A big story on the Sunday shows this morning was Bush authorizing the NSA to wiretap Americans without going through a court. Sounds unconstitutional to me.
Quote:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic House leaders called Sunday for an independent panel to investigate the legality of a program President Bush authorized that allows warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens, according to a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
"We believe that the President must have the best possible intelligence to protect the American people, but that intelligence must be produced in a manner consistent with our Constitution and our laws, and in a manner that reflects our values as a nation," the letter says. ...
I'm not so sure about the details, but I heard that once you're flagged, they monitor your activities (phone, purchases, online, etc.) for at least two years...
I'm VERY sure this place is being monitored by no less than 2, 3 HUNDRED NSA agents.
To read the Times article, one might get the impression that any and all Americans are subject to a warrantless search. That is not the case, as Times itself stated a few days ago:
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.
Only those people thought to be communicating and collaborating with al Qaeda terrorists overseas were subject to surveillance.
In other words, this was a narrowly-tailored executive order targeting just a few hundred or few thousand terrorist-linked email addresses and phone numbers, not general surveillance of all citizen communications in a nation of 295 million.
In addition, while it should be noted that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) requires a court order to seek surveillance on suspected terrorists or spies, there is legal precedent from 2000 entitled U.S vs. bin Laden that says in part:
“Circuit courts applying (FISA law] to the foreign intelligence context have affirmed the existence of a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement for searches conducted within the United States that target foreign powers or their agents.”
While I haven't researched this area extensively (it doesn't come up much in traffic court) , it would seem to me that this demonstrates that U.S. courts have an established judicial precedent for bypassing FISA in certain circumstances - the circumstances that two Attorney Generals, Justice Department lawyers and White House Counsel all seem to affirm that President Bush was within his constitutional authority in addressing with his executive order to the NSA.
Other useful bits of information the Times crack reporters seem to have trouble finding—or at least reporting—were Executive Order 12333 issued while Ronald Reagan was in office, stipulations of FISA itself, and the President's constitutional authority, as noted here:
Overlooked in most of the commentary on the New York Times article is the simple, undeniable fact that the president has the power to conduct warantless surveillance of foreign powers conspiring to kill Americans or attack the government. The Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures has not been interpreted by the Supreme Court to restrict this inherent presidential power. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (an introduction from a critic of the Act is here) cannot be read as a limit on a constitutional authority even if the Act purported to so limit that authority.
Further, the instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country."
That is from the 1972 decision in United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan et al, (407 U.S. 297) which is where the debate over the president's executive order ought to begin and end. The FISA statute can have no impact on a constitutional authority. Statutes cannot add to or detract from constitutional authority.
In short, it would appear that there was an arguable legal basis from which the authority was drawn.
It's a shame that honest reporting, or for that matter, the safety of the American people, are of little apparent concern for the reporters and the leakers.
Bush said "absolutely" he has the legal authority to order such surveillance, and cited Article 2 of the Constitution, which he said gives him the responsibility and authority to deal with an enemy that declares war against the United States. After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Congress also gave him the authority to use force against Al Qaeda, he noted, to tackle an "unconventional enemy," some of whom lived in U.S. cities and communities while planning attacks.
"We need to recognize that dealing with Al Qaeda is not simply a matter of law enforcement. It requires dealing with an enemy that declared war against the United States of America," Bush said.
"After Sept. 11, one question my administration had to answer was, how, using the authority I have, how do we effectively detect enemies hiding in our midst and prevent them from striking them again? We know that a two-minute phone conversation from someone linked to Al Qaeda here and to Al Qaeda overseas can cost millions of American lives," he added, saying some of the Sept. 11 hijackers made several phone calls overseas before the attacks.
He said the Sept. 11 commission — charged with probing the intelligence failures surrounding the attacks four years ago that left 3,000 people dead — said the United States intelligence community needs to better "connect the dots" before the enemy can attack again.
"So, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, I authorized the interception of communication with people with known links to Al Qaeda and people linked to known terror organizations," Bush said, adding that he has reauthorized the program more than 30 times "and I will continue to do so for so long as our nation faces the continued threat of an enemy that wants to kill our American citizens".
The program is reviewed "constantly" to ensure it is effective and not infringing on Americans' civil liberties, the president added. He also said congressional leaders have been briefed on the program more than a dozen times
He stressed that the program is limited to known Al Qaeda terrorists and for calls made from the United States to somewhere overseas, and vice versa. Calls between two U.S. cities are not monitored, he said
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Monday that the NSA program had yielded intelligence results that would not have been available otherwise in the War on Terror.
He stressed that it is not a blanket spying program of ordinary Americans but of overseas communications of potential Al Qaeda suspects in the United States.
"This is not a situation of domestic spying," the attorney general said.
"Our position is that the authorization to use military force which was passed by the Congress shortly after Sept. 11 constitutes that authority," Gonzales continued. It "does give permission for the president of the United States to engage in this kind of very limited, targeted electronic surveillance against our enemy."
Gen. Michael Hayden, the deputy national intelligence director who was head of the NSA when the program began, said, "I can say unequivocally we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available."
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: Everything was perfectly legal...
What he's doing now isn't legal. He should be investigated.
Really? What is he doing that illegal, exactly?
From what I've read Bush is skipping using a Judge to approve his wiretapping. And I haven't seen a good reason for him not using the FISA law that would allow him to wiretap first & then get a judge to OK it after. The fact that his lawyers (that he picks) thinks it's OK doesn't make it Constitutional.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: Everything was perfectly legal...
What he's doing now isn't legal. He should be investigated.
Really? What is he doing that illegal, exactly?
From what I've read Bush is skipping using a Judge to approve his wiretapping. And I haven't seen a good reason for him not using the FISA law that would allow him to wiretap first & then get a judge to OK it after. The fact that his lawyers (that he picks) thinks it's OK doesn't make it Constitutional.
So he's breaking the law because you don't see any reason for him doing what he did? If you acctually read the article that was released in the NY times and bypass the sensational headline you'll note that even they concede that he did nothing illegal AND the same article points out several plots that were fioled as a result of the strategy. Also the reason teh Bush admin asked them to delay the story was because the strategy was working asnd the teh longer they could keep that information from teh terrorists the more effective it would be, but in the end we goota do what's right, because people got books that need sellin'.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: From what I've read Bush is skipping using a Judge to approve his wiretapping. And I haven't seen a good reason for him not using the FISA law that would allow him to wiretap first & then get a judge to OK it after. The fact that his lawyers (that he picks) thinks it's OK doesn't make it Constitutional.
As noted above, U.S vs. bin Laden says in part that “Circuit courts applying (FISA law] to the foreign intelligence context have affirmed the existence of a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement for searches conducted within the United States that target foreign powers or their agents.”
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: From what I've read Bush is skipping using a Judge to approve his wiretapping. And I haven't seen a good reason for him not using the FISA law that would allow him to wiretap first & then get a judge to OK it after. The fact that his lawyers (that he picks) thinks it's OK doesn't make it Constitutional.
As noted above, U.S vs. bin Laden says in part that “Circuit courts applying (FISA law] to the foreign intelligence context have affirmed the existence of a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement for searches conducted within the United States that target foreign powers or their agents.”
And I'm sure the inevitable investigation to come will take that into consideration. (if it's accurate I would say he's home free)
The program is reviewed "constantly" to ensure it is effective and not infringing on Americans' civil liberties, the president added. He also said congressional leaders have been briefed on the program more than a dozen times..
Who watches the Watchmen?
That the President asserts that it's not infringing on civil liberties leaves me cold.
Please, citizens, ignore the man behind the curtain...
NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."
Although The Standard-Times knows the name of the student, he is not coming forward because he fears repercussions should his name become public. He has not spoken to The Standard-Times.
The professors had been asked to comment on a report that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to spy on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002 in this country.
The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants.
The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung.
In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book.
The student told Professor Pontbriand and Dr. Williams that the Homeland Security agents told him the book was on a "watch list."
They brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student, the professors said.
Dr. Williams said in his research, he regularly contacts people in Afghanistan, Chechnya and other Muslim hot spots, and suspects that some of his calls are monitored.
"My instinct is that there is a lot more monitoring than we think," he said.
Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk.
"I shudder to think of all the students I've had monitoring al-Qaeda Web sites, what the government must think of that," he said. "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless."
This is exactly the type of scenario wire-tap critics worry about. Not only was this a wasted effort on the part of the government, but now it looks like professors are going to feel limited in what they can teach and students will feel the same in terms of what they're allowed to research, because someone's going to blow it out of proportion and get the wrong idea, making a big deal out of nothing, which could have serious reprecussions regarding whether people's freedom of speech (in a university setting, at least) is really being protected by this.
Surely there are more serious threats to go after than students conducting research for school in order to learn about what's going on in the world for when they're adults and they're the ones calling the shots.
This is why oversight and search warrants are necessary, to make sure we snag the people we're supposed to snag, and not someone reading the wrong book at the wrong time.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I'm sure the inevitable investigation to come...
Because investigating the president, not terrorists, seems to be the only consistent platform in the war on terror the democratic leadership has.
Actually it sounds like several Republican leaders are also questioning if it's constitutional or not. You would agree that even the President isn't above the law, right?
Without the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, of what value is the United States? The President uses the fear of terrorist attacks to justify the reduction of our liberty.
In recent history the government has rounded up natural born US citizens and placed them in concentration camps. It has broken into and wire tapped citizens and their physicians in hopes of gleaning incriminating bits of information. These incedents of violation of civil rights have happened over a period 70 years.
I worry far more about government taking away civil liberties than I do about terrorist attacks. Really, you are far more likely to win Super Lotto than you are to die in a terrorist attack. Even more so now that Al Queda Irregulars can kill USA soldiers much closer to home.
Pardon me for agreeing my Liberal counterparts (not that I'm a staunch Republican, but this argument is ridiculous.
First, Privacy is every Americans' right. This is the same as illegal search and seizure (sp?).
Second, Until you do something about a wide open border nothing in any new law makes any difference.
Third, we all know this goes on anyway--with or without permission and warrants, and always has. Warrants are only necessary if you want to take someone to court and build a case.
Fourth, Bush is not an idiot..he is a calculating manipulator that plays the idiot--and very well.
Fifth, Agents checking on someone reading a book is rather silly, in context, to the actual threats facing the US if terorists really wanted to go into action.
sixth, this is becoming fascism..democrat and rebublican..the dems are the pc police and the reps are the terrorist police.
seventh, why are we still worried about goofy Iraq when we have 3 or more true threats in the world...the crazy ass in Iran is still publicly stating he wants to nuke israel and bring about the new messianic age....Heeellloooooooooo???
eighth, if you actually tighten airport security and watch the borders more closely you don't need all this bs....Americans police themselves pretty well...
ninth, this is about power not about freedom and liberty and safety...if it was so many free thinking people wouldn't be questioning it.
and ten..G-Man and anyone else if you honestly don't see a problem with any of this..then you are blind and misguided and party puppets..just like many of my liberal counterparts...
Quote: Pig Iron said: First, Privacy is every Americans' right. This is the same as illegal search and seizure (sp?).
Second, Until you do something about a wide open border nothing in any new law makes any difference.
Third, we all know this goes on anyway--with or without permission and warrants, and always has. Warrants are only necessary if you want to take someone to court and build a case.
Fourth, Bush is not an idiot..he is a calculating manipulator that plays the idiot--and very well.
Fifth, Agents checking on someone reading a book is rather silly, in context, to the actual threats facing the US if terorists really wanted to go into action.
sixth, this is becoming fascism..democrat and rebublican..the dems are the pc police and the reps are the terrorist police.
eighth, if you actually tighten airport security and watch the borders more closely you don't need all this bs....Americans police themselves pretty well...
and ten..G-Man and anyone else if you honestly don't see a problem with any of this..then you are blind and misguided and party puppets..just like many of my liberal counterparts...
(I couldn't decide which of these graemlins this post deserved the most, so I put them all)
First, Privacy is every Americans' right. This is the same as illegal search and seizure (sp?).
The "right to privacy" is limited in numerous ways that have been enacted by legislatures and upheld by courts.
Bush was apparently acting under one of those sections of the law. See earlier posts.
This wasn't a case of random, widespread, spying on ordinary Americans. As noted in the articles it was limited to people who might be involved in terrorism.
Remember: we've actually found US citizens involved in terrorist plots.
Quote: Second, Until you do something about a wide open border nothing in any new law makes any difference.
I sort of agree with you here. In fact, I've criticized Bush on several occasions here for not doing more on border security. That doesn't mean, however, that everything else is useless. As noted by the Attorney General the White House's actions did, in fact, foil some plots.
But you're right we need to do more...even though someone will, ironically enough, call that an invasion of privacy.
Also, as noted above, we've actually found that some of the terrorist plotters were US citizens. How would closing the border stop them?
Quote: Third, we all know this goes on anyway--with or without permission and warrants, and always has. Warrants are only necessary if you want to take someone to court and build a case.
Well, not exactly. But if you think it goes on anyway, why are you PO'd at Bush for following precedent?
Quote: Fourth, Bush is not an idiot..he is a calculating manipulator that plays the idiot--and very well.
I agree he isn't an idiot.
Quote: Fifth, Agents checking on someone reading a book is rather silly, in context, to the actual threats facing the US if terorists really wanted to go into action.
Agents checking on someone's reading is a different issue. That was something that was specifically authorized by the Patriot Act and earlier legislation. That isn't what Bush did here.
Quote: sixth, this is becoming fascism..democrat and rebublican..the dems are the pc police and the reps are the terrorist police.
How is it facism? As noted above, this was used in limited circumstances, against people making overseas calls, and regularly vetted by the government to make sure it wasn't overstepping its bounds. When do facists do any of that?
And even I, staunch opponent of "PC" think that calling Political Correctness "facism" is an incredibly simplistic and ridiculous interpretation of the concept.
Quote: seventh, why are we still worried about goofy Iraq when we have 3 or more true threats in the world...the crazy ass in Iran is still publicly stating he wants to nuke israel and bring about the new messianic age....Heeellloooooooooo???
Yeah, I'd like to see Bush nuke the living shit out of Iraq too. But I'd assume we're going to let Israel finish that job. Besides, can you imagine what the "other side" would do if Bush now invaded Iraq?
Quote: eighth, if you actually tighten airport security and watch the borders more closely you don't need all this bs....Americans police themselves pretty well...
Again, I agree with you for the most part.
On the other hand, let's look at one of the last times Bush tried to tighten the border, by requiring everyone to have a passport to go to and from Canada. Hardly facism there. You need a passport to go to England, why not Canada?
But what happened? Congress has a fit, the public had a fit and the proposal was dropped. So don't tell me that its simple to close the borders.
Also, as noted above, we've actually found that some of the terrorist plotters were US citizens. How would closing the border stop them?
Quote: ninth, this is about power not about freedom and liberty and safety...if it was so many free thinking people wouldn't be questioning it.
Free thinking people question all sorts of things, right or wrong. That's part of what makes them free thinkers.
For example, a lot of free thinking people are against curbing immigration and tightening our borders. That's something you're in favor of. Should we abandon that effort because "free thinking people question it" and, by your reckoning, that makes it about "power"?
Quote: and ten..G-Man and anyone else if you honestly don't see a problem with any of this..then you are blind and misguided and party puppets..just like many of my liberal counterparts...
I agreed with you on a couple of points. I guess that makes me a little less blind, misguided and puppety?
Seriously, if this was some sort of widespread program I'd have a bigger problem. But it isn't. If this was spying on political enemies like Clinton and Nixon did, I'd have a bigger problem with it. But it isn't. If this hadn't been vetted by various attorneys and given precedent by federal courts, I'd have a bigger problem with it. But it was.
The bottom line is that, at this point, it looks like this was legal.
Considering what the White House has said so far it seems Congress without knowing it "gave" the President the authority to do these wiretaps without any judge involved. That's a pretty liberal interpretation! And why not use the original FISA law that would have allowed them to get the wiretaps first & the OK later? Why avoid a judge? Could it be that he's wiretapping folks that a judge wouldn't OK?
Please America, don't listen in on suspected terrorists phone calls.... or at least if you're going to let them know first. My tollerance for this nonsenses is dissipating daily. We are at war. There acctually ARE people who want to kill us.... that's me, you, your family.
As much as you all like to make jokes about 9-11 it did happen and when it did tehy didn't pat themselves on teh back and say, "well, we made our point, lets move on" They went right back to the drawing board and started planning again for the next attack and the next one.
We have been successfull at thwarting alot of attempts to attack us, but slowly but surely some people have forgotten and want to chip away at the tools that we use to defeat them, slowly inching closer and closer to the dog house just to see ho wlong that leash really is.
All teh Democrats seem to want to do is defeat Bush as though he's the enemy of America (and teh only one at that) When the Gorrelic (sp?) wall was resurected teh press touted it as a defeat for Bush, well, it was a deafeat for national sucurity, wich means it was a defeat for the American people.
They'll do anything to get at W, even leak CIA information that interfears with our execution of the war and endangers us and our troops (who we're sure you all support soooo much). It seems the only kind of CIA leak they care about are those that DON'T compromise national security.
Or could it be because they wanted to minimise the chance that the opperation would get leaked? But, no, there's noone so low down they'd leak a national security secret that could compromise our mission.
I don't think anyone here is making the arguement that wiretapping suspected terrorist isn't a bad thing or trying to prevent that WBAM. But up till last week I thought the President required a judge to at least retroactively OK it. And I've yet to hear any reason why to cut the judge out of the loop. Checks & balances folks.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I don't think anyone here is making the arguement that wiretapping suspected terrorist isn't a bad thing or trying to prevent that WBAM. But up till last week I thought the President required a judge to at least retroactively OK it. And I've yet to hear any reason why to cut the judge out of the loop. Checks & balances folks.
My Mom says it's okay to do what he did because we're at war and sometimes you have to give up some of your rights for the war. She said it's okay that Bush did it because she trusts Bush to do it right.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Why avoid a judge? Could it be that he's wiretapping folks that a judge wouldn't OK?
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: ...could it be because they wanted to minimise the chance that the opperation would get leaked?
Byron York, NR's White House correspondent reports that especially before, and even after, passage of the Patriot Act, the FISA bureaucracy and the agencies that dealt with it were too unwieldy to handle some fast-moving intelligence cases:
In 2002, when the president made his decision, there was widespread, bipartisan frustration with the slowness and inefficiency of the bureaucracy involved in seeking warrants from the special intelligence court, known as the FISA court.
Even later, after the provisions of the Patriot Act had had time to take effect, there were still problems with the FISA court — problems examined by members of the September 11 Commission — and questions about whether the court can deal effectively with the fastest-changing cases in the war on terror.
People familiar with the process say the problem is not so much with the court itself as with the process required to bring a case before the court.
"It takes days, sometimes weeks, to get the application for FISA together," says one source. "It's not so much that the court doesn't grant them quickly, it's that it takes a long time to get to the court. Even after the Patriot Act, it's still a very cumbersome process. It is not built for speed, it is not built to be efficient. It is built with an eye to keeping [investigators] in check."
And even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things.
Lawmakers of both parties recognized the problem in the months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. They pointed to the case of Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who ran up against a number roadblocks in her effort to secure a FISA warrant in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the al Qaeda operative who had taken flight training in preparation for the hijackings. Investigators wanted to study the contents of Moussaoui's laptop computer, but the FBI bureaucracy involved in applying for a FISA warrant was stifling, and there were real questions about whether investigators could meet the FISA court's probable-cause standard for granting a warrant. FBI agents became so frustrated that they considered flying Moussaoui to France, where his computer could be examined.
But then the attacks came, and it was too late.
It was in the context of such bureaucratic bottlenecks that the president first authorized, and then renewed, the program to bypass the FISA court in cases of international communications of people with known al Qaeda links.
Quote: Uschi said: ... My Mom says it's okay to do what he did because we're at war and sometimes you have to give up some of your rights for the war. She said it's okay that Bush did it because she trusts Bush to do it right.
It never ceases to amaze me how quick some people are willing to chuck their rights just so that they can feel safe.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: Please America, don't listen in on suspected terrorists phone calls.... or at least if you're going to let them know first. My tollerance for this nonsenses is dissipating daily. We are at war. There acctually ARE people who want to kill us.... that's me, you, your family.
As much as you all like to make jokes about 9-11 it did happen and when it did tehy didn't pat themselves on teh back and say, "well, we made our point, lets move on" They went right back to the drawing board and started planning again for the next attack and the next one.
We have been successfull at thwarting alot of attempts to attack us, but slowly but surely some people have forgotten and want to chip away at the tools that we use to defeat them, slowly inching closer and closer to the dog house just to see ho wlong that leash really is.
All teh Democrats seem to want to do is defeat Bush as though he's the enemy of America (and teh only one at that) When the Gorrelic (sp?) wall was resurected teh press touted it as a defeat for Bush, well, it was a deafeat for national sucurity, wich means it was a defeat for the American people.
They'll do anything to get at W, even leak CIA information that interfears with our execution of the war and endangers us and our troops (who we're sure you all support soooo much). It seems the only kind of CIA leak they care about are those that DON'T compromise national security.
With all due respect, your comments distort the concerns of many wiretapping critics.
As MEM has mentioned, many of us who have voice concerns over wiretapping aren't out to see it scrapped completely. If it needs to be done, and in certain cases when dealing with certain people, it probably does, it should be done with just cause, to the letter of clearly written laws, and with proper oversight in place to prevent abuses of power. And many of use are concerned that this isn't happening.
Also, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make sure that the government's not wasting time, effort, or taxpayers dollars to spy on people who pose no threat to the country at the expense of not devoting enough manpower or resources to tag the real bad guys.
And be careful about comments like "you all like to make jokes about 9/11."
Quote: Uschi said: ... My Mom says it's okay to do what he did because we're at war and sometimes you have to give up some of your rights for the war. She said it's okay that Bush did it because she trusts Bush to do it right.
It never ceases to amaze me how quick some people are willing to chuck their rights just so that they can feel safe.
I was just suprised because it went against the logical and rational thinking she taught me while growing up. I think sometimes political labels and stigma have more influance on digesting information than we'd like to think. I don't think she's being objective. Since I can remember she said "no big government, they should stay out of our homes and let us do what we want" - add to that she wanted to be a lawyer before she had kids (ala "innocent until proven guilty" and "better ten guilty go free than one innocent be imprisoned"). This seems like the opposite of both of those.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Why avoid a judge? Could it be that he's wiretapping folks that a judge wouldn't OK?
