BUSH ORDERS RETALIATORY AIR STRIKES AGAINST CANADA

Declares ‘War on Avian Terror’

President Bush, citing intelligence reports linking al Qaeda to a vast Canadian ‘suicide bird’ training network, today ordered air strikes against 6-8 suspected aviaries and wildlife preserves in Canada as retaliation for the apparent suicide geese attack against U.S. Airways flight 1549 this afternoon. “I know nobody was killed, thank God,” the visibly angry lame-duck told a hastily convened White House press conference, “but that was due to the heroic efforts of the pilot and crew. It’s obvious that the intention of these foul fowl was to kill Americans. Besides, do you have any idea of the impact on rush hour traffic?”

The President also had a stern warning for Canada as well as any other countries that might harbor what he referred to as “extremist terror nests”: “Our actions will be swift, and they will be severe,” he emphasized, “and your birds and larger flying insects are either with us or they are against us. But let me be perfectly clear about one thing — and you can mark my words on this — we will exterminate them over there so we won’t have to exterminate them over here.”

The President then outlined intelligence reports indicating that in recent months, suspected al Qaeda operatives had approached both government officials and black market sources in Canada, Greenland, and several Central and South American countries “in an effort to procure large numbers of dangerous birds which they would use to bring American air traffic to a standstill.” He also added, “And I think anybody who’s seen that Hitchcock movie knows their long-term agenda is probably even more sinister.”

CIA spokesman Christopher Toomey told reporters, “They fill the heads of these young birds with anti-West rhetoric, suggesting we commit such atrocities as eating their young, even their unborn. They tell them we keep their relatives locked up in cages. Then they teach them that if they die as martyrs, they will go to a place where the streets are paved with stale bread and that they will each be rewarded with 72 statues. The little pea-brains don’t stand a chance.”

A Pentagon spokesman would not confirm the number or locations of the targeted facilities, saying only that they were primarily in remote areas where “anybody around there on a Thursday afternoon won’t be missed.”

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who convened an emergency session of Parliament, was unavailable for comment, though an anonymous source close to the situation in Ottawa reports, “there is a general consensus, given the current global state of affairs, that Canada should immediately surrender and request foreign aid.”

Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama’s press secretary, issued a brief, prepared statement emphasizing the President-Elect’s previously stated [ad nauseam] position that “there is only one President at a time.” One transition team member, speaking on condition of anonymity, later added, “It never made sense to me that the President isn’t sworn-in earlier along with the rest of the government, but I never dreamed it would come back to bite us in the ass like this.”

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Top Intelligence Court Affirms Warrantless Wiretapping

NSA: “We Could Have Told You, But We Couldn’t Tell You”

According to a New York Times report, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review today released a decision it made last August “validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans’ private communications may be involved…” (New York Times, 1/15/2009)

While the ruling in no way addresses the legality of the once-secret National Security Agency operation authorized by President Bush in which the NSA eavesdropped on the international communications of Americans suspected of ties to terrorists, it is nonetheless seen by the intelligence community as a vindication of their actions.

“We’ve always known that the majority of Americans support our domestic surveillance program,” said an NSA operative identified only as ‘Hacker’. “We’ve read it in their e-mails. We’ve heard it in their phone conversations. We’ve heard it in restaurants, in hotel rooms, in public restrooms, in private restrooms — you name it.” He then added, “But to have a ruling that obviously indicates we have the support of our top secret courts is a huge boost to morale. I’d venture to guess that lot of people around here are going to find it much easier to stay awake through a lot of really boring late-night phone calls.”

The decision, released to the public in unclassified, redacted form, represents only the third ruling issued by the court in its 30-year history. The court, which oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA),  upheld a secret FISA ruling made last year that Congress was within its authority when it passed the controversial ‘Protect America Act’ in 2007. That measure gives the executive branch broad power to eavesdrop on international communications.

The ruling stems from a challenge by an unidentified telecommunications provider that questioned the authority of the executive branch to compel it to “capture and turn over” international communications without a court order. The company, which according to a source familiar with the case “will soon be facing a vast array of regulatory nightmares and extensive IRS audits,” refused to comply with the order and challenged it in the FISA court.

While spokesmen for the Justice Department and the FISA and appellate courts declined to comment on the ruling, transcripts of secretly recorded conversations between one of the appellate judges and his overseas mistress seem to indicate a prevailing attitude within the secret courts and the intelligence community that with a new administration taking over the reins in Washington, it was “time to stir the pot a little.”

“I think the big breakthrough, as far as getting the level of support needed for these sorts of operations to be successful, came when the President had the foresight and wisdom to listen to his top advisers and issue an executive order broadening the initial surveillance plan to include American judges, public officials, and prominent people in the media,” noted national security and intelligence analyst Paul Sokoloff told Fox News host and noted ‘Bush-bitch’ Sean Hannity, “Learning where countless skeletons are buried is a most efficient means of removing many potential roadblocks on the way to finding bin Laden.”

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