New Wire Tap Revelations: Why Did Rice and Bush Spy on UN Diplomats?

"President Bush...used the National Security Agency to secretly wiretap the home and office telephones and monitor private email accounts of members of the United Nations Security Council in early 2003 to determine how foreign delegates would vote on a U.N. resolution that paved the way for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, NSA documents show" reports Raw Story this morning.

Two former NSA officials familiar with the agency's campaign to spy on U.N. members say then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice authorized the plan at the request of President Bush, who wanted to know how delegates were going to vote. Rice did not immediately return a call for comment."
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Truthfully, I'm getting the various Bush Administration illegal wire tap scandals mixed up. Without a Bush insider's score card, it's almost impossible to keep tabs on which paranoid Bush-directed federal agency snooped on personal emails and phone calls, library reading and medical records of innocent US citizens and residents.

Let's take a jog around the blogosphere to sample what others are saying about the latest wiretaping revelations....
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From Media Girl: "Nothing like showing contempt and mistrust of diplomats that you're trying to woo over to your side...I'm shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that Bush is using his governmental power for his own political gain! Well, they won the election, didn't they? That puts them above the law, doesn't it? That's what the right wing keeps trying to tell us."
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From Scrutiny Hooligans: "Is this really want we want? To give up our liberties and rights to secure our nation? What have we gained when we lose everything we have? Given the track record of this administration and the Nixon administration can we really trust these people to spy on those they say they are spying on? My feeling is no."
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From Sisyphus Shrugged: "...hey, it looks as if those diplomats got off easy. Not only is the administration not doing due diligence on who they wiretap, they're not doing due diligence on who they kidnap and send overseas to be tortured.

The CIA is currently admitting that they're looking into as many as ten 'rare' cases in which they kidnapped the wrong person and renditioned them (and you have to assume that if they're admitting it, these are the 'rare' cases someone's already found out about).

The best part here is that the White House does not feel the need to review these decisions, and has given the CIA Our Fearless leader's personal Executive permission (and that of Dr. Rice) to kidnap american citizens and foreign nationals and send them overseas to be tortured if they think they should.

The CIA is now, in the view of this administration, the private police force of the Executive Branch, and has the power to break the law and violate the constitution with impunity if the president gives it general permission to. "
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And then there's my question that I ask over and over about the volume of personal info that the Bush Administration is accumulating via wire taps and email surveillance, Patriot Act snooping, the military database of US teenagers and the like: What are they doing with this information? Data is never collected just to collect dust. It's always obtained to accomplish goals.

Why would Rice and Bush eavesdrop on UN diplomats? Merely as fodder for morning gossip over a cup of Starbucks?

Or to use to pressure, bribe or blackmail those UN diplomats to vote for the Iraq War that George Bush desperately pined and planned for?
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