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: ...could it be because they wanted to minimise the chance that the opperation would get leaked?
Byron York, NR's White House correspondent reports that especially before, and even after, passage of the Patriot Act, the FISA bureaucracy and the agencies that dealt with it were too unwieldy to handle some fast-moving intelligence cases:
In 2002, when the president made his decision, there was widespread, bipartisan frustration with the slowness and inefficiency of the bureaucracy involved in seeking warrants from the special intelligence court, known as the FISA court.
Even later, after the provisions of the Patriot Act had had time to take effect, there were still problems with the FISA court — problems examined by members of the September 11 Commission — and questions about whether the court can deal effectively with the fastest-changing cases in the war on terror.
People familiar with the process say the problem is not so much with the court itself as with the process required to bring a case before the court.
"It takes days, sometimes weeks, to get the application for FISA together," says one source. "It's not so much that the court doesn't grant them quickly, it's that it takes a long time to get to the court. Even after the Patriot Act, it's still a very cumbersome process. It is not built for speed, it is not built to be efficient. It is built with an eye to keeping [investigators] in check."
And even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things.
Lawmakers of both parties recognized the problem in the months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. They pointed to the case of Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who ran up against a number roadblocks in her effort to secure a FISA warrant in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the al Qaeda operative who had taken flight training in preparation for the hijackings. Investigators wanted to study the contents of Moussaoui's laptop computer, but the FBI bureaucracy involved in applying for a FISA warrant was stifling, and there were real questions about whether investigators could meet the FISA court's probable-cause standard for granting a warrant. FBI agents became so frustrated that they considered flying Moussaoui to France, where his computer could be examined.
But then the attacks came, and it was too late.
It was in the context of such bureaucratic bottlenecks that the president first authorized, and then renewed, the program to bypass the FISA court in cases of international communications of people with known al Qaeda links.
If this is the case, then perhaps a better solution is to somehow streamline the bureaucratic process so that a judge can still approve the wire-tap or whatever else needs to be done in a timely manner instead of bypassing a judge completely. If it can be done properly, everybody wins except the terrorists.
Yes, going through courts and obtaining permits is time consuming, but it is the law, if I understand correctly. And considering a law to be inconvenient is a lousy excuse to violate it.
Quote: Darknight613 said: If this is the case, then perhaps a better solution is to somehow streamline the bureaucratic process so that a judge can still approve the wire-tap or whatever else needs to be done in a timely manner instead of bypassing them completely. If it can be done properly, everybody wins except the terrorists.
Yes, going through courts and obtaining permits is time consuming, but it is the law, if I understand correctly. And considering a law to be inconvenient is a lousy excuse to violate it.
Maybe they could hire a couple judges for just those matters.
Quote: Bush's "Need for Speed" Argument Runs Into the Truth by David Sirota In his news conference today, President Bush invoked the need for speed in the War on Terror as the reason he is illegally ordering the National Security Agency to conduct domestic surveillance without search warrants. Sounds like a compelling argument, right? In the fast-moving world of information age technology, we can't really afford to make our law enforcers take the time to go get a warrant, right?
It's true – Bush might have had a point, except for one tiny little detail he refused to discuss at his press conference: namely, the fact that current law is so lax that he is already permitted to get a search warrant 72 hours after surveillance is conducted. Put another way, the law currently allows Bush to order surveillance as fast as he possibly can, and allows surveillance operations to take place immediately. The only thing that is required is a court-issued warrant that can be ussed retroactively within 72 hours of when the operation started. And, as I've noted earlier, the special court that grants these warrants has only rejected 4 government requests in a quarter century, meaning getting a warrant is about as easy as it gets...that is, as long as you aren't trying to do something wholly outrageous and unrelated to the War on Terror.
And so we're back to the same question: why did the President order domestic surveillance operations without even asking retroactively for warrants? In his press conference, Bush tried to ramrod the entire issue into one of him working to defend America, and critics supposedly being weak on national security. But he frontally refused to answer the very simple question when a reporter put it to him: ... There really is only one explanation that a sane, rational person could come up with: The surveillance operations Bush is ordering are so outrageous, so unrelated to the War on Terror and such an unconstitutional breach of authority that he knows that even a court that has rejected just 4 warrant requests in 25 years will reject what he's doing. All you have to do is look at recent news reports about federal law enforcement and military assets being deployed against domestic anti-war and peace groups to know that this is well within what the Bush White House sees as acceptable behavior. ...
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: Please America, don't listen in on suspected terrorists phone calls.... or at least if you're going to let them know first. My tollerance for this nonsenses is dissipating daily. We are at war. There acctually ARE people who want to kill us.... that's me, you, your family.
As much as you all like to make jokes about 9-11 it did happen and when it did tehy didn't pat themselves on teh back and say, "well, we made our point, lets move on" They went right back to the drawing board and started planning again for the next attack and the next one.
We have been successfull at thwarting alot of attempts to attack us, but slowly but surely some people have forgotten and want to chip away at the tools that we use to defeat them, slowly inching closer and closer to the dog house just to see ho wlong that leash really is.
All teh Democrats seem to want to do is defeat Bush as though he's the enemy of America (and teh only one at that) When the Gorrelic (sp?) wall was resurected teh press touted it as a defeat for Bush, well, it was a deafeat for national sucurity, wich means it was a defeat for the American people.
They'll do anything to get at W, even leak CIA information that interfears with our execution of the war and endangers us and our troops (who we're sure you all support soooo much). It seems the only kind of CIA leak they care about are those that DON'T compromise national security.
With all due respect, your comments distort the concerns of many wiretapping critics.
As MEM has mentioned, many of us who have voice concerns over wiretapping aren't out to see it scrapped completely. If it needs to be done, and in certain cases when dealing with certain people, it probably does, it should be done with just cause, to the letter of clearly written laws, and with proper oversight in place to prevent abuses of power. And many of use are concerned that this isn't happening.
Also, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make sure that the government's not wasting time, effort, or taxpayers dollars to spy on people who pose no threat to the country at the expense of not devoting enough manpower or resources to tag the real bad guys.
And be careful about comments like "you all like to make jokes about 9/11."
Last point first... You're absolutely right, I shouldn't say "all". This is an issue that I view with more than a passing intellectual intrest and my comments were fueled with more than just a little information. To you and other moderate (not even moderate, but sensible) liberals, I oppologise. There is however a tendency for people to make light of Bush "hiding" behind 9-11 as though teh Commander and Cheif isn't allowed to address it or that it was a one time oddity that won't happen again.
As far as teh wire tapping goes and my generalisations of teh critics. If it were just wire tapping then i would be fine, but I see a certain sect of the left doing every thing they can to undermine the effort viewing a loss in Iraq as a political victory against Bush. i mean teh only reason we're talking about the wire taps is because someone leaked classified national security secrets to the public, not to have the actions judged in the legal arena, but to have them judged in teh arena of public opinion.
If it's not an attemt to undermine the effort then why isn't the news going into the specifics, why is it that most people who have learned of teh story from the news don't understand even the basics. such as the only calls that are being monitered are overseas calls made regularly to regions of terrorist activity and made by people or to people that have terrorist ties. They aren't listening when you call your girlfriend or when r3... er other people call 1-900-HOT-DONKY.
If I was lead to believe that the US government was monitering random calls local and otherwise with no set criteria, i would be upsett too and if I only knew of this story from teh mass media then that's probobly exacly the conclusion I would come to.
I look forward to an inquery into this. It will reveal teh full legality of what was done and hopefully expose the rat bastard who leaked this information so they can be sent off to secret prison to undergo a couple of watter board sessions to find out what other information they're planning to leak.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: In response to G-man's speed argument...Bush might have had a point, except for one tiny little detail he refused to discuss at his press conference: namely, the fact that current law is so lax that he is already permitted to get a search warrant 72 hours after surveillance is conducted.
However, as noted in my earlier post:
Quote: the G-man said:even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things.
There were other reasons for the president to act, as well.
it appears that he was trying to shake the bureaucracy into action. The September 11 Commission report pointed to a deeply entrenched it's-not-my-job mentality within the National Security Agency that led the organization to shy away from aggressive antiterrorism surveillance.
While the NSA had the technical capability to report on communications with suspected terrorist facilities in the Middle East, the NSA did not seek FISA Court warrants to collect communications between individuals in the United States and foreign countries, because it believed that this was an FBI role. It also did not want to be viewed as targeting persons in the United States and possibly violating laws that governed NSA's collection of foreign intelligence. An almost obsessive protection of sources and methods by the NSA, and its focus on foreign intelligence, and its avoidance of anything domestic would...be important elements in the story of 9/11.
Bush's order, it appears, was an attempt to change that situation.
Quote: the G-man said: ... the G-man said:even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things.
Even if that is true, it's not a good reason to go around a judge. It was the President's job to then go to Congress to get something less cumbersome. Cumbersome is not an acceptable excuse to circumvent our system of checks & balances. And how cumbersome can it be to be able to do the wiretap first & then retroactively get a Judge to OK it? The other reason you list I don't understand. The NSA might have needed some shaking up but why would cutting out judicial review of the wiretaps be part of that? FISA is pretty much a rubber stamp anyway. In the last 25yrs it's turned down a total of 4 requests.
Quote: ...Sen. Boxer said she decided to investigate the "impeachment" possibilities after Richard Nixon's former White House Counsel John Dean commented that Bush had admitted to an "impeachable offense." "I take very seriously Mr. Dean's comments, as I view him to be an expert on presidential abuse of power. I am expecting a full airing of this matter by the Senate in the very near future," Boxer said in a statement on her website.
Quote: ...Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.
Who's to say I'm not doing anything defined as "bad" right now, but they catch me talking about it, then decide later "it's bad" and decide to come after me then?
You think it can't happen? Well, you prolly didn't think the towers would come down either, but they did. Bad shit can happen.
Quote: the G-man said:even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said:Even if that is true, it's not a good reason to go around a judge. It was the President's job to then go to Congress to get something less cumbersome. Cumbersome is not an acceptable excuse to circumvent our system of checks & balances.
The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But no Administration then or since has ever conceded that that Act trumped a President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it. FISA established a process by which certain wiretaps in the context of the Cold War could be approved, not a limit on what wiretaps could ever be allowed.
The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis], held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." And further that "we take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."
The above standard appears to apply to what happened here.
the Administration was scrupulous in limiting the FISA exceptions. They applied only to calls involving al Qaeda suspects or those with terrorist ties.
Furthermore, as noted below, the "system of checks and balances" was, in fact, respected:
Far from being "secret," key Members of Congress were informed about them at least 12 times, President Bush said yesterday. The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about them.
Inside the executive branch, the process allowing the wiretaps was routinely reviewed by Justice Department lawyers, by the Attorney General personally, and with the President himself reauthorizing the process every 45 days. In short, the implication that this is some LBJ-J. Edgar Hoover operation designed to skirt the law to spy on domestic political enemies is nothing less than a political smear.
Quote: PJP said: If you aren't doing anything wrong than you have nothing to worry about.
In fact, as noted above, "the Administration was scrupulous in limiting the FISA exceptions. They applied only to calls involving al Qaeda suspects or those with terrorist ties."
Quote: PJP said: If you aren't doing anything wrong than you have nothing to worry about.
In fact, as noted above, "the Administration was scrupulous in limiting the FISA exceptions. They applied only to calls involving al Qaeda suspects or those with terrorist ties."
As I've already noted Bush has lied about this in 2004, so his assurance are not credible. This has to be investigated.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Here's what he told us in 2004...
Quote: ...Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.
Quote: PJP said: To all the people bitching about the wirte taps........grow up. If you aren't doing anything wrong than you have nothing to worry about.
That's not always the case.
The kid in the article I posted earlier in this thread wasn't doing anything wrong. He was just trying to get a book for a research paper, and he ends up with federal agents on his case.
Quote: the G-man said: ... And THAT, my friends, is the only plan the Democrats have to combat terrorism.
Where do you get that? Members of both parties in Congress are concerned about the President's actions & are calling for an investigation. This isn't just Dems. Some things & some people rise above partisan politics.
"[T]he FBI Could Get A Wiretap To Investigate The Mafia, But They Could Not Get One To Investigate Terrorists. To Put It Bluntly, That Was Crazy! What's Good For The Mob Should Be Good For Terrorists." - Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), Oct. 25, 2001
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: Yea, forget about terrorists, lets get Bush instead.
Just so the Dems know the American people are taking names and when we get hit again we're gonna be pissed.
So your saying Bush is more important than the Constitution? And BTW, nobody has said the wiretapping has to stop just that judge at some point afterwards retroactively OKs it.
Does anyone remember 9/11 any longer? Innocent men and women being burned to death? Temperatures so cruel that grown men and women held hands and leapt to their deaths from the high floors of the World Trade Center? Children crushed in the lower floors? Planeloads of totally guiltless men and women and children crashed to death? The worst terrorist act of all time? In case Chuck Schumer forgot, it was a big thing in his home state.
Of course Bush would want to do everything he could to investigate the doings of possible terrorists in America and right away, too.
Of course he would want to use every resource, including the NSA.
And of course, he alerted key members of Congress, none of whom protested.
It was a major, big time emergency. Why is it even a question of Presidential power? It was and is a question of protecting the nation.
Obviously, if he had gone public with it right away, it would have alerted the terrorists to stay off the phone.
Maybe he should have gone to a court. Or maybe he realized it was a life and death matter for immediate action.
In any event, Bush's main goal has been to save the nation. Why doesn't he get some credit for that?
The enemies are the Al Qaeda and Zarqawi, not Bush. When you cripple the Commander in Chief, you are doing the bidding, unintentionally, I am sure, of some people who will not hesitate to cut your heads off. Keep it in mind. Let's get behind the man who is trying to save us, and when we're behind him, let's not stab him in the back.
Ben Stein said In any event, Bush's main goal has been to save the nation. Why doesn't he get some credit for that?
It's a laudable goal. He does get credit for it. It's called his re-election. Does Ben forget that Bush was re-elected just a little over a year ago? Is that not Bush getting "some credit"?
But what further needs to be said to address Ben's question is this:
(a) where was Bush in summer, 2001? If Ben wants to know if people forget 9-11, my answer is no. We don't forget this administration's failure that let 9-11 happen; that cannot be overlooked. It was on Bush's watch. He was in office 8 months. Did he purposely let it happen? I don't believe that he did. But it did happen on Bush's time and he's been more than able at exploiting it. Until bin Laden is brought to justice over it, that cannot be overlooked.
(b) Many of us are not convinced he's saving the nation. We remain unconvinced that one of his main goals is not the re-making of the United States more in line with his own ways of thinking.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Ben Stein said In any event, Bush's main goal has been to save the nation. Why doesn't he get some credit for that?
It's a laudable goal. He does get credit for it. It's called his re-election. Does Ben forget that Bush was re-elected just a little over a year ago? Is that not Bush getting "some credit"?
But what further needs to be said to address Ben's question is this:
(a) where was Bush in summer, 2001? If Ben wants to know if people forget 9-11, my answer is no. We don't forget this administration's failure that let 9-11 happen; that cannot be overlooked. It was on Bush's watch. He was in office 8 months. Did he let it happen? I won't say that. But it did happen on Bush's time. Until bin Laden is brought to justice over it, that cannot be forgotten.
(b) Many of us are not convinced he's saving the nation. We remain unconvinced that one of his main goals is not the re-making of the United States more in line with his own ways of thinking.
But terrorists! 9/11! Bush is president! the terrorists win!
Quote: Jim Jackson said: And of course Ben Stein would say all that.
He used to work for Nixon.
Yeah G-man may have been better off finding someone else who wouldn't remind us that not to long ago another President did some wiretapping. But even if it was somebody unconnected to Watergate the argument presented lacks merit. We're not to question or investigate a President who lied to us & very likely seized power that doesn't belong to him constitutionally?
Quote: WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Three Democratic and two Republican senators have sent a letter to the leaders of the Senate's Judiciary and Intelligence committees, asking for an "immediate inquiry" into President Bush's authorization of a secret wiretapping program.
"We write to express our profound concern about recent revelations that the United States government may have engaged in domestic electronic surveillance without appropriate legal authority," says the letter, which was signed by Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and Ron Wyden, as well as GOP Sens. Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snowe.
"We must determine the facts," says the letter, which was sent Monday. ... Senators 'deeply troubled'
On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and the ranking Democrats on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Patrick Leahy, sent a separate letter to Bush asking for more information on the program's scope and legal rationale.
The trio said they were "deeply troubled" by Bush's assertion Monday that both his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief and a congressional resolution passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks allowed him to authorize the program.
"In your public statements to date, you have not made a convincing legal argument for the authority to do so," the senators said.
The three senators asked for detailed information about congressional briefings on the program.
They also asked for an explanation of why administration officials didn't pursue changes in the procedures for obtaining warrants, if they found them insufficient "to protect Americans from terrorism."
The final decision on whether the Republican-controlled Congress will hold hearings on the surveillance program rests with its GOP leadership.
Quote: Experts Say Wiretap Fight May Taint Cases By TED BRIDIS Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's decision to sometimes bypass the secretive U.S. court that governs terrorism wiretaps could threaten cases against terror suspects that rely on evidence uncovered during the disputed eavesdropping, some legal experts cautioned.
These experts pointed to this week's unprecedented resignation from the government's spy court by U.S. District Judge James Robertson as an indicator of the judiciary's unease over domestic wiretaps ordered without warrants under a highly classified domestic spying program authorized by President Bush.
Neither Robertson nor the White House would comment Wednesday on his abrupt resignation from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the little-known panel of 11 U.S. judges that secretively approves wiretaps and searches in the most sensitive terrorism and espionage cases. But legal experts were astonished.
"This is a very big deal. Judges get upset with government lawyers all the time, but they don't resign in protest unless they're really offended to the point of saying they're being misused," said Kenneth C. Bass, a former senior Justice Department lawyer who oversaw such wiretap requests during the Carter administration.
"This was definitely a statement of protest," agreed Scott Silliman, a former Air Force attorney and Duke University law professor. "It is unusual because it signifies that at least one member of the court believes that the president has exceeded his legal authority."
Robertson's surprise resignation added to a chorus of pointed questions in Washington over the propriety of the surveillance, which the White House said had successfully detected and prevented attacks inside the United States.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he intends to begin oversight hearings in January to assess the stated justifications for the spying.
"When the attorney general says the force resolution gives the president the power to conduct these surveillances, I have grave doubts about that," Specter said.
Separately, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman of California, said she was informed about the program in 2003 and believes it is "essential to U.S. national security." But Harman also complained it was inappropriate for the White House to discuss the secret program only with leaders of the intelligence committees.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (news, bio, voting record), R-Mich., the committee chairman, said he participated in at least six briefings on the spying program since August 2004. He said he is comfortable the surveillance was aimed at al-Qaida terrorists and people associated with al-Qaida inside the United States. Hoekstra also said lawmakers who were notified about the surveillance won't resign like Robertson.
"We all decided that we are going to stay, and we are going to keep our jobs," he said.
Under the spying program, secretly authorized by President Bush in October 2001, the National Security Agency was permitted to eavesdrop without a judge's approval on communications between suspected terrorists overseas and people inside the United States.
Officials have said they only performed such wiretaps when there was a reasonable basis to conclude that the conversation included a suspected terrorist and one party was overseas. Citing national security, officials have declined to say how many times they have done so.
A court-approved wiretap under traditional surveillance law requires a higher legal standard, demonstrating probable cause to the spy court that the target is an agent of a foreign power, such as a terrorist group. That law also says no such wiretaps can be performed except under its provisions.
Since the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the government has focused on preventing and disrupting attacks rather than building court cases against suspected terrorists. But experts cautioned that future legal prosecutions could be tainted if evidence was uncovered about a terror plot using a wiretap determined to be improper.
"Imagine if there is evidence critical to a criminal prosecution and the defendant challenges the evidence because it is constitutionally suspect," said Beryl Howell, former general counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It could jeopardize any criminal case."
To summarize: it looks like evidence obtained from wiretapping without a warrant or judicial approval may not hold up in court. This could lead the acquittal of terrorists who are brought to trial because their lawyers can claim that the evidence against them was improperly gathered, and they can be set loose to strike again.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: (a) where was Bush in summer, 2001? If Ben wants to know if people forget 9-11, my answer is no. We don't forget this administration's failure that let 9-11 happen; that cannot be overlooked. It was on Bush's watch. He was in office 8 months. Did he purposely let it happen? I don't believe that he did. But it did happen on Bush's time and he's been more than able at exploiting it. Until bin Laden is brought to justice over it, that cannot be overlooked.
Does this mean you disliked Clinton as well? I mean, it's not like he prevented the USS Cole tragedy or the prior bombings of the WTC. He should have though shouldn't he? I mean, considering the White House has been getting threats like that long before he was in office, he should have been exceedingly prepared for such things...
Quote: To summarize: it looks like evidence obtained from wiretapping without a warrant or judicial approval may not hold up in court. This could lead the acquittal of terrorists who are brought to trial because their lawyers can claim that the evidence against them was improperly gathered, and they can be set loose to strike again.
First off, there is a great deal of suppostion in both their analysis and your summary: "looks like," "may not," "could lead to", etc.
But more importantly, sometimes, the question isn't "do we win a court case", it's "do we stop these people before they maim or kill someone."
It's the "WAR on Terror," not the "lawsuit against terror."
Quote: To summarize: it looks like evidence obtained from wiretapping without a warrant or judicial approval may not hold up in court. This could lead the acquittal of terrorists who are brought to trial because their lawyers can claim that the evidence against them was improperly gathered, and they can be set loose to strike again.
First off, there is a great deal of suppostion in both their analysis and your summary: "looks like," "may not," "could lead to", etc.
Of course there's supposition, because this isn't absolutely guaranteed to happen. This article is presenting a possible scenario to consider and presenting it as a possibility instead of as a certifiable fact. I am doing the same, because it would be wrong to claim this is 100% certain to happen.
This is what some people do during debates - consider "what if" scenarios, regardless of their likelihood to happen.
Quote: But more importantly, sometimes, the question isn't "do we win a court case", it's "do we stop these people before they maim or kill someone."
Right...and hypothetically speaking, if a terrorist who is brought to trial is acquitted and gets off because his lawyer, isn't it possible that he might take advantage of his acquital to plot another attack? If that terrorist is convicted because proper procedure was followed, we can keep that terrorist behind bars and keep him there so that he won't strike again.
