witnesses and others.

So in 2006 they sued, asking a federal court for an injunction to stop the program and naming George W. Bush, the head of the NSA and the heads of other intelligence agencies as defendants. The government eventually ended that program, so CCR now wanted the court to force the government to destroy any records of surveillance that the intelligence agencies may still have retained from its old illegal wiretapping program.

Continue Reading...

The NSA? Sure. But the nature of intelligence agencies is to gather intelligence. Yes, they should know and observe limits, but realistically don’t expect any more from them than staying within the law, which appears to have been the case here.

The courts? Judges approved what’s been going on. Did they stretch the law in favor of the government? Perhaps. And, generally, the courts could have found the entire process unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court hasn’t been interested in aggressively expanding the Fourth Amendment any time recently. Feel free to assign them some blame, and watch the reporting to discover how much.

George W. Bush? PRISM began while he was in the White House, and his overall record on civil liberties was abysmal. Barack Obama? He, at least as far as we know, stayed within the law. But, yes, if you don’t approve of what NSA has been doing, both Bush and Obama deserve some of the blame. The private companies that cooperated? Yeah, them too. The law pushed them, but they seem to have had options.

Continue Reading...

It’s true, we’ve learned a lot about aspects of the vast post-9/11 surveillance state in the last 10 years, and it’s hard to keep track of who knew what when, and what mattered most about each revelation (including these latest). It’s true that George W. Bush took both the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and pushed them beyond the boundaries of legality – and then Congress acted, not to rebuke Bush or rein him in, but to make those abuses legal.

Continue Reading...

The governor made a name for herself on Fox News and at national gatherings of conservatives like CPAC as a kind of uber-Tea Partyer, who eats scorpions for breakfast, wags her finger in the president's face at lunchtime, signs strict anti-immigration bills into law in the afternoon, and gives the Tea Party flag the same legal protections as the Star-Spangled Banner by bedtime.

Continue Reading...

The NSA got a FISA judge to order Verizon to turn over "all call detail records or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad" or "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls." The records include "metadata," meaning the records show the phone numbers, call length and possibly location the calls were made, among lots of other helpful identifying information.

Continue Reading...

"As you go around the country, do you have any sense or the same sort of sinking feeling that the rest of us have that [Obama has] actually switched sides in the War on Terror?" Rumsfeld was asked at a recent event.

"You know, I just don't feel competent to answer," Rumsfeld said. "I can't tell." He continued: "It bothers me greatly that he's unwilling to identify the enemy. I don't see how you win if you don't."

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

"Fame can become very addictive. And I've had all the fame a man could want," he said.

"I've come to realize that power can be corrosive if you've had it for too long," Bush said. "It can dim your vision. And so I came to the conclusion that, you know, I don't long for fame. And really, gonna shy away from it. Not shy away from it. Avoid it. I'm not very shy. Avoid it."

Continue Reading...

Do those things go together? The political scientist John Sides thinks it’s going to be a problem:

[T]o be the Republican nominee, he’ll need the support of his Republican colleagues. The 2012 election once again showed—and despite some skepticism—that it is very hard to win the nomination unless you’re preferred by a substantial chunk, if not the vast majority of, your party’s leaders (as was Romney). Which is to say, it pays to be nice to your colleagues. It’s no guarantee, of course: junior Senator Hillary Clinton kept her head down and played nice, and lost the nomination. John McCain often irritated his fellow Republicans, but still mustered enough support within the party to win the nomination.

But political scientist Dave Hopkins isn’t so sure: “Don't think this is the problem for Cruz that John does. McCain bugged Sen colleagues/leaders too; still won '08 nom.”

Continue Reading...

Three people with knowledge of the selection said Wednesday that Obama planned to nominate Comey, who was the No. 2 at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. Comey was general counsel to Connecticut-based hedge fund Bridgewater Associates from 2010 until earlier this year and now lectures at Columbia Law School.

Comey would replace Robert Mueller, who has held the job since shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which forced the FBI to transform itself into one of the nation's chief weapons in the war on terror. Mueller's last day on the job is Sept. 4.

The White House may hope that Comey's Republican background will help him through Senate confirmation at a time when some of Obama's nominations have been facing tough battles. But Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicated Comey's confirmation hearing would raise questions about the Obama administration's investigations of Wall Street.

Continue Reading...