Hello! Policy Tree is indefinitely on hold -- I'm busy working on The Point. Want to take over? E-mail me at myfirstname at bandrew.com. Thanks!
Andrew Mason
January, 2007
Policy Tree is a reference guide for U.S. policy discourse. Policy Tree helps us navigate our complex media landscape by presenting the range of political perspectives as a logical flowchart.
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In the News:
Karl Rove should be fired or resign over the C.I.A. leak
The U.S. should set a target date for pulling out of Iraq
"Intelligent Design" should be taught along side evolution in public schools
The Patriot Act should not be reauthorized
The Bush Administration should abide by the Geneva Convention and ban the use of torture by the military and the CIA.
Popular:
The Bush administration broke the law by secretly authorizing wiretaps on U.S. citizens.
Karl Rove should be fired or resign over the C.I.A. leak
"Intelligent Design" should be taught along side evolution in public schools
The Bush Administration deliberately misled Americans into entering the Iraq War.
Featured Debate:
The Bush administration broke the law by secretly authorizing wiretaps on U.S. citizens.
"I think [President Bush] probably did [break the law], and I think almost every senator of both parties thinks he probably did... The President doesn't get to decide to make up the laws, and to start wiretapping people just because he thinks it's a good idea. ...I think he may have broken the law."2
Background:
"Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials."
"Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications."
"The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches."1