Besides, why do we have to choose between obeying the rules or following proper procedure, and protecting American lives? Why can't we figure out a way to do both instead of stalemating over "either-or" scenarios?
Quote: It's the "WAR on Terror," not the "lawsuit against terror."
Wow...nice way to twist and distort my comments.
I wasn't talking lawsuits, genius, and screw you for manipulating my comments to claim that I was. I was talking criminal court. We arrest people who not only commit crimes, but also attempt to do so (attempted murder is a crime, is it not?) And again, if we convict a terrorist who plots to commit such a crime, we keep them behind bars where they can't do any harm. If, however, the legal analysts' hypotheses are indeed correct and a case against a suspected terrorist falls apart because a wiretap without a judge's approval is considered grounds for dismissal, then said terrorist would most likely be free to go and plot and maybe even commit more terrorist activity.
We could have had a reasonable debate on this if you hadn't decided to toss in that last comment, which I found to be belittling, manipulative, and in all honesty, idiotic. If you want to debate with me, debate with me about what I actually say, not about your manipulations of what I say.
Wow. Someone forgot to take their Midol....Darknight.
Quote: Darknight613 said: Besides, why do we have to choose between obeying the rules or following proper procedure, and protecting American lives? Why can't we figure out a way to do both instead of stalemating over "either-or" scenarios?
How much time would you waste trying to find a legal finagle to a situation whilst you knew lives were in danger? How long would it take until you consider the simpler way is, in essence, the better way.
Quote: Darknight613 said: Wow...nice way to twist and distort my comments.
I wasn't talking lawsuits, genius, and screw you for manipulating my comments to claim that I was. I was talking criminal court. We arrest people who not only commit crimes, but also attempt to do so (attempted murder is a crime, is it not?) And again, if we convict a terrorist who plots to commit such a crime, we keep them behind bars where they can't do any harm. If, however, the legal analysts' hypotheses are indeed correct and a case against a suspected terrorist falls apart because a wiretap without a judge's approval is considered grounds for dismissal, then said terrorist would most likely be free to go and plot and maybe even commit more terrorist activity.
We could have had a reasonable debate on this if you hadn't decided to toss in that last comment, which I found to be belittling, manipulative, and in all honesty, idiotic. If you want to debate with me, debate with me about what I actually say, not about your manipulations of what I say.
A criminal court proceeding is a particular form of lawsuit brought by the state against an individual.
That's why it's held in a court. That's why the case has a caption that reads "People v [name of defendant]."
While you may consider this belittling, your analyis of the facts, and your repeated references to legal terms, tends to indicate that you are viewing the problem of terrorism as simply a law enforcement problem, not particularly different than organized crime.
While terrorism may be a crime. It is also something more, especially in this case.
The terrorists are not simply people committing crimes. They are enemy combatants. For all intents and purposes they have declared war on the US. The US has, in turn, stated it is in a "war" against terror.
The objective in a war is not merely to prosecute a bad person for a crime, or an attempt to commit a crime. It is to prevent large scale acts of war against US civilians.
In order to prevent those attacks it may be necessary to engage in military activity or espionage that would not be countenanced in criminal court simply because, as noted above, the objectives are different.
This is hardly unprecedented. In fact, there is not a single war in US history in which our government was expected to battle the enemy with the rules of criminal court procedure instead of the rules of war.
As such, it is extraordinarily dangerous to think we can limit ourselves to fighting enemy combatants with lawyers and judges, in civil or criminal court.
Quote: So your saying Bush is more important than the Constitution?
No I'm not saying that. I'm saying it wasn't unconstitutional. Just like you guys didn't seem to have any constitutional issues with unwarrented wire taps from Clinton or Carter (when BTW, we weren't even at war).
Quote: So your saying Bush is more important than the Constitution?
No I'm not saying that. I'm saying it wasn't unconstitutional. Just like you guys didn't seem to have any constitutional issues with unwarrented wire taps from Clinton or Carter (when BTW, we weren't even at war).
Clinton and Carter aren't the issue. Bush is. Can you tell me when Congress declared war? Technically and legaly Bubba, we're not at war now either.
We weren't at war under Clinton or Carter either. Despite that, both presidents undertook similar actions and both Presidents had there actions accepted and/or upheld. That's precedent to at least indicate that Bush also had the power.
I have an issue with all illegal wiretaps, no matter the President.
Clinton went crazy with the wiretaps, which is one of his biggest faults as President in my mind.
And at least Carter included the condition that his administration would only use the 1802 wiretaps if "there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party."
But they're not the issue here. Not Clinton, not Carter, not Reagan. Yes, all three should have been investigated, but they weren't, and that's a horrible trend that needs to stop now.
Quote: So your saying Bush is more important than the Constitution?
No I'm not saying that. I'm saying it wasn't unconstitutional. Just like you guys didn't seem to have any constitutional issues with unwarrented wire taps from Clinton or Carter (when BTW, we weren't even at war).
Well I'll stick with the bipartisan members of congress who doubt it is constitutional. And there is a reason Bush & gang haven't been citing Clinton/Carter, it's not true. Believe it or not, Drudge isn't always accurate.
Quote: Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, December 22, 2005; A01 The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources.
Several members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in interviews that they want to know why the administration believed secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails of U.S. citizens without court authorization was legal. Some of the judges said they are particularly concerned that information gleaned from the president's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to gain authorized wiretaps from their court. ...
Quote: So your saying Bush is more important than the Constitution?
No I'm not saying that. I'm saying it wasn't unconstitutional. Just like you guys didn't seem to have any constitutional issues with unwarrented wire taps from Clinton or Carter (when BTW, we weren't even at war).
Well I'll stick with the bipartisan members of congress who doubt it is constitutional. And there is a reason Bush & gang haven't been citing Clinton/Carter, it's not true. Believe it or not, Drudge isn't always accurate.
Yea, you get one or two Republicans and all of a sudden it's "bi-partisan". Or were you refering to the support saddam gave your position in court today?
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: ... Or were you refering to the support saddam gave your position in court today?
What you mean he's against a leader wiretapping his own people without a warrant? I would have guessed he would be with you on that one.
I'm currious, you have such a strong opinion on this I can only assume you're well versed on teh subject. I seem to have forggotten the criteria that was used to select teh wire taps, could you please remind me.
Please don't bump the old threads, thank you. There's plenty of interesting topics to discuss on the first page, thank you. Thank you for your time, thank you.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: ... I'm currious, you have such a strong opinion on this I can only assume you're well versed on teh subject. I seem to have forggotten the criteria that was used to select teh wire taps, could you please remind me.
From your post's I took it that you too have a strong opinion yourself. And you should, everybody should. We're talking about a fundamental shift in power for our elected leader that won't end after this President's final term is over. For the government to listen in on American citizens a judge was required. If there was no time to get one the government could start one & get a judge to OK it later. Last year Bush even stated that they still needed to do that for wiretaps. Obviously that wasn't true. As it stands now he's wiretapping without a judge involved at all & informed a couple members of congress that this was being done. Those that he told couldn't do anything about it one way or the other because of secrecy rules. There is no oversight beyond what the White House decides to give on this wiretapping. If this is left "as is" eventually a President is going to abuse that power. Congress needs to fix this, so that what needs to be done gets done but in a way that doesn't cut off the other branches of government. I'm not looking for them to impeach Bush but just to set things right.
John Schmidt, who served as an assistant attorney general during the Clinton administration, lends further support to the Bush position:
President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents. . . .
In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.
Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.
In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the . . . courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence . . . We take for granted that the president does have that authority."
The New York Times reported on one of those cases, waay back in 1982 :
A Federal appeals court has ruled that the National Security Agency may lawfully intercept messages between United States citizens and people overseas, even if there is no cause to believe the Americans are foreign agents, and then provide summaries of these messages to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In other words, the Times was aware of, and even reported on, precedent that supports the President's interpretation of the law. And, yet, last week they were suddenly "shocked, yes, shocked" to learn this sort of thing happened.
This is looking increasingly like another effort by hostile journalists to gin up a fake scandal and discredit the administration. And once again, Democrats are falling for it.
Quote: the G-man said: ... This is looking increasingly like another effort by hostile journalists to gin up a fake scandal and discredit the administration. And once again, Democrats are falling for it.
What about the Republicans that are also falling for it G-man? Media Matters did a long story pointing out the flaws in what you just presented that is worth checking out. Here's a bit of it...
Quote: ... Ex-Clinton official Schmidt's defense of warrantless wiretaps, cited by York and Angle, rife with inaccuracy, empty arguments, and unwarranted credulity Summary: In a Chicago Tribune op-ed, John Schmidt, former associate attorney general under President Clinton, argued that President Bush's decision to authorize warrantless domestic surveillance "is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents." However, Schmidt falsely claimed that Jamie Gorelick, as deputy attorney general under Clinton, testified that the president has the authority to "go beyond" the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Schmidt also offered a number of empty and irrelevant arguments in defense of Bush. In a December 21 Chicago Tribune op-ed, John Schmidt, former associate attorney general under President Clinton, argued that President Bush's decision to authorize domestic surveillance without pursuing court orders "is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents." In defense of his argument, however, Schmidt falsely claimed that Jamie Gorelick, as deputy attorney general under Clinton, testified that the president has the authority to "go beyond" the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Schmidt also offered a number of empty and irrelevant arguments in defense of Bush. Scmidt's op-ed has been cited by various media conservatives as a defense of Bush's actions. National Review White House correspondent Byron York excerpted Schmidt's op-ed in a December 21 entry on National Review Online's weblog, The Corner, titled "READ THIS IMPORTANT ARTICLE." On the December 21 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle reported: "But yet another former official in the Clinton Justice Department wrote in the Chicago Tribune today that President Bush's actions are consistent with a number of court decisions as well as the position of the Justice Department under several prior presidents." After The New York Times reported on December 16 that Bush 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," Bush publicly acknowledged the existence of the warrantless surveillance program and the fact that he had reauthorized it more than 30 times since 2001. Schmidt's claim about Gorelick testimony is false FISA, passed in 1978, requires that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorize any domestic surveillance. In his Tribune op-ed, Schmidt wrote: "Every president since FISA's passage has asserted that he retained inherent power to go beyond the act's terms." As evidence, he quoted Gorelick's 1994 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, in which she said: "[T]he Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has the inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes." But as Media Matters for America noted, physical searches were not governed by FISA at the time Gorelick made that statement. So her argument was not that the president could go beyond FISA, as Schmidt wrote, but that FISA did not then apply to physical searches. FISA was amended in 1995 to encompass physical searches. Moreover, Gorelick at the time stated her support for legislation requiring FISA warrants for physical searches....
With all due respect, MEM, when you attempt to discredit a legal analysis made by an attorney, and a Democratic one, by posting an excerpt from a partisan website, all you're doing is driving home my point that "this is looking increasingly like another effort by hostile journalists to gin up a fake scandal and discredit the administration."
Quote: the G-man said: With all due respect, MEM, when you attempt to discredit a legal analysis made by an attorney, and a Democratic one, by posting an excerpt from a partisan website, all you're doing is driving home my point...
So you can't rebut the points they make? Or did you even read them? And this is an odd opinion coming from you as you rely heavily on conservative partisan sites to routinely defend a position. To me something has merit based on the content. This particular article points out the flaws in what you presented. I'm guessing you can't rebut it it so you go with slamming the website.
For those that are for the President being able to wiretap without a judge, will you keep the same position if say Hillary Clinton became President in 2008? Hypothetically if that happened the NSA would continue spying on international calls made. That could include calls that Jeb Bush might make to the Saudi royal family & other potential donars for a future political campaign.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: So you can't rebut the points they make?
I've posted, and continue to post, articles, including articles written by attorneys, that rebut your entire premise. The fact that you're now reduced to citing an admitted liar and partisan, with no legal background whatsoever, would tend to demonstrate that no further rebuttal is necessary.
You'll note that I don't cite, for example, Michael Savage to rebut some liberal argument.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: For those that are for the President being able to wiretap without a judge, will you keep the same position if say Hillary Clinton became President in 2008?
As noted above, Bill Clinton did this too and there was very little outcry at the time.
If Hillary follows the law and uses the law to go after terrorists (as opposed to harassing political opponents), I don't see a problem with it.
And I've used many sources to support the argument that the President doesn't have the rights he's claiming he does. (well except he said he didn't have them last year) You either dismiss or ignore other Republicans who don't share your opinion & somehow continue to paint this as a purely "Dems & the media out to get the President" thing. And Media Matter's pointing out... physical searches were not governed by FISA at the time Gorelick made that statement. So her argument was not that the president could go beyond FISA, as Schmidt wrote, but that FISA did not then apply to physical searches. FISA was amended in 1995 to encompass physical searches. Moreover, Gorelick at the time stated her support for legislation requiring FISA warrants for physical searches.... isn't untrue just because you don't care for the source.
As for your being fine with Hillary Clinton having those powers as long as she follows the law, maybe you don't understand the scope of this. This effectively gives the President the broad authority to decide how the wiretapping is done, with effectively no oversight. What protects us from any President misusing that?
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: ...
I'm currious, you have such a strong opinion on this I can only assume you're well versed on teh subject. I seem to have forggotten the criteria that was used to select teh wire taps, could you please remind me.
From your post's I took it that you too have a strong opinion yourself. And you should, everybody should. We're talking about a fundamental shift in power for our elected leader that won't end after this President's final term is over. For the government to listen in on American citizens a judge was required. If there was no time to get one the government could start one & get a judge to OK it later. Last year Bush even stated that they still needed to do that for wiretaps. Obviously that wasn't true. As it stands now he's wiretapping without a judge involved at all & informed a couple members of congress that this was being done. Those that he told couldn't do anything about it one way or the other because of secrecy rules. There is no oversight beyond what the White House decides to give on this wiretapping. If this is left "as is" eventually a President is going to abuse that power. Congress needs to fix this, so that what needs to be done gets done but in a way that doesn't cut off the other branches of government. I'm not looking for them to impeach Bush but just to set things right.
So what is your take on all this?
Oh... so you DON'T know. Well, I decided to look into it myslef and I learned that the 500 US residents that were listened to were people who recieved calls from suspected terrorists or those linked with terrorist activities from overseas. This is strannge because onteh local news they said "The president says it's OK for teh government to spy on YOU" I wonder what opinion they must have of thier viewers.
Also to totally expose the motivation of some on your side of this debate. I heard on ABC news today that the new controvercy is that teh US government as taken radiation samples from places NEAR (not in) mosques and buisinesses and homes suspected of having terrorist ties to make sure they don't have nukes stashed. Alot of the same civil libertarians are saying this is a violation of civil liberties. I didn't realise the right to house nukes was a civil liberty.
Let me ask you, does the fact that THIS information was leaked to the press make your blood boil? Are you as much or more angered by the fact that information has been leaked that will endanget the goernments ability to know if there are terrorists with nuclear suitcases hiding out as you were that a desk jocky from the CIA whome everyone in the press allready knew was an agent had her name leaked?
For all your side's postring and sermons about slippery slopes, thier true motivations are exposed here. We are on a slippery slope, but it isn't that the Government is taking away people's civil liberties it's that the left is, for political advancement, hindering the governments ability to protect teh civil liberties of it's citicens, not least among those is life it's self.
Quote: I seem to have forggotten the criteria that was used to select teh wire taps, could you please remind me.
Not sure where you got the story about it just being 500 people that had received calls from suspected terrorist or those linked to terrorist activities. I've been doing the Christmas thing so may have missed that one. The problem is the source is probably the White House who last year assurred us that warrants on wiretaps were being used. Congress would not be doing it's job if they didn't check it out & find out what exactly is going on. If it's as you said, we're back to why couldn't NSA have started the wiretaps & got a judge to OK it later?
Quote: ...teh US government as taken radiation samples from places NEAR (not in) mosques and buisinesses and homes suspected of having terrorist ties to make sure they don't have nukes stashed. Alot of the same civil libertarians are saying this is a violation of civil liberties. I didn't realise the right to house nukes was a civil liberty. ...
Again I have some catching up to do but this sounds like an FBI thing. From the sounds of it though I would think they would have no problems working within the law to do that.
Quote: ...Let me ask you, does the fact that THIS information was leaked to the press make your blood boil? Are you as much or more angered by the fact that information has been leaked that will endanget the goernments ability to know if there are terrorists with nuclear suitcases hiding out as you were that a desk jocky from the CIA whome everyone in the press allready knew was an agent had her name leaked?
I'm going to guess that the motivation between this NSA leak was more altrulistic than the Plame one. Unlike you I'm interested in both cases being investigated.
Quote: ...For all your side's postring and sermons about slippery slopes, thier true motivations are exposed here. We are on a slippery slope, but it isn't that the Government is taking away people's civil liberties it's that the left is, for political advancement, hindering the governments ability to protect teh civil liberties of it's citicens, not least among those is life it's self.
And here I thought I was just asking Congress to do it's job & check out that the President is truly operating within the bounds of the Constitution. The wiretapping can continue while that is being done. So no government hinderment. So what is your problem with that?
Quote: ...Daschle said the White House sought, but failed, to have included in the resolution language that would have given the president war powers within the United States. He said he refused "to accede to the extraordinary request for additional authority."
"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text."
"This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens," Daschle wrote.
"If the stories in the media over the past week are accurate, the president has exercised authority that I do not believe is granted to him in the Constitution, and that I know is not granted to him in the law that I helped negotiate with his counsel and that Congress approved in the days after September 11," Daschle wrote. ...
Quote: "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens," Daschle wrote.
The Democratic leadership has to be the worst historical revisionist still received by polite society. Either that or they have been truly clueless about the nature of the war on Islamofascist terror since its start.
Daschle actually makes a case for both in his essay.
Perhaps Daschle didn't notice, but the entire reason that Congress passed the war resolution was that the United States got attacked--inside the United States. It's as if that context never occurs to Daschle.
It's also worth noting that many Democrats are arguing that we shouldn't be fighting al Qaeda in Iraq either.
So, if the Democrats don't want us to fight the Al Queda in the Middle East...or in the US...where do they expect us to battle the terrorists?
You'd almost think the Democrats were "calling for surrender..."
Quote: the G-man said: The Democratic leadership has to be the worst historical revisionist still received by polite society. Either that or they have been truly clueless about the nature of the war on Islamofascist terror since its start.
Daschle actually makes a case for both in his essay.
Perhaps Daschle didn't notice, but the entire reason that Congress passed the war resolution was that the United States got attacked--inside the United States. It's as if that context never occurs to Daschle. ...
Apparently they really didn't need to pass any resolution. And wasn't that passed by a congress that was largely Republican? You seem intent to paint this as a purely partisan issue when it isn't.
At the time of the 9/11 attacks, the Democrats, not Republicans, held the majority in the Senate. Daschale was Senate majority leader. Therefore, yes, he was part of the Democratic leadership.
That would have been a majority only by one seat though if I remember correctly. Almost 50/50. And the point Daschle was making was that they (Republicans & Democrats) didn't give the President authority to go wiretapping American citizens without a warrant. They specifically struck down wording that would have done so.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The volume of information gathered from telephone and Internet communications by the National Security Agency without court-approved warrants was much larger than the White House has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
Citing current and former government officials, the Times said the information was collected by tapping directly into some of the U.S. telecommunication system's main arteries. The officials said the NSA won the cooperation of telecommunications companies to obtain access to both domestic and international communications without first gaining warrants. ...
I could be wrong, but that Reuters article seems to be saying that the White House was not actually "eavesdropping," on, or monitoring the content of, any of those calls.
Instead, the article seems to say, all the White House did was obtain information directly from the telephone company regarding calling patterns and the like: "who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, as well as the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages."
Furthermore, the article seems to state that the phone companies were already maintaining these records and turned this information over voluntarily.
Quote: I'm going to guess that the motivation between this NSA leak was more altrulistic
I forget, the only bad leaks are those that DON'T compromise national security.
Uhm I did say I was just guessing & that I was interested in it being investigated. I've noticed some of you like to edit out whatever interferes with your putting words into my mouth. But I forget that Dem bashing is more important than the constitution & terrorism.
Actually, MEM...if I'm reading you correctly you want the LEAK investigated in the Plame case, which didn't compromise national security, but want the Bush administration investigated in the other cases.
So you're not really being consistent, except insofar as your consistently anti-Bush.
Quote: the G-man said: Actually, MEM...if I'm reading you correctly you want the LEAK investigated in the Plame case, which didn't compromise national security, but want the Bush administration investigated in the other cases.
So you're not really being consistent, except insofar as your consistently anti-Bush.
After WBAM brought up Plame & the NSA leaks I said...
Quote: Unlike you I'm interested in both cases being investigated.
I think your reading what you want to read into it but just to be clear, I meant that I wanted both leaks to be investigated. That would include finding the leaker or leakers.
So, just to clarify, you think that the person who leaked the NSA program to the New York Times should be investigated and prosecuted for damaging national security?
And, again, to clarify, you think the person who leaked the allegation of secret CIA prisons in Europe should be investigated and prosecuted for damaging national security?
G-man I answered the first time WBAM asked and a second time after you spun it to suit your needs. That would have been a point where you should have said "Sorry that was jerky thing to do" Instead you just plow onto a third round.
For somebody who keeps painting this as a purely partisan issue despite the bipartisan interest in investigating the NSA wiretapping perhaps you need to clarify a couple of things?
I think you're being very disingenuos everytime you say there is bi-partisan support. Yes. while 99% of Dems want to investigate teh President (not the leaker *coughrockerfellercough*) and 2% of Republicans do that would technically there IS representation from both parties possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate. Although you intentionally use language that implies that there is a general concensus THROUGHOUT teh congress and that is disengenouse. This is pushed by the Dems and a small handfull of Republicans have jumped on board. Try to be intellectually honest otherwise this conversation will consist of nothing by competeing spin. I'm assuming whenn you get uppity about spin you aren't just implying that you don't like it when the other side does it, but would want to make an effort to rise above the frey.
You keep saying "bipartisan" as if the fact that a handful of republicans are joining the democratic chorus is the same as widespread republican support for your position.
Using that logic, because Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, supports Bush on the war, one could as easily say Bush has "bipartisan" support in congress.
Of course, that would be deceptive. Just as deceptive as your statement.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I think you're being very disingenuos everytime you say there is bi-partisan support. Yes. while 99% of Dems want to investigate teh President (not the leaker *coughrockerfellercough*) and 2% of Republicans do that would technically there IS representation from both parties possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate.
