Hadley can't confirm the success of the Phone Scam On "Late Edition" yesterday, Wolf Blitzer pressed Stephen Hadley to at least give us som
May 14, 2006

Hadley can't confirm the success of the Phone Scam
On "Late Edition" yesterday, Wolf Blitzer pressed Stephen Hadley to at least give us something, anything to prove if the collecting of our phone records has helped in thwarting at least one terrorist attack. Hadley did the "Macarena" dance around that question.
icon Download -WMP icon Download -QT

BLITZER: Can you say that over the past nearly five years, this program of collecting all these phone calls, the records, has resulted in thwarting one terrorist attack against the United States?

HADLEY: Again, I cannot confirm or deny the claims in the "USA Today" story. But what I can say is that the intelligence activities we have conducted against al Qaeda lawfully briefed to the Congress, narrowly focused on the war on terror, has prevented attacks and saved lives.

BLITZER: There have been specific attacks that were in the working stages that, as a result of this data mining, whatever it's called, you managed to stop that attack? Is that what you're saying?

HADLEY: I said as a result of intelligence activities undertaken by the United States.

BLITZER: I know, but I'm talking about the collection of the phone numbers. Does that specific program resulted in thwarting a terrorist act?

HADLEY: And as I said to you, I cannot confirm or deny the claims of that story. What I can tell you is the intelligence activities protected and saved lives and protected America, and the president has cited in some of his speeches incidents when that has occurred.

Nothing on how successful the collecting of tens of millions of our phone records has been in fighting terrorism and undermining our civil liberties. Don't you find that peculiar?

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon