Congress Demands Spying Answers from White House, Did Bush Bug CNN Reporter?

On January 5, 24 House of Representatives members, including Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), sent a letter to President Bush requesting information concerning the controversial warrantless surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency, at Bush directive.

The Congressional request for information, made in conjunction with consideration of Patriot Act extension, included the following:

-- Any and all records and information indicating the number of U.S. persons for whom communication to or from them were intercepted

-- Any and all records and information indicating the number of intercepted communications occurring completely within the U.S.

-- Any and all records identifying any members of the U.S. press, other U.S. media or Members of Congress for whom communications to or from them were intercepted

-- Any and all records and information indicating how the information concerning U.S. persons was stored, shared among various agencies and departments, and whether, when and how such information is to be destroyed."
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Two unusually egregious aspects of warrantless NSA domestic spying that the Congress members hope to investigate with the requested information are....

1. The Washington Post report on January 1, 2006 that the NSA freely shared with other federal agencies the personal and private info it gathered from its warrantless surveillance of US citizens.

Per WaPo, "Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping...has been passed on to other government agencies....Less attention has been paid to, and little is know about, how the NSA information may have been used by other government agencies to investigate American citizens...."

2. Rumors, stemming from an MSNBC slip of the tongue, have swept the blogosphere that CNN's Christiane Amanpour has been wiretapped for years by the Bush Administration.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN's Chief International Correspondent, is much-honored and widely respected internationally, and has strong Middle East connections. Born in London, she is a US citizen of Iranian descent. She's been a vocal critic of Bush policies.

Here is a link to my Profile of Christiane Amanpour, CNN Chief International Correspondent.

Also, Amanpour's husband, Jamie Rubin, was an advisor to President Bill Clinton , and was a key campaign advisor to John Kerry in 2004. Presumably wiretaps of Amanpour's personal phone calls would've also capture 2004 Democratic campaign conversations by Rubin.
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The constitutional questions posed, and possible illegalities raised, by warrantless spying are staggering. An ordinary citizen wiretapping phone calls and emails without a warrant commits a felony.

The 24 Congress members beseeched President Bush in their letter, "Perhaps the most significant concern many of us have is that such a program could be utilized with the Executive Branch acting in the role of attorney, judge, and jury in deciding whether or not the surveillance was justified or appropriate.

This is particularly perplexing given the ease with which your and other Administrations have been able to obtain FISA warrants in the past, and the fact that such warrants can even be obtained on a retroactive basis. "

Congress needs this information to understand if the President and his minions have committed felonies and/or historic constitutional breaches. Either could be impeachable offenses.
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