Where do you get your 99%Dems & 2%Republicans figure? You wouldn't be just making up numbers while accusing me of being disingenuos...would you? And there is no "possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate" the dictionary is on my side buddy. Here is what comes up via google: * A term used to refer to an effort endorsed by both political parties or a group composed of members of both political parties. And WBAM I keep bringing up the point that there is bipartisan concern over the President's wiretapping powers in response to you guys continually ignoring those Republicans in your posts. Your not even technically correct addressing this as only a democratic partisan thing.
Quote: ... Try to be intellectually honest otherwise this conversation will consist of nothing by competeing spin....
I've always tried to be intellectually honest, otherwise what is the point? Why would you even want to do "competeing spin" if presumably truth & merit are on your side?
Quote: the G-man said: WBAM makes a good point, MEM.
You keep saying "bipartisan" as if the fact that a handful of republicans are joining the democratic chorus is the same as widespread republican support for your position.
Using that logic, because Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, supports Bush on the war, one could as easily say Bush has "bipartisan" support in congress.
Of course, that would be deceptive. Just as deceptive as your statement.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I think you're being very disingenuos everytime you say there is bi-partisan support. Yes. while 99% of Dems want to investigate teh President (not the leaker *coughrockerfellercough*) and 2% of Republicans do that would technically there IS representation from both parties possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate.
Where do you get your 99%Dems & 2%Republicans figure? You wouldn't be just making up numbers while accusing me of being disingenuos...would you? And there is no "possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate" the dictionary is on my side buddy. Here is what comes up via google: * A term used to refer to an effort endorsed by both political parties or a group composed of members of both political parties. And WBAM I keep bringing up the point that there is bipartisan concern over the President's wiretapping powers in response to you guys continually ignoring those Republicans in your posts. Your not even technically correct addressing this as only a democratic partisan thing.
Quote: ... Try to be intellectually honest otherwise this conversation will consist of nothing by competeing spin....
I've always tried to be intellectually honest, otherwise what is the point? Why would you even want to do "competeing spin" if presumably truth & merit are on your side?
Quote: Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's spying scandal Summary: Media Matters presents the top 12 myths and falsehoods promoted by the media on President Bush's spying scandal stemming from the recent revelation in The New York Times that he authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on domestic communications without the required approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. As The New York Times first revealed on December 16, President Bush issued a secret presidential order shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on international phone and email communications that originate from or are received within the United States, and to do so without the court approval normally required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Facing increasing scrutiny, the Bush administration and its conservative allies in the media have defended the secret spying operation with false and misleading claims that have subsequently been reported without challenge across the media. So, just in time for the holidays, Media Matters for America presents the top myths and falsehoods promoted by the media on the Bush administration's spying scandal. 1: Timeliness necessitated bypassing the FISA court Various media outlets have uncritically relayed President Bush's claim that the administration's warrantless domestic surveillance is justified because "we must be able to act fast ... so we can prevent new [terrorist] attacks." But these reports have ignored emergency provisions in the current law governing such surveillance -- FISA -- that allow the administration to apply to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a search warrant up to 72 hours after the government begins monitoring suspects' phone conversations. The existence of this 72-hour window debunks the argument that the administration had to bypass the law to avoid delay in obtaining a warrant. The fact that the administration never retroactively sought a warrant from the FISA court for its surveillance activities suggests that it was not the need to act quickly that prevented the administration from complying with the FISA statute, but, rather, the fear of being denied the warrant. 2: Congress was adequately informed of -- and approved -- the administration's actions Conservatives have sought to defend the secret spying operation by falsely suggesting that the Bush administration adequately informed Congress of its actions and that Congress raised no objections. For example, on the December 19 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor, host Bill O'Reilly claimed that the NSA's domestic surveillance "wasn't a secret program" because "the Bush administration did keep key congressional people informed they were doing this." The claim was also featured in a December 21 press release by the Republican National Committee (RNC). In fact, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have said that the administration likely did not inform them of the operation to the extent required by the National Security Act of 1947, as amended in 2001. Members of both parties have also said that the objections they did have were ignored by the administration and couldn't be aired because the program's existence was highly classified. As The New York Times reported on December 21, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) have stated that they did not receive written reports from the White House on the surveillance operation, as required by the National Security Act: The demand for written reports was added to the National Security Act of 1947 by Congress in 2001, as part of an effort to compel the executive branch to provide more specificity and clarity in its briefings about continuing activities. President Bush signed the measure into law on Dec. 28, 2001, but only after raising an objection to the new provision, with the stipulation that he would interpret it "in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority" to withhold information for national-security or foreign-policy reasons. [...] n interviews, Mr. Hoekstra, Mr. Graham and aides to Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Reid all said they understood that while the briefings provided by [Vice President Dick] Cheney might have been accompanied by charts, they did not constitute written reports. The 2001 addition to the law requires that such reports always be in written form, and include a concise statement of facts and explanation of an activity's significance. Further, Rockefeller recently released a copy of a letter he wrote to Cheney on July 17, 2003, raising objections to the secret surveillance operation. As the Times reported on December 20, Rockefeller said on December 19 that his concerns "were never addressed, and I was prohibited from sharing my views with my colleagues" because the briefings were classified. The December 21 Times report noted that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she too sent a letter to the Bush administration objecting to the secret surveillance operation, and that Graham alleged that he was never informed "that the program would involve eavesdropping on American citizens."
WBAM and G-man have both pointed out that the warrants were overly cumbersome and difficult to acquire quickly enough, without needlessly overwhelming the court with warrants, and revealing the surveilance to the terrorists, and causing them not to use phones where they can be overheard.
As is the case now, that the tapping of phone calls to Muslims overseas has been leaked by the media.
In the age of cel phones, and again as WBAM and G-man have pointed out abundantly, in a time of war, our government should have the authorization to do what is necessary to acquire intelligence and prevent terrorism, to save the lives of U.S.soldiers and civilians.
If Kerry or some other liberal schmuck were in the White House and complied with every principled technicality you itemize, we might have completely upheld the the rights of muslim immigrants and illegals in the U.S., but at the cost of American lives.
This once again underscores how liberals bury us in abstractions of pseudo-principled idealism that defies the common sense of fighting a war !
I think you guys would rather die than win a war on terrorism.
Or at the very least, smear and falsely mislead the public into opposing a Republican president, to obstruct his ability to effectively fight that war.
It's transparent spite directed at republicans because:
1) you don't hold Carter or Clinton to the same standard that you hold Republican presidents to.
2) the timing of this wiretap story's release was the same day as the very successful Iraq election, and calculated by House, Senate and media liberals to obscure and blunt the coverage of Bush's success there. ( A story the media has been sitting on for a year.)
3) there is a Constitutional legal precedent for the President to do what he's doing, and you absolutely refuse to acknowledge it.
4) the nation is fighting a war. Far greater infringement on civil liberties has occurred in just about every prior U.S. war.
But you and other liberals argue technicalities and abstractions that would blunt the FBI, NSA, CIA and the Bush administration from doing what's necessary to win that war.
Or as G-Man put it so well earlier:
Quote: the G-man said: Dec 20, 5:45 PM
Quote: the G-man said: even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Even if that is true, it's not a good reason to go around a judge. It was the President's job to then go to Congress to get something less cumbersome. Cumbersome is not an acceptable excuse to circumvent our system of checks & balances.
The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But no Administration then or since has ever conceded that that Act trumped a President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it. FISA established a process by which certain wiretaps in the context of the Cold War could be approved, not a limit on what wiretaps could ever be allowed.
The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis], held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." And further that "we take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."
The above standard appears to apply to what happened here.
the Administration was scrupulous in limiting the FISA exceptions. They applied only to calls involving al Qaeda suspects or those with terrorist ties.
Furthermore, as noted below, the "system of checks and balances" was, in fact, respected:
Far from being "secret," key Members of Congress were informed about them at least 12 times, President Bush said yesterday. The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about them.
Inside the executive branch, the process allowing the wiretaps was routinely reviewed by Justice Department lawyers, by the Attorney General personally, and with the President himself reauthorizing the process every 45 days. In short, the implication that this is some LBJ-J. Edgar Hoover operation designed to skirt the law to spy on domestic political enemies is nothing less than a political smear.
Quote: G-man said: Dec 20, 5:48 PM
In fact, as noted above, "the Administration was scrupulous in limiting the FISA exceptions. They applied only to calls involving al Qaeda suspects or those with terrorist ties."
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I think you're being very disingenuos everytime you say there is bi-partisan support. Yes. while 99% of Dems want to investigate teh President (not the leaker *coughrockerfellercough*) and 2% of Republicans do that would technically there IS representation from both parties possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate.
Where do you get your 99%Dems & 2%Republicans figure? You wouldn't be just making up numbers while accusing me of being disingenuos...would you? And there is no "possibly making the term bi-partisan technically accurate" the dictionary is on my side buddy. Here is what comes up via google: * A term used to refer to an effort endorsed by both political parties or a group composed of members of both political parties. And WBAM I keep bringing up the point that there is bipartisan concern over the President's wiretapping powers in response to you guys continually ignoring those Republicans in your posts. Your not even technically correct addressing this as only a democratic partisan thing.
Quote: ... Try to be intellectually honest otherwise this conversation will consist of nothing by competeing spin....
I've always tried to be intellectually honest, otherwise what is the point? Why would you even want to do "competeing spin" if presumably truth & merit are on your side?
Since you like deffinitions so much let me define spin for you. Spin is where you take a collection of factys that are technically accurate, but present them in a way that distorts one side of the issue. By your wooden literal dictionary defintion if every single democrat in teh congress and the senate held one view while every republican in teh congress and senate held the opposing view you would "technically, according to your dictionary be able to say that the democratic position held bi-partisan support. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what point your trying to make, but using intellectually dishonest spin tactics aren't gonna win you any converts here.
Quote: M E M, that argument has already been disproven.
WBAM and G-man have both pointed out that the warrants were overly cumbersome and difficult to acquire quickly enough, without needlessly overwhelming the court with warrants, and revealing the surveilance to the terrorists, and causing them not to use phones where they can be overheard. As is the case now, that the tapping of phone calls to Muslims overseas has been leaked by the media.
True it's been stated by the White House that warrants were cumbersome & difficult to acquite quickly enough but why exactly? We need Congress to see what backs the claim up. Calling something cumbersome isn't proof & the claims about time are hard to believe at face value since FISA allows a wiretap to be started first with court approval coming later How exactly can you get any faster than retroactive approval? FISA proceedings are not held publicly & I'm unaware of any history of FISA judges leaking out sensitive information. It's fair to say skipping over those judges didn't keep sensitive information from being leaked.
Quote: ...In the age of cel phones, and again as WBAM and G-man have pointed out abundantly, in a time of war, our government should have the authorization to do what is necessary to acquire intelligence and prevent terrorism, to save the lives of U.S.soldiers and civilians.
Well and I agree. Congress can still hold some type of closed investigation to see what the NSA has been doing & make changes that restores the checks & balances without hindering their work.
I'll skip your usual Dem bashing. You'll have to find somebody else to play those games.
It's worth pondering just what it is that the Democrats are arguing here. They claim not that President Bush isn't doing enough to keep America safe from terrorism, but that he's doing too much. The implication is that the threat of terrorism within America is not all that serious and never was--that 9/11, horrific though it was, was a one-off.
There is, at the very least, a tension between this blasé approach and the oft-heard Democratic claim that liberating Iraq increased the threat of terrorism. If that threat still isn't serious enough to justify the merest attenuation of "civil liberties," then this argument against Iraq, even if true, is trivial.
In any I think an argument can be made that the Democrats' current approach to terrorism is a dangerously complacent one.
The 9/11 attacks plainly were not a one-off; even before Sept. 11, 2001, the World Trade Center had been hit in 1993, and Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called blind sheik, had gone to prison in a plot to blow up New York City bridges and tunnels. There was also the attack on the USS Cole, among other foreign targets.
True, there hasn't been a major terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. But it would be stunningly fatuous to conclude therefrom that the threat is negligible.
It may be that we are out of danger for now because of the efforts the Bush administration has taken to prevent attacks, and that the Democrats, by opposing those efforts, are inviting another mass murder of Americans. Or it may be that the administration's efforts have not been sufficient, and another terrorist attack is only a matter of time.
Either way, if there is another attack on the scale of 9/11, complacency about terrorism would be wholly untenable. The public would demand much tougher measures.
By fretting about imagined threats to civil liberties today, the Democratic leadership may be helping to endanger real civil liberties tomorrow.
Not sure what your basing that on G-man. I could understand if there was a chorus of Democrats saying that the wiretapping must stop but as I understand it, that is not the case. There is a call to investigate the wiretapping that some Republicans in congress have joined with many Democrats. This does lead into this op-ed I liked though...
Quote: Eavesdropping and Evading the Law
By David Ignatius Wednesday, December 28, 2005; Page A21
As we learn more about what was going on under the Bush administration's secret surveillance program, it's clear the National Security Agency has developed some powerful new tools against terrorist adversaries. That's all the more reason these innovative spying methods should be brought within the rule of law -- so that they can be used effectively and legally.
That should be a New Year's resolution for Congress and the administration: Amend our laws on surveillance to establish a framework for using these new techniques of collecting and analyzing information. Because the issues are so sensitive, part of that debate may have to be secret, but that's an inevitable part of legislative oversight of intelligence. Boosting Democracy, Inadvertently
The challenge in the coming debate will be to find the right balance between national security and civil liberties. The loudest arguments will come from those who see the issue in black and white -- who want to tilt in one direction, toward security or liberty. But those won't be the wisest arguments. America is in for a long struggle against terrorism, and it will need sensible rules that embed necessary intelligence activities firmly within the law.
We know only the barest outlines of what the NSA has been doing. The most reliable accounts have appeared in the New York Times, the newspaper that broke the story. Although the headline has been "warrantless wiretapping," the Times accounts suggest the program actually was something closer to a data-mining system that collected and analyzed vast amounts of digitized data in an effort to find patterns that might identify potential terrorists.
Here's what James Risen and Eric Lichtblau said in their original Dec. 16 story, explaining the origins of the program after Sept. 11, 2001: "The CIA seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The NSA surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, they said. In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the al Qaeda figures, the NSA began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said."
The Times reporters explained details of the program in a Dec. 24 story: "NSA technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects."
The heart of the program may be this effort to find links and patterns. William Arkin explained in a Dec. 23 posting in his washingtonpost.com column, Early Warning, how the data-mining process might work: "Massive amounts of collected data -- actual intercepts of phone calls, e-mails, etc. -- together with 'transaction' data -- travel or credit card records or telephone or Internet service provider logs -- are mixed through a mind-boggling array of government and private sector software programs to look for potential matches."
This is the kind of innovative technology the government should be using, with appropriate safeguards. It employs computer algorithms to discern patterns that would probably be invisible to human analysts. It searches electronically amid the haystack of information for the one dangerous needle. In the phrase that was often used in the scathing Sept. 11 post-mortems, it seeks to "connect the dots."
The legal problems, as Arkin suggests, involve the dots -- what digital information can the government legitimately collect and save for later analysis, and under what legal safeguards? As it trolls the ocean of data, how can the government satisfy legal requirements for warrants that specify at the outset what may only be clear at the end of the search -- namely, specific links to terrorist groups? These and other questions will vex lawyers and politicians in the coming debate, but they aren't a reason for jettisoning these techniques.
America's best intelligence asset is technology. The truth is that America has never been especially good at running spies or plotting covert actions. Our special talent has been the application of technology to complex problems of surveillance. That kept American intelligence in business during the Cold War, and it provides our thin margin of safety against terrorism. It's all the more important now, when al Qaeda's hierarchical structure has been broken and the emerging threat comes from flat, invisible networks of intensely motivated people. How will we see these new terrorists coming?
America needs surveillance and analytical techniques that can connect the dots. But even more, it needs a clear legal framework for this effort. Otherwise it won't be sustainable. In that sense, continuing the current lawless approach would be the true gift to the enemy.
Some centrist Democrats say attacks by their party leaders on the Bush administration's eavesdropping on suspected terrorist conversations will further weaken the party's credibility on national security.
That concern arises from recent moves by liberal Democrats to block the extension of parts of the USA Patriot Act in the Senate and denunciations of President Bush amid concerns that these initiatives could violate the civil liberties of innocent Americans.
"I think when you suggest that civil liberties are just as much at risk today as the country is from terrorism, you've gone too far if you leave that impression. I don't believe that's true," said Michael O'Hanlon, a national-security analyst at the Brookings Institution who advises Democrats on defense issues.
"I get nervous when I see the Democrats playing this [civil liberties] issue out too far. They had better be careful about the politics of it," said Mr. O'Hanlon, who says the Patriot Act is "good legislation."
These Democrats say attacks on anti-terrorist intelligence programs will deepen mistrust of their ability to protect the nation's security, a weakness that led in part to the defeat of Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, last year.
"The Republicans still hold the advantage on every national-security issue we tested," said Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster and former adviser to President Clinton, who co-authored a Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) memo on the party's national-security weaknesses.
Nervousness among Democrats intensified earlier this month after Democrats led a filibuster against the Patriot Act that threatened to block the measure, followed by a victory cry from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who declared at a party rally, "We killed the Patriot Act."
After Mr. Bush sharply attacked Mr. Reid, saying lack of the Patriot Act "will leave us in a weaker position in the fight against brutal killers," Senate Democrats dropped their filibuster and accepted a six-month extension. A Republican-backed five-week extension was adopted last week by the House and Senate.
Recent polls say 56 percent of Americans approve of the job Mr. Bush is doing to protect the country from another terrorist attack.
Quote: 6: Debate is between those supporting civil liberties and those seeking to prevent terrorism Many media figures have created a false dichotomy by framing the debate over the Bush administration's actions as one between those who support protecting civil liberties and those who favor protecting America from another deadly terrorist attack. For example, NBC host Katie Couric claimed the debate amounted to "legal analysts and constitutional scholars versus Americans, who say civil liberties are important, but we don't want another September 11," while NBC's Mitchell wondered whether Americans should be more concerned about "[a] terror attack or someone going into their hard drive and intercepting their emails." Such statements set up exactly the false debate put forth by Cheney and Bush to defend the administration's actions, as Mitchell subsequently noted on the December 21 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews: MITCHELL: [T]hey set up successfully, the White House, this premise of you're either for security and protecting the American people post-9-11 or you're worried about surveillance. This either-or proposition, when a lot of people say that's a false choice.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: An appropiate time for #6
Quote: 6: Debate is between those supporting civil liberties and those seeking to prevent terrorism
Many media figures have created a false dichotomy by framing the debate over the Bush administration's actions as one between those who support protecting civil liberties and those who favor protecting America from another deadly terrorist attack. For example, NBC host Katie Couric claimed the debate amounted to "legal analysts and constitutional scholars versus Americans, who say civil liberties are important, but we don't want another September 11," while NBC's Mitchell wondered whether Americans should be more concerned about "[a] terror attack or someone going into their hard drive and intercepting their emails."
Such statements set up exactly the false debate put forth by Cheney and Bush to defend the administration's actions, as Mitchell subsequently noted on the December 21 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MITCHELL: [T]hey set up successfully, the White House, this premise of you're either for security and protecting the American people post-9-11 or you're worried about surveillance. This either-or proposition, when a lot of people say that's a false choice.
I think this is a really dumb-assed quote, and typical of liberal arguments in general, in using a very convoluted rationalization to say something isn't what it clearly is.
The argument between the Bush administration and its critics about the wiretapping of Muslim terror suspects is about weighing national security against civil liberties.
And for liberals to allege otherwise in convoluted arguments just makes clear that either :
1) liberals know the wiretapping of Muslim terror suspects is legal and necessary, and are just using whatever ambiguity they can exploit to smear the Bush administration. Again. or
2) liberals simply don't get it, and fail to understand what the real issue is, of defending the nation and stopping terrorism.
And regardless of which mindset guides these liberal distortions, the American people can see for themselves what the real issue is.
As G-man quoted at the top of this page, polls show the American people aren't buying the liberal distortions, and have more confidence in Republicans to lead the country in a time of war.
Robert F. Turner, is co-founder of the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, and served as counsel to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, 1982-84. He explains why Bush's actions were legal:
For nearly 200 years it was understood by all three branches that intelligence collection--especially in wartime--was an exclusive presidential prerogative vested in the president by Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.
Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, John Marshall and many others recognized that the grant of "executive power" to the president included control over intelligence gathering. It was not by chance that there was no provision for congressional oversight of intelligence matters in the National Security Act of 1947.
the Constitution is the highest law of the land, and when Congress attempts to usurp powers granted to the president, its members betray their oath of office. In certain cases, such as the War Powers Resolution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, it might well have crossed that line.
Keep in mind that while the Carter administration asked Congress to enact the FISA statute in 1978, Attorney General Griffin Bell emphasized that the law "does not take away the power of the president under the Constitution." And in 1994, when the Clinton administration invited Congress to expand FISA to cover physical as well as electronic searches, the associate attorney general testified: "Our seeking legislation in no way should suggest that we do not believe we have inherent authority" under the Constitution. "We do," she concluded.
In the 1980 Truong case, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the warrantless surveillance of a foreign power, its agent or collaborators (including U.S. citizens) when the "primary purpose" of the intercepts was for "foreign intelligence" rather than law enforcement purposes. Every court of appeals that has considered the issue has upheld an inherent presidential power to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence searches; and in 2002 the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, created by the FISA statute, accepted that "the president does have that authority" and noted "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."
America is at war with a dangerous enemy. Since 9/11, the president, our intelligence services and our military forces have done a truly extraordinary job--taking the war to our enemies and keeping them from conducting a single attack within this country (so far).
But we are still very much at risk, and those who seek partisan political advantage by portraying efforts to monitor communications between suspected foreign terrorists and (often unknown) Americans as being akin to Nixon's "enemies lists" are serving neither their party nor their country. The leakers of this sensitive national security activity and their Capitol Hill supporters seem determined to guarantee al Qaeda a secure communications channel into this country so long as they remember to include one sympathetic permanent resident alien not previously identified by NSA or the FBI as a foreign agent on their distribution list.
Quote: Wonder Boy said: the real issue is, of defending the nation and stopping terrorism.
Why does George Bush think he can stop terrorism with a war? Where does this logic come from?
You cannot force an opposing group of a wholly different ideology into submission by acts of war.
