GONZALES POO-POO’S SPY CRITICS

WASHINGTON (WPI)- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the Bush administration's Domestic Spying Program (DSP) and suggested that critics and the news media have intentionally misled Americans about the extent of the National Security Agency's surveillance on Tuesday.

Gonzales said spying on millions of unsuspecting US citizen’s phone, travel and internet browsing is critical to prevent another terrorist attack within the United States. He also claimed that such warrantless surveillance falls within President Bush's constitutional authority and the powers granted by Congress immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He did not cite any constitutional authorization

At a Georgetown Law School Forum, Gonzales said the nation needs "to remember that ... it's imperative for national security reasons that we can detect reliably, immediately and without delay" any al-Qaida related communication entering or leaving the United States.

“Had the President known that Bin Laden planned to attack the US using commercial aircraft and that the twin towers were targets before September 11th he might have been able to act!” Gonzales cautioned.

The Attorney General liked the surreptitious spying to searching for pearls. “Those lovely young Japanese woman have to dive many, many times looking through hundreds of oysters before they find even a single small pearl. Searching for al-Queda information is like that.” He told the snickering audience of college law students.

The attorney general's visit to Georgetown’s law school is part of a campaign by the Bush administration to overcome criticism, often by attempting to redefine, re-describe, re-limit re-title and obfuscate the dimensions and objectives of the spying program.

At Kansas State University on Monday, Bush demanded that domestic spying should be termed a "terrorist surveillance program" and contended it has the backing of legal experts, key lawmakers and the Supreme Court without citing specifics.

Gonzales for his part attacked what he termed, “Gross exaggerations and outright lies by the press and media,” claiming they have mischaracterized details about the program.

"Unfortunately, they have caused concern over the potential breadth of what the President has actually authorized," he said. “These institutions have a sacred duty to tell the truth. Some in the press have violated that responsibility. How would it be if the federal government mischaracterized, lied or distorted the truth of an important issue? No one would believe us after that! We would have no credibility. Well, the press is in danger of losing its credibility in this matter!”

Defending the recently revealed information that the government had subpoenaed internet records of millions of unsuspecting and unsuspected internet browsers he said, “This is not the war on terror, this is the war on child porn. If we happen to find some information that helps fight terrorists, all the better.”

Gonzales asserted that no warrants were needed by the federal government to demand the personal records of internet searches by millions of citizens. He said the data was largely anonymous.

“The information we get looks the same as it does to the record companies. There are no names, only code which identifies individual computers. Once we establish that somebody has done something wrong, downloaded fake pictures of the president’s daughters naked for example, then we can subpeonea the name of the computer owner from his ISP provider, AOL or whoever.” Gonzales told the suddenly silent students. “After that we get the arrest warrants.”