Do we feel that acts of terrorism and aggression *against us* stop us, alter our resolve, change our mindsets, challenge us to reconsider our ideologies? Or do we feel that these acts make us more steadfast in our beliefs? I think we know the answer to that.
So why in God's name should we feel that acts of war perpetrated by us will do to "them" what we argue they will NOT do to us? The logic is utterly specious.
G-man & you & the other boys are lacking merit in your argument. Where are all the Dem Congressmen that are saying the wiretaps must be stopped? It appears to be zero, leaving you with just an empty partisan accusation.
So, MEM, is the alleged lack of Democratic oppostion to the wiretapping a sign they now admit its legal? Or a sign they've seen the polls support Bush actions?
Quote: the G-man said: So, MEM, is the alleged lack of Democratic oppostion to the wiretapping a sign they now admit its legal? Or a sign they've seen the polls support Bush actions?
So this would be your way of saying you have nothing to base your accusations on? As for your fake question this is about the President's actions being unconstitutional & trying to dodge an investigation. What needs to be done to fight the terrorist will continue but with proper oversight.
As noted in the past, I've explained why the wiretapping was legal.
Also, with all due respect, your party leaders can't have it both ways. You can't, on one hand, tell us that they want the President investigated, or even impeached, for this and, on the other, tell us they don't oppose what he did.
You're telling is that what the president did was "unconstitutional." If that's so, then you're telling us you want it stopped.
Quote: As noted in the past, I've explained why the wiretapping was legal.
As noted in the past, there are arguments why the legal claims are at best questionable & need to be investigated.
Quote: ...You're telling is that what the president did was "unconstitutional." If that's so, then you're telling us you want it stopped.
No. The argument is that it needs to be fixed so that it is constitutional & has some true oversight beyond the President. Your presenting the President's claims as proven fact, their not. Congress needs to check it out & restore what checks & balances they can. If Bush's claims are true, he has nothing to worry about with a Republican controlled Congress.
Despite your claims that the matter needs "to be investigated," you keep telling us that what dis was "unconstitutional."
Therefore, you have obviously made up your mind it is illegal and should be stopped. Any "investigation" must, therefore, in your mind be for the sole purpose of publicizing the matter further and/or punishing the president for what he did. Both goals would have the effect of preventing this from happening again.
As you may know, the purpose of a covert intelligence operation is that it's a secret. It's kept secret so it can be used against the enemy. Once it's no longer a secret, its effectiveness is reduced to nil.
You, on behalf of your party, on arguing that we should have highly publicized show hearings at which every aspect of this covert operation is dissected and provided to the media and public. Some of that public will most likely be current or potential terrorist operatives.
In addition, it should be noted that you have argued that, if the legalities are ambiguous, that in itself requires a public investigation. You are attempting to establish a precedent that any president who engages in a covert act where the law is ambiguous faces a public investigation of that covert act. That precedent will, by its nature, have a chilling effect on the efforts of future presidents to defend the nation.
As such, despite your protests to the contrary, you are, in fact, trying to prevent this president, and future presidents, from wiretapping suspected enemy combatants who may be plotting further attacks.
Quote: ...You, on behalf of your party, on arguing that we should have highly publicized show hearings at which every aspect of this covert operation is dissected and provided to the media and public. Some of that public will most likely be current or potential terrorist operatives.
And you ignore that 2 of the 5 senaters who wrote requesting an investigation are Republican & you also ignore the fact that any investigation would be behind closed doors, as they should be.
Quote: ...In addition, it should be noted that you have argued that, if the legalities are ambiguous, that in itself requires a public investigation. You are attempting to establish a precedent that any president who engages in a covert act where the law is ambiguous faces a public investigation of that covert act. That precedent will, by its nature, have a chilling effect on the efforts of future presidents to defend the nation.
No, it would only be a bad thing if Congress didn't do it's duty. This wiretapping power of Bush's if left uninvestigated will be passed on to future Presidents. When I brought this up earlier, you replied as long as they followed the law you were fine with it. The obvious question is what law would they be required to follow?
I can't say to much about WBAM's spelling since mine may be even worse than his. But I don't understand his use of the snoozy icon. Sure some of my response to G-man was repetitive but it did point out that his argument not to investigate Bush's wiretapping was based on the false principle that it would be a public investigation.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I can't say to much about WBAM's spelling since mine may be even worse than his. But I don't understand his use of the snoozy icon.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I can't say to much about WBAM's spelling since mine may be even worse than his. But I don't understand his use of the snoozy icon. Sure some of my response to G-man was repetitive but it did point out that his argument not to investigate Bush's wiretapping was based on the false principle that it would be a public investigation.
It means WBAM doesn't want to hear the arguments anymore, he's made up his mind, and he's essentially ignoring what you have to say.
Quote: the G-man said: ... Do the Democrats (and one or two liberal Republican Senators) really want to keep harping on this?
Actually it's more Republican Senators than that. And yes, considering that it's an important constitutional matter, the polls your quick to play up for now don't matter.
Quote: SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - President George W. Bush defended domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency on Sunday after a newspaper report about a Justice Department official's resistance to the program prompted new calls for a Senate inquiry.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that James Comey, a deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, was concerned about the legality of the NSA program and refused to extend it in 2004. White House aides then turned to Ashcroft while the attorney general was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, the Times said....
Quote: ...The Times said accounts of the hospital meeting differed, but that some officials said Ashcroft also appeared reluctant to give his authorization to continue with aspects of the program.
It was unclear if the White House persuaded Ashcroft to approve the program or proceeded without him, the Times said.
Reuters It's worth noting that even Ashcroft had problems with Bush's wiretapping!
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I can't say to much about WBAM's spelling since mine may be even worse than his. But I don't understand his use of the snoozy icon. Sure some of my response to G-man was repetitive but it did point out that his argument not to investigate Bush's wiretapping was based on the false principle that it would be a public investigation.
I'm glad someone acctually understood that I was making a point rather than a knee jerk, "If he's bored with the argument it must because he's a conservitive affraid of the truth" I think this debae has become repetitive. Thereisn't much more to be added on either side. I hold no illusions that I'm going to say something so profound that all teh liberals will convert at the wieght of my perfect argument. We said our piece, you've said you'res. Now we're just cycling through the arguments again.
I would dissagree WBAM. My last post pointed out that there were questions of the NSA program from Ashcroft's people. Before that G-man argued that public hearings would be a bad thing & I pointed out that any classified stuff would be closed to the public. It's odd that you have this attitude towards this thread but not others that are fully partisan?
Quote: Matter-eater Man said:The New York Times reported on Sunday that James Comey, a deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, was concerned about the legality of the NSA program and refused to extend it in 2004. White House aides then turned to Ashcroft while the attorney general was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, the Times said...The Times said accounts of the hospital meeting differed, but that some officials said Ashcroft also appeared reluctant to give his authorization to continue with aspects of the program
The story also reported that the Department of Justice had been pursuing an ongoing audit of the NSA data mining project, and "[t]hat review is not known to have found any instances of abuses."
That fact was, naturally, buried in the story, which instead focused on the internal Bush Administration debate over the NSA operation.
Furthermore, given the turf warfare such a program could engender -- Department of Justice, NSA, NSC, CIA, DOD, Homeland Security -- it shouldn't have been a surprise that there were ongoing debates and infighting.
As someone whose actually worked in government, even at the the local level, new policies often, if not always, create debates and turf fights. Everyone wants their opinion on the record, they want their guy at the table. This would seem to be of those situations.
Unfortunately I think you have people with axes to grind leaking and making it appear that this particular situation was somehow different.
Quote: the G-man said: ... Furthermore, given the turf warfare such a program could engender -- Department of Justice, NSA, NSC, CIA, DOD, Homeland Security -- it shouldn't have been a surprise that there were ongoing debates and infighting.
The debate was that Bush yes men were not going along with the "it's legal because I says so" argument.
Quote: ...Unfortunately I think you have people with axes to grind leaking and making it appear that this particular situation was somehow different.
Or there are Republicans & Democrats that are rising beyond partisanship to address a serious question of a President's use of power. Some people of course are more interested in partisan attacks than actual debate.
If they weren't immediately going along with it, that means they aren't "yes men." Which tends to discredit your theory that this was approved "because [Bush] said so."
I also notice you ignored the point about the Justice Department auditing the program and apparently not finding problems.
I guess that was one of those "odd numbered" days, or whatever, when they ARE "yes men."
Quote: Jim Jackson said: And watch, another terrorist event will happen on Bush's watch and then all you Cons can blame us Liberals for it.
I'll bet you'll even argue for us to go to interment camps just for our own good. Yep, I can see it now.
Then another one will happen and maybe Bush will say we should just suspend the Consitition for the duration of this war on a concept.
With all due respect, that kind of hysteria is exactly why "your" camp always ends up looking silly and/or weak when issues of security and defense come up.
Reasonable people can disagree on this issue, sure. However, at the same time, ideas and programs (or opposition to same) have consequences. If one party or another wants to kill what some have called a successful program in combatting terrorism, that side needs to be aware of the potential consequences.
By all accounts this is a fairly narrowly tailored program. And, yet, the liberals--including you--are trotting out the tired old "Bush is Nazi" rants instead of addressing the substantive posts about legality and/or explaining why they don't think this will hurt our ability to prevent acts of terror.
You can parade all the John Murthas, John Kerrys and Max Clelands out here you want to tell us they're vets. However, if those vets are going to engage a debate or endanger civilians people are still going to trust the Republicans on security issues more.
Quote: the G-man said: If they weren't immediately going along with it, that means they aren't "yes men." Which tends to discredit your theory that this was approved "because [Bush] said so."
I also notice you ignored the point about the Justice Department auditing the program and apparently not finding problems. ... ...
In general terms I think Ashcroft is considered very loyal to Bush. Not somebody who would agree with a Democrat easily. You are mixing the data mining part of the program with the wiretapping. Are you saying they found no problems with the wiretapping part???
By all accounts this is a fairly narrowly tailored program. And, yet, the liberals--including you--are trotting out the tired old "Bush is Nazi" rants
Why shouldn't we? You've show two cartoons depicting Liberals as Terrorist Enablers.
Aren't they? I have yet to hear a strong case from the majoruty liberals that say we should be harder on teh terrorists that we should go after them more agressively. I've heard that we need to make sure they're comfortable in prison and that we shouldn't listen in to thier conversations. Infact we shouldn't even call them terrorists because that would hurt thier feelings, we should call them insurgents or even freedom fighters (and from some on the FAR left like Moore and Chomski, heroes and patriots).
It might be a funnier, or at least more true, point if WBAM hadn't gone on to support his "name calling" by noting the following
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said:I have yet to hear a strong case from the majoruty liberals that say we should be harder on teh terrorists that we should go after them more agressively. I've heard that we need to make sure they're comfortable in prison and that we shouldn't listen in to thier conversations. Infact we shouldn't even call them terrorists because that would hurt thier feelings, we should call them insurgents or even freedom fighters (and from some on the FAR left like Moore and Chomski, heroes and patriots).
Wednesday used to add alot, but I don't think I've seen anything substanitive from him in quite some time.
And please don't bother Jim with teh substance of my post, clearly it's not something he wants to adress. It could be he has no acctuall argument against it save to mischaracterose it by leaving out that wich doesn't support his characterization. YOU know that if I were to say to someone "You're a communist" that would be nothing more than name calling, but if I were to say "You're a communist because you ascribe to the teachings of Marx and Lennin" then even if you were to still try and label that name calling, at least it would be accurate. Much of the left has demonstrably done things that I believe has enabled the terrorists, but instead of defending thier acctions they say it's wrong to question the further implications and unless you describe thier every acction as the highest form of patriotism, they simply won't engage you in conversation. Fortunately, while I agknolledge that having these conversations with liberals is frusterating I can take comfort in knowing that other people are listening to the national debate as well. Hopefully in elections to come there will simply be less liberals to worry about.
Although the worst case scenareo is just that. We know now that if it weren't for Gorrelic wall 9-11 could have been prevented. While it's not entirely fair to blame her because of hidsight we can deffinately question those who even with the bennifit of hindsight want to resurrect the wall, then well, I think there's a cause for finger pointing. Speaking of finger pointing, you'll notice that while teh left's primary complaint is that Bush is doing TOO MUCH to prevent terrorism, JJ has allready poined a pre-emtive finger at Bush saying that future attacks, (wich JJ seems to be expecting now) will happen on Bush's watch and that it would be wrong to even insinuate that the lefts coddling of "Musilm freedom fighters" could be to blame (lets not forget that it was specifically "Red States" that were last threatened so they're not allone in thier hatred for Bush.
I'm not really interested in JJ's response because I know what it will be*, but fortunately a debate usually has more that 2 participants. There are those engaged in teh discussion and the audience. It's for the latter that I even bother to enter the frey anymore.
Quote: BLITZER: So you want hearings? You want hearings?
LUGAR: I do. I think this is an appropriate time, without going back and should the president have ever tried to listen to a call coming from Afghanistan, probably of course. And in the first few weeks we made many concessions in the Congress because we were at war and we were under attack.
We still have the possibility of that going on so we don't want to obviate all of this, but I think we want to see what in the course of time really works best and the FISA Act has worked pretty well from the time of President Carter's day to the current time.
Terrorist lover or somebody just interested in a little thing called the constitution?
Quote: Congressmembers write White House to ask if reporters were bugged
Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and 22 other House members sent a letter to President Bush today requesting that he provide a range of information concerning the controversial warrantless surveillance program by the NSA, RAW STORY has learned.
In light of recent disclosures by NBC that CNN Reporter Christiane Amanpour's telephone calls may have been intercepted by the Bush Administration -- a fact caught by AmericaBLOG's John Aravosis. The Democrats asked for information regarding whether any reporters or other members of the media have had phone calls intercepted under the NSA program.
The congressmembers also asked the President to propose statutory language that would specifically authorize the program so that it could be considered as part of a possible extension of the USA PATRIOT Act scheduled to sunset Feb. 3. ...
I'm glad to see you've found another web site... This story however seems like a non-story they aren't reporting that the Bush admin has done anything they're simply reporting that he's been asked.
I should write a letter asking if John Kerry has ever raped a puppy. Now, THAT would be news!
You can find a hidden motive behind every action done and word said by a conservitive pundit, but you assign nothing but the puresst motive behind anything the left does. I'm sorry, but if you can truly say you don't see the slightest hint of political posturing in this story then you just may be a partisan puppet.
Quote: because we can Jan. 6, 2006 - To many people, the most perplexing aspect of the Bush administration’s domestic spying program is that it was largely unnecessary. President George Bush could have simply invoked the emergency provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which would have allowed the government to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists 72 hours before receiving authorization from the FISA court. Alternatively, the White House could have gone to Congress to amend the FISA statute. So why did the White House take such a controversial step, one that would inevitably open it up to serious charges of violating the civil liberties of American citizens? The answer may be as simple as this: a zealous belief that it could, regardless of whether doing so was necessary.
The administration’s biggest mistakes in fighting the war on terror have been the product of a willful defiance of the traditional rules of warfare. Bush understood instinctively that the United States needed more creative thinking and a new flexibility to prevail against an enemy as vicious and unconventional as Al Qaeda. But a small, powerful group of ideologically committed Bush administration officials, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, had a more far-reaching agenda: to prove at virtually every turn that the Constitution vests in the president near unfettered powers in the conduct of national security policy. The principle became such an article of faith that upholding it often trumped the wisdom--and necessity--of individual policies. Playing out behind the scenes was a bitter struggle between the proponents of presidential supremacy during wartime and traditionalists, often career civil servants, who wanted to maintain the balance of power. A healthy tension between the two should serve as an important check on overreaching by ideologues or on the indolence of time-serving bureaucrats. ...
WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans want the Bush administration to get court approval before eavesdropping on people inside the United States, even if those calls might involve suspected terrorists, an AP-Ipsos poll shows.
Over the past three weeks, President Bush and top aides have defended the electronic monitoring program they secretly launched shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, as a vital tool to protect the nation from al-Qaida and its affiliates.
Yet 56 percent of respondents in an AP-Ipsos poll said the government should be required to first get a court warrant to eavesdrop on the overseas calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when those communications are believed to be tied to terrorism. ... Party affiliation is a factor, too. Almost three-fourths of Democrats and one-third of Republicans want to require court warrants.
I'd need to see the breakdown of how AP conducted the poll before I put much stock in this, given that, in at least one incident in the past, AP has put forth polls that were skewed
First, only 81% of respondents were even eligible to vote, and there's no indication of how many of them actually went to the polls in 2004..
3. Age of Respondents In this poll 31% of the respondents were between 18-34, even though the 18-29 year olds (a slightly smaller demo) only made up 17% of the electorate in the 2004 election. I think it's pretty safe to say that by including 30-34 year olds that number would still not have come close to the IPSOS sample.
Quote: Jan 10, 2006 — Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security Agency, is now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet. For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows as he helped the United States spy on other people's conversations around the world.
"I specialized in what's called special access programs," Tice said of his job. "We called them 'black world' programs and operations." But now, Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret "black world" operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated the law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged wrongdoing in these programs run by the Defense Department and the NSA in the post-9/11 efforts to go after terrorists. "The mentality was we need to get these guys, and we're going to do whatever it takes to get them," he said. Tracking Calls
Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every domestic and international phone call as they are switched through centers, such as one in New York, and to search for key words or phrases that a terrorist might use. "If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing." According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or even thousands more. Tice Admits Being a Source for The New York Times
President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA to eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual requisite warrants. But Tice disagrees. He says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used. "That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum," Tice said. ....
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: "The mentality was we need to get these guys, and we're going to do whatever it takes to get them," he said.
Apparently the mentality of Tice and many Democrats is that we don't need to get these guys and we're not going to do whatever it takes to get them...?
Quote: Spy agency post-9/11 data sidetracked FBI: NY Times
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the months following the September 11 attacks, the National Security Agency sent a torrent of names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses to the FBI that swamped the agency but led in virtually every case to dead ends or innocent Americans, The New York Times reported on Monday.
FBI officials complained repeatedly to the secretive spy agency, which was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on the international phone and Internet communications of targeted Americans.
The unfiltered data swamped FBI investigators, the newspaper reported on its Web site in an article written for its Tuesday editions.
Some FBI officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on the privacy of law-abiding Americans.
The bureau's then-director, Robert Mueller, raised concerns about the legal basis for the eavesdropping program, which did not seek court warrants, the Times reported, citing an unidentified government official. Mueller asked senior administration officials "whether the program had a proper legal foundation," but ultimately deferred to the Justice Department legal opinions.
The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without the approval of a special, secret court.
President George W. Bush has said he ordered the domestic eavesdropping operation to fight terrorism after the September 11 attacks and that his actions were within the law.
Citing interviews with more than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, the Times said the flood of NSA tips led to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources -- and diverted agents from work they viewed as more productive. ...
Raw Story has a detailed 42-page defense of the President's "inherent constitutional authority" to conduct warrantless investigations of enemy forces to dissuade attacks upon the United States.
While I haven't read the entire thing in detail, it appears to my eyes that the document is a fleshed-out version of this five-page DoJ briefing (PDF) released December 22nd, and it seems like they're making the same points I discussed here.
The document cites copious case law, the President's inherent Constitutional authority under Article II, and a FISA exemption granted by the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).
It also makes the argument that if FISA is shown to conflict with the President's Article II Powers, then FISA is unconstitutional.
This is going to be very interesting, but I'd say unless the President's detractors can come up with a new argument I haven't heard of yet, then his powers to conduct this kind of warrantless surveillance will be upheld to the great consternation of those ts that do not understand the responsibilities on the Executive during a time of war.
Quote: the G-man said: This is going to be very interesting, but I'd say unless the President's detractors can come up with a new argument I haven't heard of yet, then his powers to conduct this kind of warrantless surveillance will be upheld to the great consternation of those ts that do not understand the responsibilities on the Executive during a time of war.
I dunno. Something about the words "warrantless surveillance" sound very dangerous. Not necessarily in the hands of Bush or his administration, but this kind of power is a very slippery slope.
Quote: Lawmakers seek review of eavesdropping rules
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. surveillance laws should be reviewed and possibly rewritten to allow the type of eavesdropping that U.S. President George W. Bush has been criticized for authorizing, lawmakers from both parties said on Sunday.
Democrats and some Republicans have said the Bush administration's classified warrantless eavesdropping program is illegal. The White House has strongly defended the National Security Agency surveillance as legal and essential. The Senate Judiciary Committee starts hearings on the issue on February 6.
The NSA has been monitoring communications, including e-mail and telephone calls, into and out of the United States by people believed linked to al Qaeda or related groups.
An audio tape by Osama bin Laden that emerged last week threatening new attacks on the United States has heightened security concerns. Neither party can afford to be seen as failing to protect the country, particularly as corruption scandals and public questioning of the Iraq war loom over November's congressional elections.
Lawmakers on several Sunday talk shows said that if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) does not give Bush the tools and legal framework he needs to monitor potential threats, the president should ask Congress to change the law rather than bypass it.
Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, who endorsed former Vice President Al Gore's call for an independent investigation of the Bush program, said on ABC's "This Week" that some Republicans like Bush adviser Karl Rove are trying to equate Democratic opposition to warrantless spying as weakness.
"What he's (Rove) trying to pretend is somehow Democrats don't want to eavesdrop appropriately to protect the country. That's a lie," Kerry said. "We're prepared to eavesdrop wherever and whenever necessary in order to make America safer."
'THERE IS A WAY'
But Kerry said the spying has to be legal and constitutional and if Bush needs the law to be changed, "then come to us and tell us. ... There is a way to protect the Constitution and not go off on your own and violate it."
Other prominent Democratic senators including Dick Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut made similar comments about re-examining the breadth and modernity of FISA in television interviews a few days after Rove urged Republicans to campaign on national security and the war on terror. ...
Reuters I think the White House made a mistake letting Rove speak in public. All the networks including FOX covered this.
I don't see thas as reflecting poorly on Bush. What I see now is Dems responding to public opinion polls and saying they agree whith the Presidents actions, but they wish he would have asked thier permission.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I don't see thas as reflecting poorly on Bush. What I see now is Dems responding to public opinion polls and saying they agree whith the Presidents actions, but they wish he would have asked thier permission.
Well I was thinking more about most Americans who also care about the constitution & don't want a President operating above it when he didn't have to. The far far right seems to be more interested in protecting poor judgement & trying to avoid any investigation.
Acctually, the president has welcomed an investigation and has does nothing unconstitutional. Infact it's the constitution that grants him teh authority to do what most Americans acctually approve of, but please don't end the debate now. The side shifting is too good for us on teh right to want to see you guys end it.
WBAM you may want reread this thread. The only shift that has occurred is the amount of eavesdropping the President has admitted doing and that he is no longer fighting (publicly) to stop an investigation.
Really, that's the only shift? Prominant Democrats who were at one point calling this a massive intrusion of government aren't now saying that they support the policy, but think that teh president should have first consulted them? Well, I can't wait to see how well your able to get teh American people behind you on the the grounds that the president is doing the right thing, but he failed to fill out the proper paperwork. Yea, I see a ladslide victory for teh left here in the next election, perhaps with impeachment to follow. Way to have your finger on teh pulse of America.
You'll have to be a little less vague in your accusations. Like who are the prominent Dems & maybe some actual quotes. If seeking an investigation into the wiretapping program to find out what the President is actually doing cost the Dems votes, so be it. Protecting our system of checks & balances is well worth it. You also ignore the Republicans that also feel an investigation is warranted. The Constitution at the end of the day is important to both parties.
There was the "prominent" John Kerry, explaining his position on the "scandal" over the Bush administration's allegedly spying on al Qaeda on ABC this weekend:
Sen. John F. Kerry is calling President Bush's warrantless wiretaps "a clear violation of the law." . . .
Although Kerry did not go as far as to agree with former Vice President Al Gore's belief that the wiretaps may constitute an "impeachable offense," Kerry called for a special counsel and independent investigation.
Kerry, who endorsed former Vice President Al Gore's call for an independent investigation of the Bush program, said on ABC's "This Week" that some Republicans like Bush adviser Karl Rove are trying to equate Democratic opposition to warrantless spying as weakness.
"What he's (Rove) trying to pretend is somehow Democrats don't want to eavesdrop appropriately to protect the country. That's a lie," Kerry said. "We're prepared to eavesdrop wherever and whenever necessary in order to make America safer."
So he's for spying! Er, hang on a second! Here's there's still more:
Kerry yesterday called the National Security Agency's program to eavesdrop on terror suspects illegal, but he said he will continue to support its funding.
OK, so he's on both sides of the question whether America should spy on al Qaeda, but he's definitely in favor of funding spying on al Qaeda.
Or is he? Remember that after opposing the Iraq war after favoring it, he voted for the $87 billion before voting against it.
And it's not teh Dem's righousness that's going to cost them votes. It's thier transparent pandering and the fact that Bin-Laden crafts his speaches now from thier talking points. The American people people want teh constitution up-held, they also want to avoind getting blown to little bits. Bush has been doing both. The Democrats have been accusing the President of "taking his eye off the ball" in regards to Bin-Laden, but when it's revealed that his eyes and ears have been very much "on the ball" they start to accuse him of going to far leading some to believe that the left doesn't care what the president does, it's wrong.
So you're saying Bin-Laden acctually likes Bush and wants him re-elected? So much so that even though he feels his ideals are so important that he's willing to kill for them, he would lie about those ideals in order to get Bush re-elected so that he can continue to agressively prosecute the war on terror. I'll bet Saddam wants Bush to be re-elected too. That's why he's acting like a loon and him and his lawer are are also parroting lefty talking points. Saddam is probobly glad that he's been releaved of the stress of running a country and wants to reward Bush by getting him re-elected. I'd ask you if you've really examined what it is you're claiming, but then I realised the mind must have to develope some radical coping mechainism to deal with the possibility that you and Ossoma are on teh same side of some of these issues*.
*Because I know liberals are sensitive, I should point out that I simply said you're on teh same side of the issue, not that you support the methods.
WBAM you have to keep in mind we're talking about a fanatic who was responsible for 9/11. Do you think he's really being honest about anything? He's putting out the best propaganda that benefits himself & his cause.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: WBAM you have to keep in mind we're talking about a fanatic who was responsible for 9/11. Do you think he's really being honest about anything? He's putting out the best propaganda that benefits himself & his cause.
And the Democrat Party, from its highest leadership on down is providing Bin Laden with that propaganda !
From the highest levels of Democrat leadership on down.
The likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Al Gore, Hilary Clinton, on down.
Bin Laden's dishonesty is being empowered by the dishonesty of House and Senate liberals, in their outrageous factless allegations and partisan attacks.
And in the specific cases of Gore and Kerry, empowered by the grudge-driven rhetoric of sore losers who would tear down a President whose shoes they'd like to be in.
Quote: White House Dismissed '02 Surveillance Proposal
The Bush administration rejected a 2002 Senate proposal that would have made it easier for FBI agents to obtain surveillance warrants in terrorism cases, concluding that the system was working well and that it would likely be unconstitutional to lower the legal standard.
The proposed legislation by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) would have allowed the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants for non-U.S. citizens if they had a "reasonable suspicion" they were connected to terrorism -- a lower standard than the "probable cause" requirement in the statute that governs the warrants. ...
Quote: WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called President Bush's explanations for eavesdropping on domestic conversations without warrants "strange" and "far-fetched" Wednesday in blistering criticism ahead of the president's State of the Union address.
"Obviously, I support tracking down terrorists. I think that's our obligation. But I think it can be done in a lawful way," the New York Democrat said.
Clinton, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, told reporters she did not yet know whether the administration's eavesdropping without warrants broke any laws. But the senator, a lawyer, said she did not buy the White House's main justification for the tactic.
"Their argument that it's rooted in the authority to go after al Qaeda is far-fetched," she said in an apparent reference to a congressional resolution passed after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack. The Bush administration has argued that the resolution gave the president authority to order such electronic surveillance as part of efforts to protect the nation from terrorists. ...
Quote: the G-man said: That's pretty interesting, given the precedents set by her husband's administration, that this was okay.
I'm guessing your referring to when FISA was updated concerning physical searches. Yeah great argument, Clinton really had the power & we'll just ignore that FISA was changed to accomadate new needs.
And I've shown that your comparing two different things.
As I understand it, Clinton didn't conduct any secret physical searches & that the FISA law was changed to give him what he needed. That is quite different to Bush lying and saying that warrants were still required & then secretly wiretapping. All but a few in Congress knew anything about it & they are sworn to secrecy. How are they the same?
Today's New York Times carries the results of a poll on the kerfuffle over surveillance of terrorists. According to the Times, the poll finds that "public opinion about the trade-offs between national security and individual rights is nuanced and remains highly unresolved." Translated into English, this means that the public is on the opposite side of the issue from the Times.
Complete results are here, but the crucial question in No. 60, which appears on page 30:
In order to reduce the threat of terrorism, would you be willing or not willing to allow government agencies to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of Americans that the government is suspicious of?
Answer: 68% are willing, just 29% not willing--and by the way, the number who are willing is up, from 63% in 2003 and 56% in 2005.
It's possible that by revealing the surveillance program, the Times succeeded in both damaging national security and diminishing public support for "civil liberties."
Quote: Karl Rove wants the American public to believe only one political party disagrees with Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program. But this morning on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said the program was illegal:
HAGEL: I don’t believe, from what I’ve heard, but I’m going to give the administration an opportunity to explain it, that he has the authority now to do what he’s doing. Now, maybe he can convince me otherwise, but that’s OK. STEPHANOPOULOS: But not yet. HAGEL: Not yet. But that’s OK. If he needs more authority, he just can’t unilaterally decide that that 1978 law is out of date and he will be the guardian of America and he will violate that law. He needs to come back, work with us, work with the courts if he has to, and we will do what we need to do to protect the civil liberties of this country and the national security of this country. Hagel joins other prominent conservatives — including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) — who have questioned the legal basis of Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance program.
Quote: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales failed on Monday to convince the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and other lawmakers that President Bush had the legal authority to conduct warrantless eavesdropping against U.S. citizens.
At a daylong Senate hearing, Gonzales doggedly defended the National Security Agency's surveillance of international phone calls and e-mails as an indispensable "early warning system" against terrorist attacks.
Democrats and some Republicans challenged his assertion that Bush had the authority to act under both the Constitution and a congressional resolution that authorized the use of U.S. military force against al Qaeda three days after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
"I do not think that any fair, realistic reading of the September 14 resolution gives you the power to conduct electronic surveillance," the committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, told Gonzales at the end of a grueling day.
Specter also called for investigations by the full Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees, saying only a thorough closed-door examination of the program could determine whether Bush had the inherent authority to conduct warrantless surveillance. ...
Reuters No surprise that this comes down to close door hearings.
"There is an involved question here . . . as to whether the president's powers under Article 2, his inherent powers, supersede a statute."
The Pennsylvania Republican said that if the FISA statute "is inconsistent with the Constitution, the Constitution governs and the constitutional powers predominate."
After Sept. 11, Congress immediately confirmed the president's constitutional authority to "use all necessary and appropriate force" against those "those nations, organizations, or persons he determines" responsible for the attacks.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) gave the president the latitude to use a full complement of tools and tactics against our enemy. A majority of Supreme Court justices have concluded that the AUMF authorizes the president to use "fundamental and accepted" incidents of military force in our armed conflict with al Qaeda. The use of signals intelligence--intercepting enemy communications--is a fundamental incident of waging war.
The president, as commander in chief, has asserted his authority to use sophisticated military drones to search for Osama bin Laden, to deploy our armed forces in combat zones, and to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives around the world. No one would dispute that the AUMF supports the president in each of these actions.
It is, therefore, inconceivable that the AUMF does not also support the president's efforts to intercept the communications of our enemies. Any future al Qaeda attacks on the homeland are likely to be carried out, like Sept. 11, by operatives hiding among us. The NSA terrorist surveillance program is a military operation designed to detect them quickly. Efforts to identify the terrorists and their plans expeditiously while ensuring faithful adherence to the Constitution and our existing laws is precisely what America expects from the president.
History is clear that signals intelligence is, to use the language of the Supreme Court, "a fundamental incident of waging war." President Wilson authorized the military to intercept all telegraph, telephone and cable communications into and out of the U.S. during World War I. The day after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt authorized the interception of all communications traffic into and out of the U.S. These sweeping measures were seen as necessary and lawful during critical moments of past armed conflicts. So, too, are the more focused intercepts of al Qaeda during our current armed conflict, especially given the nature of the enemy we face.
The AUMF is broad in scope, and understandably so; Congress could not have catalogued every possible aspect of military force it was endorsing. That's why the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that the detention of enemy combatants--a fundamental incident of war-- was lawful, even though detention is not mentioned in the AUMF. The same argument holds true for the terrorist surveillance program. Nor was the president's authorization of the terrorist surveillance program in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA bars persons from intentionally "engag[ing] . . . in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute." The AUMF provides this statutory authorization for the terrorist surveillance program as an exception to FISA.
Lastly, the terrorist surveillance program fully complies with the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Like sobriety checkpoints or border searches, this program involves "special needs" beyond routine law enforcement, an exception to the warrant requirement upheld by the Supreme Court as consistent with the Fourth Amendment.
Oh, and by the way:
Quote: the G-man said:
You keep saying "bipartisan" as if the fact that a handful of republicans are joining the democratic chorus is the same as widespread republican support for your position.
Using that logic, because Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, supports Bush on the war, one could as easily say Bush has "bipartisan" support in congress.
Of course, that would be deceptive. Just as deceptive as your statement.
Again, why is when one or two republicans agree with a democrat, you call it "bipartisan," but when one or two democrats agree with Bush you don't?
For those of you who still question why this program is neccessary, Debra Burlingame connects some dots:
A 2004 NBC report graphically illustrated what not having this program cost us 4 1/2 years ago.
In 1999, the NSA began monitoring a known al Qaeda "switchboard" in Yemen that relayed calls from Osama bin Laden to operatives all over world. The surveillance picked up the phone number of a "Khalid" in the United States--but the NSA didn't intercept those calls, fearing it would be accused of "domestic spying."
After 9/11, investigators learned that "Khalid" was Khalid al-Mihdhar, then living in San Diego under his own name--one of the hijackers who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. He made more than a dozen calls to the Yemen house, where his brother-in-law lived.
NBC news called this "one of the missed clues that could have saved 3,000 lives."
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program.
The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.
Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush's father, is the first Republican on either the House's Intelligence Committee or the Senate's to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.
The congresswoman's discomfort with the operation appears to reflect deepening fissures among Republicans over the program's legal basis and political liabilities. ...
Despite the words you would put into my mouth, I remember 9/11 as I'm sure the Republican congresswoman who just spoke out for a wiretap inquiry. The way you use 9/11 as a shield for the President makes me question your memory though.
I have no problem putting my faith into a Republican controlled Congress (my allies apparently) to look into this. Your Rove talking points don't reflect reallity or make America safer.
Quote: Spying Necessary, Democrats Say But Harman, Daschle Question President's Legal Reach
Two key Democrats yesterday called the NSA domestic surveillance program necessary for fighting terrorism but questioned whether President Bush had the legal authority to order it done without getting congressional approval.
Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) said Republicans are trying to create a political issue over Democrats' concern on the constitutional questions raised by the spying program. ...] Washington Post
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: You notice teh president hasn't budged an inch from his position, yet everytime the Democrats speak they keep giving more and more ground.
Check the thread, your mixing up your "sky is falling & it's the Dems fault" political rhetoric with the Dems & Republicans trying to find out about this program & if the President was out of bounds. Some of the toughest questions asked about the President's wiretapping has been by several Republicans like Grahym & Spectre.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: A big story on the Sunday shows this morning was Bush authorizing the NSA to wiretap Americans without going through a court. Sounds unconstitutional to me.
Quote:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic House leaders called Sunday for an independent panel to investigate the legality of a program President Bush authorized that allows warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens, according to a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
"We believe that the President must have the best possible intelligence to protect the American people, but that intelligence must be produced in a manner consistent with our Constitution and our laws, and in a manner that reflects our values as a nation," the letter says. ...
The very first post on this thread. Not quite as histarical as "OMG the President must be stopped so the terrorist don't get eavesdropped on" as some present it, is it?
Yea, well sorry, I base my views on the matter as a whole from more than just that wich is posted here. I've heard everything from teh President is spying on YOU the average American to his acctiona re definately illegal and impeachaple and spit in the face of the constitution. Now they're saying it's OK to get warrentless searches as long as they are asked for approval in teh congress, but I'll lay off, because while you'll never be convinced the rest of America is thouroly convinced, so our job on the right is done.
Besides that article is innacurate because it fails to call teh opposition bi-partisan due to the two Republicans you keep mentioning.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said:blah blah blah I luvs me right wing rhetoric blah blah blah... Besides that article is innacurate because it fails to call teh opposition bi-partisan due to the two Republicans you keep mentioning.
Since WBAM has made it clear that he just knows better, instead of responding directly I'll just let others decide if he can count or not...
Quote: ...And numerous Republican Senators have expressed strong concerns about the program including Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Susan Collins (R-ME), John Sununu (R-NH), Larry Craig (R-ID), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and John McCain (R-AZ). Numerous conservative leaders like former Congressman Bob Barr, Grover Norquist, David Keene, Paul Weyrich and other principals in Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, along with former officials like Judge William Sessions—who served as the Director of the FBI under President Reagan—Bruce Fein and former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, have spoken out against the program. Conservative or libertarian scholars have expressed strong concerns, such as the American Enterprise Institute’s Norm Ornstein, CATO’s Robert Levy, and Chicago’s Professor Richard Epstein, as well as noted columnists like William Safire, George Will, and Steve Chapman. These voices join a chorus of concern from progressive leaders. ...
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, breaking ranks with the president on domestic eavesdropping, says he wants a special court to oversee the program.
Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan., said he is concerned that the secret court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act could not issue warrants as quickly as the monitoring program requires. But he is optimistic that the problem could be worked out.
"You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit," Roberts was quoted as saying in Saturday's New York Times.
Roberts said he does not believe much support exists among lawmakers for exempting the program from the control of the FISA court. That is the approach Bush has favored and one that would be established under a bill proposed by Sen. Mike DeWine (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio.
Roberts has defended Bush's program, which was revealed by the Times in a story in December. Bush says the program to monitor electronic communication between the United States and international sites involving suspected al-Qaida operatives is vital to anti-terrorism efforts.
On Thursday, Roberts said he and the White House had agreed to give lawmakers more information on the nature of the program and that the administration had committed to making changes to the FISA law. At the same time, he delayed a Democratic effort to call for an investigation of the program.
Yahoo So no investigation for now but changes will be made. As long as they have real oversight beyond the White House this may be the best thing for the country.
The Sept. 11 hijackers made dozens of telephone calls to Saudi Arabia and Syria in the months before the attacks, according to a classified report from the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
According to the report, 206 international telephone calls were known to have been made by the leaders of the hijacking plot after they arrived in the United States--including 29 to Germany, 32 to Saudi Arabia and 66 to Syria.
These are calls between al Qaeda terrorists and their associates, in which one side of the call is in the U.S. and the other is in another country--that is, just the kind of call the National Security Agency listened to under the terrorist surveillance program.
Had such a program existed in 2001, it might have prevented 9/11.
This cartoon doesn't make any sense. To date, Bush has maintained, along with many commentators, that the wiretapping of suspected terrorists was legal.
According to Senate sources, [Republican leader] Frist intends to let the Democrats put just about any kind of censure legislation they want up for a vote, knowing that Democrats have neither the votes nor the nerve to follow through, particularly in an election year. And it's already causing [Democrat leader] Reid some heartburn.
According to Democrat sources, Reid will attempt to bring his caucus to some kind of order as early as today, but is not hopeful about his chances. He has several fellow Democrats working to undercut his leadership: Sens. Dick Durbin, Christopher Dodd and Feingold, to name just three. Dodd has eyes on the leadership post down the road, Feingold has possible presidential credentials to burnish with the far left.
But none of them could get their colleagues to buy into a censure vote. Throughout the day as Feingold attempted to garner support, his Democrat colleagues went before the press and just shook their heads when asked about the censure vote.
Frist, for his part, is more than willing to let the Democrats devour their own, and is emboldened. Speaking about the Monday Democrat debacle, one Frist associate said, "[Frist] pushed them to the mat today, and they blinked. He dared them to vote and Democrat Leader Harry Reid looked like he was going to be sick as he said no.
Frist thinks it's time to call Democrats on their antics, and so he's going to continue to dare Democrats to vote on censuring the President. When it comes to intercepting phone calls from Tora Bora to Topeka, Frist thinks Senate Democrats have made a huge blunder, and he will lead the charge to make Democrats put up or shut up on censure."
According to Senate sources, [Republican leader] Frist intends to let the Democrats put just about any kind of censure legislation they want up for a vote, knowing that Democrats have neither the votes nor the nerve to follow through, particularly in an election year. And it's already causing [Democrat leader] Reid some heartburn.
According to Democrat sources, Reid will attempt to bring his caucus to some kind of order as early as today, but is not hopeful about his chances. He has several fellow Democrats working to undercut his leadership: Sens. Dick Durbin, Christopher Dodd and Feingold, to name just three. Dodd has eyes on the leadership post down the road, Feingold has possible presidential credentials to burnish with the far left.
But none of them could get their colleagues to buy into a censure vote. Throughout the day as Feingold attempted to garner support, his Democrat colleagues went before the press and just shook their heads when asked about the censure vote.
Frist, for his part, is more than willing to let the Democrats devour their own, and is emboldened. Speaking about the Monday Democrat debacle, one Frist associate said, "[Frist] pushed them to the mat today, and they blinked. He dared them to vote and Democrat Leader Harry Reid looked like he was going to be sick as he said no.
Frist thinks it's time to call Democrats on their antics, and so he's going to continue to dare Democrats to vote on censuring the President. When it comes to intercepting phone calls from Tora Bora to Topeka, Frist thinks Senate Democrats have made a huge blunder, and he will lead the charge to make Democrats put up or shut up on censure."
This is a logical fallacy on your parties part. Censuring the President is not defending terrorists. Its stating that he did something wrong. Do Internal Affairs officers who arrest a cop who brutalizes people support crime? Were the Republicans in 1999 supporting Hussein and bin Laden by impeaching Clinton? Technically the impeachment took more of the President's attention than any censure.
This cartoon doesn't make any sense. To date, Bush has maintained, along with many commentators, that the wiretapping of suspected terrorists was legal.
Not even a formal apology can make you accept the guy was wrong. Even HE's mature enough to accept it and you're not.
According to Senate sources, [Republican leader] Frist intends to let the Democrats put just about any kind of censure legislation they want up for a vote, knowing that Democrats have neither the votes nor the nerve to follow through,
Roger Waters said the same thing about David Gilmour in 1985 with respect to Gilmour carrying on Pink Floyd.
Yeah, but post-Waters Floyd really, really, sucked.
Let me ask a serious question, however: at this point, the question of the legality of Bush's actions is (for him), at worst, murky and, perhaps, settled in his favor (see earlier posts).
There are already lawsuits challenging the program. I am willing to concede that said lawsuits may result in rulings adverse to the Bush administration. But, of course, the opposite is also true. In any event, the matter could likely end up in the US Supreme Court.
If, in fact, the Supreme Court ultimately decides the program is illegal, wouldn't that be the time for them to censure Bush? Prior to that, isn't the left being premature?
Simiilarly, if the left succeeds in getting a censure vote and the Supreme Court ultimately upholds Bush's position, won't that make the democrats look like blind, ingorant, partisans?
As noted in the article, Frist is not the only one convinced the Democrats don't have the votes. Minority leader Harry Reid, also a Democrat, is also convinced. That's why he's so worried.
Quote: the G-man said: Frist is not the only one convinced the Democrats don't have the votes. Minority leader Harry Reid, also a Democrat, is also convinced. That's why he's so worried.
The Washington Post has a hilarious description of Democratic senators, "filing in for their weekly caucus lunch yesterday" and reacting to Feingold's proposal to censure President Bush for fighting terrorism:
"I haven't read it," demurred Barack Obama (Ill.).
"I just don't have enough information," protested Ben Nelson (Neb.). "I really can't right now," John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters--an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer.
Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski (Md.).
"Ask her after lunch," offered Clinton's spokesman, Philippe Reines. But Clinton, with most of her colleagues, fled the lunch out a back door as if escaping a fire. . . .
So nonplused were Democrats that even Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), known for his near-daily news conferences, made history by declaring, "I'm not going to comment." Would he have a comment later? "I dunno," the suddenly shy senator said.
To be fair Feingold's move censure Bush took his fellow Dems by surprise. From what I've read, nobody supports it. That doesn't give Repuplicans much to play with beyond posting articles suggesting Dems don't want to talk about it. Not quite the same as Frist & Bush's Terry Schiavo debacle.
In a one-hour morning press conference that covered Iraq, Iran and domestic issues, Mr. Bush dared Democrats to oppose him on terrorist wiretapping.
"If people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it," he said of Democrats critical of his decision to allow the National Security Agency to monitor U.S.-international calls that intelligence officers think involve terrorists.
"They ought to take their message to the people, and say, 'Vote for me. I promise we're not going to have terrorist surveillance program,'" Mr. Bush said.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: He also startede by saying for all the complaining about the program he has yet to hear any of it's opponants acctually say it should end.
The President is just creating a false argument. It's one thing recognizing the need for the program, another for how it was done. This was a case of the White House deciding it didn't have to follow a law. Now his poll numbers are low so he's pulling the partisan bit to pump up his base.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: He also startede by saying for all the complaining about the program he has yet to hear any of it's opponants acctually say it should end.
The President is just creating a false argument. It's one thing recognizing the need for the program, another for how it was done. This was a case of the White House deciding it didn't have to follow a law. Now his poll numbers are low so he's pulling the partisan bit to pump up his base.
Please demonstrate to me where the wiretapping was proven to be illegal.
Bush kept a Senate committee informed of his actions the whole time the wiretapping was done.
As President Bush himself said at a press conference a few weeks ago: "If I was going to do something illegal, I wouldn't have kept them informed !"
It can be argued that the laws regarding wiretapping need to be updated from what they were when established in the late 1970's under the Carter administration.
But it can not fairly be said that what Bush did was illegal.
It could, however, be fairly said that the Democrats and the liberal media have ruined the effectiveness of future wiretapping of muslim phone calls abroad, making them infinitely aware that their calls are now monitored, guaranteeing terrorists will find more secure ways to plan terror, that cannot be monitored.
WASHINGTON - A vocal Republican critic of the Bush administration's eavesdropping program will preside over Senate efforts to write the program into law, but he was pessimistic Wednesday that the White House wanted to listen.
"They want to do just as they please, for as long as they can get away with it," Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think what is going on now without congressional intervention or judicial intervention is just plain wrong."
Specter was one of the first Republicans to publicly question the National Security Agency's authority to monitor international calls — when one party is inside the United States — without first getting court approval. Under the program first disclosed last year, the NSA has been conducting the surveillance when calls and e-mails are thought to involve al-Qaida.
Earlier this month, Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., expressed interest in handling NSA legislation.
But Specter will stay in the spotlight.
The Senate Parliamentarian last week gave Specter jurisdiction over two different bills that would provide more checks on the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program.
One bill, written by Specter, would require a secretive federal intelligence court to conduct regular reviews of the program's constitutionality. A rival approach — drafted by Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine (news, bio, voting record) and three other Republicans — would allow the government to conduct warrantless surveillance for up to 45 days before seeking court or congressional approval.
Specter said the House and Senate intelligence committees could have had authority over the program under the 1947 National Security Act, which lays out when the spy agencies must tell Congress about intelligence activities.
But, Specter said, the committees haven't gotten full briefings on the program, instead choosing to create small subcommittees for the work.
"The intelligence committees ought to exercise their statutory authority on oversight, but they aren't," Specter said. "The Judiciary Committee has acted. We brought in the attorney general. We had a second hearing with a series of experts, and we are deeply involved in it."...
[A] DOJ source said that in the past year, counter-terrorism officials have noted a marked downturn in the use of cell phone and landline communications [by terrorists]. There are a number of reasons for this, but they readily point to the N.Y. Times story on NSA overseas terror-call monitoring as one reason.
Quote: Gonzales: Bush Blocked Eavesdropping Probe President Bush personally blocked an internal investigation into the role played by Justice Department lawyers in approving a controversial warrantless eavesdropping program on calls between the United States and overseas, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified today.
During an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales was questioned by the panel's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), on why staffers in the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility were not allowed security clearances necessary to conduct an investigation into the eavesdropping program.
"It was highly classified, very important and many other lawyers had access," Specter asked. "Why not OPR?"
"The president of the United States makes the decision," Gonzales answered. ...
"The president decided that protecting the secrecy and security of the program requires that a strict limit be placed on the number of persons granted access to information about the program for non-operational reasons," Gonzales wrote. "Every additional security clearance that is granted for the TSP increases the risk that national security might be compromised."
But in a series of memos to Gonzales's deputy also released today, OPR chief H. Marshall Jarrett noted that "a large team of attorneys and agents" assigned to a criminal investigation of the disclosure of the NSA program were promptly granted the same clearances. He also noted that numerous other investigators and officials--including the members of a civil-liberties board--had been granted access to or briefed on the program.
"In contrast, our repeated requests for access to classified information about the NSA program have not been granted," Jarrett wrote on March 21. "As a result, this Office, which is charged with monitoring the integrity of the Department's attorneys and with ensuring that the highest standards of professional ethics are maintained, has been precluded from performing its duties."
Americans went to work yesterday to news of another astonishing terror plot against U.S. airlines, only this time the response was grateful relief. British authorities had busted the "very sophisticated" plan "to commit mass murder" and arrested 20-plus British-Pakistani suspects.
...the diabolical scheme was to smuggle innocent-looking liquid explosive components and detonators onto planes. They could then be assembled onboard and exploded, perhaps over cities for maximum horror. Multiply the passenger load of a 747 by, say, 10 airliners, and this attack could have killed more people than 9/11. We don't yet know how the plot was foiled, but surely part of the explanation was crack surveillance work by British authorities.
British antiterrorism chief Peter Clarke said at a news conference that the plot was foiled because "a large number of people" had been under surveillance, with police monitoring "spending, travel and communications."
Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs.
Democrats and their media allies screamed bloody murder last year when it was leaked that the government was monitoring some communications outside the context of a law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
This year the attempt to paint Bush Administration policies as a clear and present danger to civil liberties continued when USA Today hyped a story on how some U.S. phone companies were keeping call logs.
And then there was the recent brouhaha when the New York Times decided news of a secret, successful and entirely legal program to monitor bank transfers between bad guys was somehow in the "public interest" to expose.
For that matter, we don't recall most advocates of a narrowly "focused" war on terror having many kind words for the Patriot Act, which broke down what in the 1990s was a crippling "wall" of separation between our own intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.
There is also continued angst about the detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, even as Senators and self-styled civil libertarians fight Bush Administration attempts to process them through military tribunals that won't compromise sources and methods.
The real lesson of yesterday's antiterror success in Britain is that the threat remains potent, and that the U.S. government needs to be using every legal tool to defeat it. At home, that includes intelligence and surveillance and data-mining, and abroad it means all of those as well as an aggressive military plan to disrupt and kill terrorists where they live so they are constantly on defense rather than plotting to blow up U.S.-bound airliners.
I think it's clear that the left really doesn't care. The only enemy they see in teh world is Bush or them Jews who keep getting all uppidy in the middle east.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I think it's clear that the left really doesn't care. The only enemy they see in teh world is Bush or them Jews who keep getting all uppidy in the middle east.
A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.
"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly listening to conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.
The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.
The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration already had publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule.
It Should be noted, however, that this is a case of first impression. In other words, the decision will be appealed and the appellate court may rule differently.
The article as written doesn't really do a good job of describing the issues, some of which have been laid out on this thread over the past few months. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.
Last week the Detroit Free Press profiled Judge Taylor, noting that she "is a liberal with Democratic roots" who campaigned for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and was "rewarded" in 1979 with a judicial nomination. The paper adds:
Even if Taylor harpoons the spying program, experts said, the decision likely would be overturned by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Given the composition of the 6th Circuit and its previous rulings in related areas, it seems more likely to favor national security over civil liberties if that issue is squarely presented," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia. "And that's what this case is all about."
Quote: ...The Republicans also dropped the additional wire-tap authority the Clinton administration wanted. U.S. Attorney general Janet Reno had asked for "multi-point" tapping of suspected terrorists, who may be using advanced technology to outpace authorities.
Rep. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said technology is giving criminals an advantage.
"What the terrorists do is they take one cellular phone, use the number for a few days, throw it out and use a different phone with a different number," he said. "All we are saying is tap the person, not the phone number." (282K AIFF sound or 282K WAV sound)
Still, Schumer said the bill is "better than nothing" and should get some Democratic votes.
President Clinton asked Congress to give him the anti- terrorism bill by the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19. And he'll get it. While it might not be all the president wants, administration officials indicate it's a bill he can sign.
That article from 1996 MEM posted is a good example of the differences between how Republicans and Democrats operate. Unfortunately, for MEM, the demonstrated differences don't serve his side well.
In 1996, Clinton asked for various changes to the anti-terrorism laws. According to the article, a number of Republican Senators met with Clinton, expressed concerns, made changes, consulted with Clinton on those changes and, ultimately, congress compromised with a sitting president of a different party.
There's noting in the article that indicated the republicans accused Clinton of trying to usurp the constitution, violating civil liberties, etc.
Furthermore, for most the thread, MEM has been trying to tell us that Bush's wiretapping was unconstitutional and wrong. Now he's trying to tell us that its all the Republicans fault it isn't legal because they wouldn't let Clinton do it.
If it was unconstitutional under Bush (a point I don't concede), it would have been unconstitutional under Clinton (also a point I don't concede). A statute can't override the Constitution.
In addition, if MEM believes, as he's tried to tell us in the past, that wiretapping would be wrong then it should be just as wrong under a democrat as under a republican.
The implication, however, is that MEM (once again) only thinks something wrong if a Republican does it.
Quote: The Republicans also dropped the additional wire-tap authority the Clinton administration wanted
It doesn't sound like a matter of compromise as you put it G-man. It seems they used their majority status to (as you would put it)...help terrorists.
Another blast from the past...
Quote: Hatch blasts 'phony' issues
Republican leaders earlier met with White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta for about an hour in response to the president's call for "the very best ideas" for fighting terrorism.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, emerged from the meeting and said, "These are very controversial provisions that the White House wants. Some they're not going to get."
Hatch called Clinton's proposed study of taggants -- chemical markers in explosives that could help track terrorists -- "a phony issue."
"If they want to, they can study the thing" already, Hatch asserted. He also said he had some problems with the president's proposals to expand wiretapping.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said it is a mistake if Congress leaves town without addressing anti-terrorism legislation. Daschle is expected to hold a special meeting on the matter Wednesday with Congressional leaders.
Speaking of blasts from the past. Things must not be very good these days since MEM has been posting nothing but old articles to try to relive teh days when teh left had a little credibility left.
Congressional leaders, flanked by survivors and relatives of victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, unveiled compromise legislation Monday to increase federal powers to fight terrorism and limit appeals by death-row inmates.
President Clinton has expressed concern over the death penalty provision, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah said he had spoken with the president about the provision, and feels confident his objection is not strong enough to elicit a veto.
Hatch said the compromise bill would prevent international terrorist organizations from raising money in the United States and provide for the swift deportation of international terrorists.
Schumer said the bill is "better than nothing" and should get some Democratic votes.
President Clinton asked Congress to give him the anti- terrorism bill by the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19. And he'll get it. While it might not be all the president wants, administration officials indicate it's a bill he can sign.
So everyone in that article, from Orrin Hatch, to Chuck Schumer, to the Clinton administration to the AP itself called the bill a compromise.
Furthermore, MEM, if you remove your partisan goggles and re-read the article, one of the compromises was that the GOP made the death penalty provisions tougher than Clinton wanted.
So please stop trying to distort this also, with you constant "democrats always good, GOP always bad" spin.
Part of the compromise was that Republicans stripped out the wiretapping part that Clinton asked for. They didn't say "please" or "may we" because they had/have majority status.
For more context...
Quote: Charles Schumer (D-NY): Mr. Speaker, if we want to know why people are sick and fed up with Congress, look at this debate. On Sunday the President asked and all the law enforcement people asked for two things, the top two things they needed to fight terrorism. One, taggants. Identifiers in explosives, particularly black power and smokeless; and two, multipoint wiretaps. Neither are in this bill. Neither are in this bill because the NRA did not want it. Neither are in this bill because forces on the extreme dictated what the Republican Party was going to put forward. This bill is a sham. It does a few good things, but it does not give law enforcement what they want, plain and simple. We all know that. All the other provisions are an elaborate smokescreen to hide what everyone in this Chamber knows: that the majority party is not doing what the FBI, the ATF and all the other law enforcement experts have asked for. Mr. Kallstrom, long before this conference, the FBI man in the lead at TWA, said please give us multipoint wiretaps. The majority says no. Mr. Freeh, the head of the FBI, says please give us taggants so we can trace the kind of pipe bomb that blew up at the Olympics. The majority says no. And last night, when we had agreement from the President, the Republican leaders of the Senate, the Democratic leaders of the Senate and the Democratic side of the House, only the Republican majority in the House refused to go along. Members, this bill is what should make us ashamed of our inability to pull together and fight terrorism.
We could have had better legal wiretapping pre-9/11. We should have had legal wiretapping pre-9/11. And we would have had it except for one GOP owned House.
What you cited is nothing more than Chuck Schumer's opinion, given during a speech.
Furthermore, as noted above:
Quote: the G-man said:...for most the thread, MEM has been trying to tell us that Bush's wiretapping was unconstitutional and wrong. Now he's trying to tell us that its all the Republicans fault it isn't legal because they wouldn't let Clinton do it.
If it was unconstitutional under Bush (a point I don't concede), it would have been unconstitutional under Clinton (also a point I don't concede). A statute can't override the Constitution.
In addition, if MEM believes, as he's tried to tell us in the past, that wiretapping would be wrong then it should be just as wrong under a democrat as under a republican.
The implication, however, is that MEM (once again) only thinks something wrong if a Republican does it.
Quote: the G-man said: What you cited is nothing more than Chuck Schumer's opinion, given during a speech.
His opinion at the time the Republicans compromised away wiretaps in Clinton's anti-terrorism bill. I have some more that I'll be posting from other Dems.
Quote: the G-man said:Furthermore, as noted above:
Quote: the G-man said:...for most the thread, MEM has been trying to tell us that Bush's wiretapping was unconstitutional and wrong. Now he's trying to tell us that its all the Republicans fault it isn't legal because they wouldn't let Clinton do it.
Face it G-man, it was the Republicans fault. They stripped it out of the anti-terrorism bill in the House. It's a matter of record.
Quote: If it was unconstitutional under Bush (a point I don't concede), it would have been unconstitutional under Clinton (also a point I don't concede). A statute can't override the Constitution.
Bush just doing the wiretapping isn't the same thing as Clinton having it provided to him through a bill passed by congress.
Quote: the G-man said:In addition, if MEM believes, as he's tried to tell us in the past, that wiretapping would be wrong then it should be just as wrong under a democrat as under a republican.
...
pg2 this thread
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I don't think anyone here is making the arguement that wiretapping suspected terrorist isn't a bad thing or trying to prevent that WBAM. But up till last week I thought the President required a judge to at least retroactively OK it. And I've yet to hear any reason why to cut the judge out of the loop. Checks & balances folks.
pg3 this thread
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: ... And BTW, nobody has said the wiretapping has to stop just that judge at some point afterwards retroactively OKs it.
pg4 this thread
Quote: Matter-eater Man said:... And here I thought I was just asking Congress to do it's job & check out that the President is truly operating within the bounds of the Constitution. The wiretapping can continue while that is being done. So no government hinderment. So what is your problem with that?
pg5 this thread
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Not sure what your basing that on G-man. I could understand if there was a chorus of Democrats saying that the wiretapping must stop but as I understand it, that is not the case. There is a call to investigate the wiretapping that some Republicans in congress have joined with many Democrats. ...
pg6 this thread
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: G-man, you & the other boys are lacking merit in your argument. Where are all the Dem Congressmen that are saying the wiretaps must be stopped? It appears to be zero, leaving you with just an empty partisan accusation.
There's more but I think thats plenty to show that your being creative with what you say I'm saying. The next time you mistate my position on this thread I'll add some more.
The federal judge who ruled the anti-terrorism wiretapping program unconstitutional has been smacked.
The Bush administration can continue its warrantless surveillance program while it appeals a judge's ruling that the program is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday.
The unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ...said that they balanced the likelihood an appeal would succeed, the potential damage to both sides, and the public interest.
This would indicate that the appeals court found that continuation of the program would cause less harm than stopping it.
As a result, they granted a lengthy stay on enforcement of the lower court's order while the government appeals the decision of the Carter appointee and ACLU contributor.
So the Administration's anti-terror efforts may continue.
Rep. Jim McDermott had no right to disclose the contents of an illegally taped telephone call involving House Republican leaders a decade ago, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
In a 5-4 opinion, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that McDermott, a Washington Democrat, should not have given reporters access to the taped telephone call.
McDermott's offense was especially egregious since he was a senior member of the House ethics committee, the panel ruled.
When he became a member of the ethics panel, McDermott "voluntarily accepted a duty of confidentiality that covered his receipt and handling of the ... illegal recording. He therefore had no First Amendment right to disclose the tape to the media," Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote on behalf of the court. Four judges agreed with him.
The ruling upholds a previous decision ordering McDermott to pay House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, more than $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and more than $600,000 in legal costs.
A federal appeals court on Friday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging President Bush's domestic spying program, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to sue.
The American Civil Liberties Union led the suit on behalf of other groups including lawyers, journalists and scholars it says have been handicapped in doing their jobs by the government monitoring.
The case will be sent back to the U.S. District judge in Michigan for dismissal.
U.S. intelligence officials got mired for nearly 10 hours seeking approval to use wiretaps against al Qaeda terrorists suspected of kidnapping Queens soldier Alex Jimenez in Iraq earlier this year.
This week, Congress plans to vote on a bill that leaves in place the legal hurdles in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - problems that were highlighted during the May search for a group of kidnapped U.S. soldiers.
In the early hours of May 12, seven U.S. soldiers - including Spc. Jimenez - were on lookout near a patrol base in the al Qaeda-controlled area of Iraq called the "Triangle of Death."
Sometime before dawn, heavily armed al Qaeda gunmen quietly cut through the tangles of concertina wire surrounding the outpost of two Humvees and made a massive and coordinated surprise attack.
Four of the soldiers were killed on the spot and three others were taken hostage.
A search to rescue the men was quickly launched. But it soon ground to a halt as lawyers - obeying strict U.S. laws about surveillance - cobbled together the legal grounds for wiretapping the suspected kidnappers.
For an excruciating nine hours and 38 minutes, searchers in Iraq waited as U.S. lawyers discussed legal issues and hammered out the "probable cause" necessary for the attorney general to grant such "emergency" permission.
Finally, approval was granted and, at 7:38 that night, surveillance began.
The FISA law applies even to a cellphone conversation between two people in Iraq, because those communications zip along wires through U.S. hubs, which is where the taps are typically applied
The body of one soldier was found a few weeks later in the Euphrates River and the terror group Islamic State of Iraq - an al Qaeda offshoot - later claimed in a video that Jimenez and the third soldier had been executed and buried.
"This is terrible. If they would have acted sooner, maybe they would have found something out and been able to find my son," said Jimenez's mother, Maria Duran. "Oh my God. I just keep asking myself, where is my son? What could have happened to him?"
it's important to have civil rights and legal procedures. that ensures as best as possible that justice is served and the right man is arrested. like them or not, the more they're eroded to get the really nasty guys faster the more they're also eroded for you. in fact it seems odd that someone who says they went through law school and practice law as their life would have such little respect for the system they serve.
We're not talking about wiretapping US citizens in the country. This was about wiretapping terrorists on a battlefield in Iraq.
Even if you want to argue that the anti-wiretapping law is appropriate in a civil or criminal case on US soil, it seems patently ridiculous, if not deadly, to apply it to combatants in a war zone.
Chris Dodd has announced that he will put a hold on the bill granting retroactive telecom immunity.
Here’s his statement:
Originally Posted By: Chris Dodd
The Military Commissions Act. Warrantless wiretapping. Shredding of Habeas Corpus. Torture. Extraordinary Rendition. Secret Prisons.
No more.
I have decided to place a "hold" on the latest FISA bill that would have included amnesty for telecommunications companies that enabled the President's assault on the Constitution by illegally providing personal information on their customers without judicial authorization.
I said that I would do everything I could to stop this bill from passing, and I have.
It's about delivering results -- and as I've said before, the FIRST thing I will do after being sworn into office is restore the Constitution. But we shouldn't have to wait until then to prevent the further erosion of our country's most treasured document. That's why I am stopping this bill today.
Meanwhile, Pat Leahy throws Rockefeller under the bus — where he belongs — for letting things get so far down the road that this became necessary.
The battle is not over, it takes 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a hold so this is only the beginning. But good for Chris Dodd for having the courage to say “enough”
Quote:
Leahy: Intel panel about to ‘cave’ on surveillance By Manu Raju October 18, 2007 Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Thursday condemned Intelligence Committee Democrats for brokering a deal with the White House that would provide retroactive immunity for telephone companies that assisted the Bush administration’s controversial warrantless wiretapping program.... (more)
If you didn't do anything wrong, why would you need retroactive immunity?
One of the most amazing episodes in modern American journalism has emerged from a flagrantly inaccurate and misguided Time magazine column by Joe Klein. He’s a political writer whose work in this case may become Exhibit A for what’s wrong with the craft today.
Klein’s column attacked congressional Democrats’ effort to pass electronic surveillance legislation that would restrain the Bush administration’s wish for essentially no restraints or oversight whatever. In his piece, Klein got some vital facts dead wrong, giving a totally misleading message to his readers.
Needless to say, bloggers and others who care about truth and the Constitution jumped on this outrageous stuff. No one did a better job than Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, who pointed out the misstatements in great detail.
Klein, obviously responding to Greenwald (though never saying so), defended himself without actually dealing with the actual facts — and even more amazingly asserted that telecom companies should do whatever the government orders them to do, even if it’s completely illegal. Bloggers continued to attack both the original piece and his absurd justifications.
Then Klein sort of, kind of admitted error in a follow-up — though he made obvious something even more amazing: He hasn’t read the legislation he attacks. Meanwhile, neither Klein nor Time has put corrections into the original, flagrantly inaccurate column, which also ran in the print edition.
What makes all this so bad is Time’s reach and influence. Millions of people probably read the original. Very, very few will know, even now, that fundamental premises were false.
Why Time employs Klein is a mystery to me, though I suppose it shouldn’t be. He’s a member of the Washington journalistic establishment, where forgetting reality is all too common. As Wired News’ Ryan Singel noted, Klein’s record includes publicly lying about his anonymous authorship of the book Primary Colors (one of the best books about politics in recent memory, incidentally). Singel then adds, and I agree:
Quote:
But Time ought to stop Klein from writing about any substantive topic, especially FISA.
Because when it comes to these topics, Klein is well beyond stupid. He’s dangerous.
I’ve spent all morning on the phone trying to figure out who the editor at Time Magazine was on Joe Klein’s FISA column (the one Klein has now written about five times, fully admitting he never read the original bill). I finally confirmed that the editor was Priscilla Painton, and called her and identified myself. I asked her what the editing process was, and how a piece with so many errors made it into print.
“That assumes that there are errors,” she said. And hung up on me.
So again, the question must be asked: why would anyone give any credibility to Joe Klein or Time Magazine when reporting factual and researched stories are so patently unimportant to them?
Glenn Greenwald is really kicking ass here. I was mulling over whether to put this story here on in the "liberal media" thread. I chose here since it relates to eavesdropping. But this shabby piece is beyond the pale. And I've come to expect this sort of thing from TIME as of late.
Joe Klein has just posted yet again about his FISA confusion, and it has now moved well beyond farce into an almost pity-inducing realm. If Time has any dignity at all, someone there will intervene and put a stop to this. It's actually difficult to watch.
In the last five days alone, Klein has now written five separate times about his FISA debacle, and is further away than ever from having any idea what he's even talking about -- first was the column itself; second was the Swampland post the same day in which he emphatically defended the accuracy of what he wrote in response to my post; third was the post yesterday in which Klein said he "may have made a mistake in [his] column this week about the FISA legislation" -- the understatement of the year; fourth was an Update he added to that post this morning claiming that he did speak to a Democrat but "may have misinterpreted a Democratic source's point" and "if [he] did, a correction will appear in the print magazine next week"; and now, his fifth effort in tonight's post, actually worse than all the others, in which he still professes confusion after "spen[ding] the past few days nosing around in the ongoing dispute about what the House FISA Reform bill actually says."
The result of all this "nosing around": "I've reached no conclusions." And he then unleashes this:
I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right.
That's been the point all along (although one doesn't need "legal background" -- just basic reading skills and a molecule of critical thought).
This is evidence yet again as to why the blogosphere is becoming more and more people's choice for news and information. You just can't trust the "liberal media" to be accurate or um.. even "liberal" as people allege.
It's just odd and sad that real journalism and accuracy & truth has gone underground.
Ted Kennedy on Retroactive Immunity for the Telecoms:
Quote:
“We would be aiding and abetting the President in his illegal actions, his contempt for the rule of law, and his attempt to hide his lawbreaking from the American people”
Chris Dodd did it. Reid pulls Telecom Immunity bill off the table!!!!
Yahooooo—-Congratulations to Senator Dodd for showing what a little backbone can do. Harry Reid tabled the FISA bill just a few minutes ago.
Matt Browner-Hamlin writes:
Quote:
Without Senator Dodd’s leadership today, it is safe to assume that retroactive immunity would have passed. This is a great victory for the American people. His outspoken opposition to retroactive immunity and the Intelligence Committee’s FISA bill made it impossible to move forward now…read on
In his closing speech Dodd vowed to filibuster again in January if telecom amnesty is still part of the FISA legislation. This speech should be watched by every student, every member of Congress as well as all Americans who value their civil liberties. No matter which presidential candidate you support, you can’t get around the fact that this is what REAL, American leadership looks like. Bravo Senator Dodd, BRAVO!
Glenn Greenwald is really kicking ass here. I was mulling over whether to put this story here on in the "liberal media" thread. I chose here since it relates to eavesdropping. But this shabby piece is beyond the pale. And I've come to expect this sort of thing from TIME as of late.
It may be storming outside, but I’m definitely feeling sunshine breaking through some neo-con clouds..
Quote:
Two conservative Time magazine columnists are on their way out the door: Neither William Kristol nor longtime contributor Charles Krauthammer will be on contract with the magazine starting next month. Mr. Krauthammer confirmed the news to Off the Record, and a spokeswoman for Time said Mr. Kristol’s contract would not be renewed.
The exact reasons for the departures of Mr. Krauthammer and Mr. Kristol, both high-profile backers of the Iraq war, are not entirely clear.
But sadly, we’re not completely rid of rightwing hackery at Time:
Quote:
And according to two sources familiar with the discussions, Time is in negotiations with National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru to sign him to a contributor contract. Mr. Ponnuru, who in 2006 published The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, has written twice for the magazine over the past month.
I was begining to wonder why any reputable publication hires punditry "experts" who are repeatedly proved wrong on everything they assert.
Chris Dodd said something relative to the telecoms that said right on point last month. Let me quote this in full,
Quote:
“When one company gave the NSA a secret eavesdropping room at its own corporate headquarters, it was simply doing its patriotic duty. The president asked, the telecoms answered. Shouldn‘t that be an easy case to prove, Mr. President? The corporations only need to show a judge the authority and the assurances they were given and they will be in and out of court in five minutes. If the telecoms are as defensible as the president says, why doesn‘t the president let them defend themselves, if the case is so easy to make, why doesn‘t he let them make it? Why is he standing in the way?”
Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment tonight on Countdown was yet another scathing rebuke of President Bush and his lies about the pending FISA legislation and fear tactics during his final State of the Union address earlier this week. Bush has said repeatedly he would veto any FISA legislation that did not include immunity for the telecommunications companies who broke the law and betrayed the American people. However, as Keith points out, if the president were to veto the legislation and there was another terrorist attack inside the U.S., he, and he alone would be responsible for it — all in the name of protecting huge corporations over the American people he was charged with protecting.
Quote:
Sorry, Mr. Bush. The eavesdropping provisions of FISA have obviously had no impact on counter-terrorism, and there is no current or perceived terrorist threat, the thwarting of which could hinge on an e-mail or a phone call going through room 641-A at AT&T in San Francisco next week or next month.
Because if there were, Mr. Bush, and you were to, by your own hand, veto an extension of this eavesdropping, and some terrorist attack were to follow, you would not merely be guilty of siding with the terrorists, you would not merely be guilty of prioritizing the telecoms over the people, you would not merely be guilty of stupidity, you would not merely be guilty of treason… but you would be personally, and eternally, responsible.
The House has just passed the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 3773, to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence, and for other purposes, by a vote of 213-197-1. The revised House legislation to amend FISA grants new authorities for conducting electronic surveillance against foreign targets while preserving the requirement that the government obtain an individualized FISA court order, based on probable cause, when targeting Americans at home or abroad. The House bill also strongly enhances oversight of the Administration’s surveillance activities. Finally, the House bill does not provide retroactive immunity for telecom companies but allows the courts to determine whether lawsuits should proceed
Originally Posted By: Speaker Nancy Pelosi
“Why would the Administration oppose a judicial determination of whether the companies already have immunity? There are at least three explanations… None of these alternatives is attractive but they clearly demonstrate why the Administration’s insistence that Congress provide retroactive immunity has never been about national security or about concerns for the companies; it has always been about protecting the Administration.”
While the media loses their nut over whether Barack Obama is really distancing himself from Rev. Wright (while secretly being a Muslim, mind you) , there are real issues that they (with the exception of outstanding journalist Charlie Savage) are ignoring.
Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority.
The White House did not say why it was necessary to change the rules governing the board when it issued Bush’s order late last month. But critics say Bush’s order is consistent with a pattern of steps by the administration that have systematically scaled back Watergate-era intelligence reforms.
“It’s quite clear that the Bush administration officials who were around in the 1970s are settling old scores now,” said Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union. “Here they are even preventing oversight within the executive branch. They have closed the books on the post-Watergate era.”
Ford created the board following a 1975-76 investigation by Congress into domestic spying, assassination operations, and other abuses by intelligence agencies. The probe prompted fierce battles between Congress and the Ford administration, whose top officials included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the current president’s father, George H. W. Bush. Read on…
Just another nail in the coffin of oversight. Remind me again, how did that whole Watergate scandal end up? Why, it’s almost as if Cheney&Co. wanted to ensure that couldn’t happen again.
Sorry, Mr. Bush. The eavesdropping provisions of FISA have obviously had no impact on counter-terrorism, and there is no current or perceived terrorist threat
i think your source should go back to sports center...
Barack Obama, who at one point was looking at least a little better than his predecessor on the issue of warrantless domestic surveillance, may turn out to be just as bad.
During his campaign he criticized the Bush administration for flouting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by monitoring communications involving people in the U.S. without a court order. But then he went along with amendments to FISA that legalized such surveillance, even giving in on the issue of retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that facilitated it.
Now The New York Times reports that the National Security Agency has been abusing its new statutory powers, collecting purely domestic communications along with the international phone calls and email messages covered by the FISA amendments
[T]he Obama administration is trying to quash an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) lawsuit aimed at holding Bush administration officials responsible for warrantless surveillance conducted prior to the FISA amendments, surveillance that Obama himself has said was illegal. It argues that allowing the lawsuit to proceed would harm national security—a claim frequently made by the Bush administration, which Obama has criticized as excessively secretive.
Obama's Justice Department has gone even further than the Bush administration, arguing that the PATRIOT Act immunizes government officials who participate in illegal surveillance, except when "the Government obtains information about a person through intelligence-gathering, and Government agents unlawfully disclose that information." As EFF puts it, "DOJ claims that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying [as opposed to disclosure]—that the Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes."
How do we all feel about this now that it's not Bush doing it? I'm still against it. There isn't enough of a check and balance. Do I have any company now that it's a democrat in place?
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man said on 12/23/05 10:59 AM
will you keep the same position if say Hillary Clinton became President in 2008?
Originally Posted By: the G-man of Zur-En-Arrh on 12/23/05 11:11 AM
If Hillary follows the law and uses the law to go after terrorists (as opposed to harassing political opponents), I don't see a problem with it.
Change “Hillary” to “Barack Hussein Obama” and my answer’s the same.
Oh, and speaking of Obama, he’s what he said about a resolution to censure the President for “illegal” wiretapping back in 2006:
Originally Posted By: the G-man of Zur-En-Arrh
The Washington Post has a hilarious description of Democratic senators, "filing in for their weekly caucus lunch yesterday" and reacting to Feingold's proposal to censure President Bush for fighting terrorism:
"I haven't read it," demurred Barack Obama (Ill.)....
Some things NEVER change....
Now, let’s find out how these posters feel, given what they wrote when Bush did it:
Originally Posted By: whomod
Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment tonight:
The eavesdropping provisions of FISA have obviously had no impact on counter-terrorism, and there is no current or perceived terrorist threat.... guilty of stupidity.... guilty of treason… ...
Originally Posted By: Jim Jackson
Who watches the Watchmen? That the President asserts that it's not infringing on civil liberties leaves me cold.
Originally Posted By: Jason E. Perkins
What he's doing now isn't legal. He should be investigated.
Poor Perkins....
Oh, and then there was this guy. He was pretty outraged and kept demanding a full investigation, posting about it repeatedly over the course of a couple of years:
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
... the Bush administration's spying scandal...
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
….so outrageous, so unrelated to the War on Terror and such an unconstitutional breach of authority that he knows that even a court that has rejected just 4 warrant requests in 25 years will reject what he's doing. ...
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
This was a case of the White House deciding it didn't have to follow a law.
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
The fact that his lawyers (that he picks) thinks it's OK doesn't make it Constitutional.
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
even Ashcroft had problems with Bush's wiretapping!
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
It never ceases to amaze me how quick some people are willing to chuck their rights just so that they can feel safe.
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
…care about the constitution & don't want a President operating above it when he didn't have to…
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
Checks & balances folks.
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
This has to be investigated.
So, MEM, you say you're still against it. Do you still think that Obama is violating the law and should be investigated? And who should do the investigation?
Pelosi? Reid? Eric Holder? A Special Prosecutor?
Inquiring minds want to know, especially since, as noted above "Obama's Justice Department has gone even further than the Bush administration"
Do you also think, as the author of the piece I cited does, that Obama has gone farther than Bush? And, if so, what is your opinion of that?
Finally, given that you were adamant that Bush should be investigated, who do you think should investigate Obama?
It's about the same as Bush except Obama is saying he's doing it. Since the democrats helped legalize what Bush was doing last year there really isn't anyone there to undue it. It appears your principle that a president needs to have this expanded power with little or no oversight is here to stay.
i forgot Obama is for it. sorry to mistake you for a free thinker.
I'm still against the wiretaps basams but they were legalized while Bush was President last year. Since it's been legal before Obama became President what would a special counsel find other than he's not breaking the rules?
Your just acting stupidly partisan now. The wiretap law was changed so what would have been illegal to do a couple of years ago is now legal for an administration. I don't think it's right but it is now legal.
How am I partisan? I'm for wiretapping Islamic terrorists. I don't care who is President.
You on the other hand believed it to be unconstitutional, and as the story points out Obama has went beyond the scope of the law that you are referring to.
In my opinion if there is an imminent threat the President doesn't need to wait on a court order to authorize a wiretap.
Matter-eater Man argumentative User Fair Play! 6000+ posts 7 minutes 33 seconds ago Making a new reply Forum: Politics and Current Events Thread: Re: Obama does the (wire)tap dance
Your just acting stupidly partisan now. The wiretap law was changed so what would have been illegal to do a couple of years ago is now legal...
Talk about "stupidly partisan." Sometimes you're so transparent that I feel nothing but pity for you.
As others have pointed out you didn't just think there was a technicality in the law that Bush failed to comply with. You thought the whole program was unconstitutional. Congress can't pass a law to make the unconstitutional legal, only a constitutional amendment can do that.
Therefore, you once again did a complete 180 as soon as we started talking about a Democrat.
Seriously. Get help. This is bordering on mental illness on your part now.
Your just acting stupidly partisan now. The wiretap law was changed so what would have been illegal to do a couple of years ago is now legal...
Talk about "stupidly partisan." Sometimes you're so fucking transparent that I feel nothing but pity for you.
As others have pointed out you didn't just think there was a technicality in the law that Bush failed to comply with. You thought the whole program was unconstitutional. Congress can't pass a law to make the unconstitutional legal, only a constitutional amendment can do that.
Therefore, you once again did a complete 180 as soon as we started talking about a Democrat.
Seriously. Get help. This is bordering on mental illness on your part now.
I still thinks it's unconstitutional and that Obama is wrong doing it. You seem to be looking for a gotcha ignoring the parts where I said I didn't agree with Obama and that my position hasn't changed.
You think it's "unconstitutional" but "legal" when Obama does it. We get it.
There were changes to the law that made what Bush was doing legal as well G-man. If you've done any reading on them and have a different opinion please do share.
So you changed your position because the guy in the White House changed. We understand.
No your being stupidly partisan. What is or isn't legal isn't based on what I think should be.
When Bush was President you kept going on and on about how it was unconstitutional and, therefore, the president needed to be investigated for potentially illegal activity.
Now that Obama's President you still think it's unconstitutional but claim it's legal and therefore no investigation is required.
In both cases you claim it's unconstitutional but your reaction to that is different depending on the occupant of the White House and his party affiliation.
So you changed your position because the guy in the White House changed. We understand.
No your being stupidly partisan. What is or isn't legal isn't based on what I think should be.
When Bush was President you kept going on and on about how it was unconstitutional and, therefore, the president needed to be investigated for potentially illegal activity.
Now that Obama's President you still think it's unconstitutional but claim it's legal and therefore no investigation is required.
In both cases you claim it's unconstitutional but your reaction to that is different depending on the occupant of the White House and his party affiliation.
Ergo, you're the one being partisan.
Your leaving out the part where the FISA law was revised while Bush was President. When that happened he had legallity on his side. Granted it was towards the end of his term but he still was very happy to get it. You pretend there wasn't any huge changes made to the wiretap law but there was.
Your leaving out the part where the FISA law was revised...
Funny. I didn't know they amended the constitution during Bush's term. You would have thought the media would have reported that a little more extensively, given how uncommon a constitutional amendment is.
Make up your mind. Either the wiretapping is unconstitutional or it isn't.
Your leaving out the part where the FISA law was revised...
Funny. I didn't know they amended the constitution during Bush's term. You would have thought the media would have reported that a little more extensively, given how uncommon a constitutional amendment is.
Make up your mind. Either the wiretapping is unconstitutional or it isn't.
Your still being stupidly partisan. I didn't change my stance that I think it's unconstitutional but what I think doesn't somehow make something illegal. It just means I think it should be illegal.
The revised FISA laws that broadened the governments wiretapping powers means what to you? Did it give the government more legal wiggle room or not?
Gman position: legal under Bush; legal under Obama MEM position: unconstitutional and illegal under Bush and investigation necessary; legal under Obama and no investigation necessary.
Your still being stupidly partisan. I didn't change my stance that I think it's unconstitutional but what I think doesn't somehow make something illegal. It just means I think it should be illegal.
The revised FISA laws that broadened the governments wiretapping powers means what to you? Did it give the government more legal wiggle room or not?
...and then, when they came for Jane Harman... Category: Politics Posted on: April 22, 2009 11:56 AM, by Mike Dunford
Unless you've been asleep for the last couple of days, you've probably heard that our government apparently wiretapped a member of Congress a few years back. According to the reports, the National Security Agency captured Representative Jane Harman (D-CA) engaging in a quid-pro-quo agreement with a pro-Israeli lobbyist where Harman would try to get the government to go easy on some accused Israeli spies, while the lobbyist would work to get Harman appointed to chair the Intelligence Committee.
Harman has vigorously denied the reports, and there's been a great deal of speculation about the timing of the leaks, who they were intended to embarrass, and what message sits behind them. As interesting as all that may be - and as important as it is to find out - that's not what I'd like to look at right now.
Today, Harman is "outraged" at the "abuse of power" that occurred when the NSA wiretapped her. She's "very disappointed" that her country "could have permitted ... a gross abuse of power in recent years". It's a damn good thing that I put my coffee down right before I read that last bit. Two seconds earlier, there would have been a hell of a spit-take.
Excuse me, Congresswoman, but you're very disappointed that your country could have permitted such a thing? You're disappointed??? You bloody nincompoop, you were one of the people who wanted to permit this sort of thing. Did you forget, or did you just think we did? Let's review:
Back on 30 December, 2005 - that's right around the time that she was allegedly being wiretapped - Harman was upset about the New York Times decision to reveal the existence of the NSA's domestic surveillance program:
While Harman, of California, said she believes broader oversight is needed of the NSA program, "its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities." A few days later, she described the program as "essential to national security".
In February of 2006, Harman thought that it was "tragic" that we were learning about the scope of the surveillance program in the newspapers:
HARMAN: Not extremely accurate. The most early -- now it can be said, now that attorney general Gonzales has said this is not a domestic-to-domestic program. The early reports by The New York Times, to which this program, the facts of this program or the existence was leaked, were inaccurate because that's what they claimed it was. And that is, according to our attorney general, that is not what it was.
ANGLE: And you're comfortable with that?
HARMAN: I'm comfortable with that. As I've said, I support the foreign collection program on which I have been briefed and I don't want to amplify that comment but I think you get the point of my comment. So I'm comfortable with that. But there are ongoing leaks and I felt then and I feel now that these leaks are compromising some core capability of the United States. It's tragic that this whole thing is being aired in the newspapers. Around the same time, but on a different television program, she "deplored" the leak, and suggested that the involvement of the New York Times should be investigated. She also thought that it might be good to make it easier to go after newspapers that publish classified information. Her remarks, by the way, stood in stark contrast to what Senator Leahy was saying at the time - he praised the Times for bringing an abuse of power to light.
Senator Leahy is apparently far smarter than Representative Harman.
All of this gives Harman's current situation a bit of an air of poetic justice. Harman repeatedly defended the program on the grounds that it improved our security. I don't think anyone really doubted that very much. If you listen in to more phone calls, you've got a bigger chance of hearing something important. (Whether you can find it in the clutter is a different question, of course.) Most of us weren't objecting to the program because we didn't think it would work, we were objecting because we didn't like the price.
The government is made up of human beings, who are subject to temptation. It was virtually inevitable that someone would misuse broad surveillance powers for political gain.
Of course, as much as Harman might like to go after the people who have humiliated her, she's got somewhat limited options. As strange as this might sound, Congress actually passed a law last year that gave the companies that helped the government do the wiretapping retroactive immunity from prosecution and civil suit, making it virtually impossible for anyone to use the courts to figure out what was going on. Anyone want to guess how Harman voted on that particular excuse for a law?
At this point, it might be best if Representative Harman just resigned. I'm not saying that because I think that her alleged behavior with the lobbyist crossed some line - frankly, I think that if it did, the Bush Administration would have elected to go for the political gains involved in implicating a member of the opposition in a national security scandal.
No, Harman should resign simply because, after being so totally, completely, and thoroughly pwned by the Bush Administration, it's impossible to see how she can ever regain enough dignity to be taken seriously as a legislator again.
I can see why you like that editorial. The whole thing boils down to an argument that being "pwned by the Bush Administration" is the greatest crime of all.
No, your grabbing one little line that suits your tired mem rant G-man. What interested me was the situation with an elected official being spied on. I don't feel sorry for her but it's something I only see as part of a beginning. The program needs more of a safeguard built in.
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
...
The revised FISA laws that broadened the governments wiretapping powers means what to you? Did it give the government more legal wiggle room or not?
Invasion of privacy in the Internet age. Expanding the reach of law enforcement to snoop on e-mail traffic or on Web surfing. Those are among the criticisms being aimed at the FBI as it tries to update a key surveillance law.
With its proposed amendment, is the Obama administration merely clarifying a statute or expanding it? Only time and a suddenly on guard Congress will tell....
A key Democrat on Capitol Hill, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, wants a timeout.
The administration's proposal to change the Electronic Communications Privacy Act "raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns," Leahy said Thursday in a statement.
"While the government should have the tools that it needs to keep us safe, American citizens should also have protections against improper intrusions into their private electronic communications and online transactions," said Leahy, who plans hearings in the fall on this and other issues involving the law.
Critics are lined up in opposition to what the Obama administration wants to do.
"The FBI is playing a shell game," says Al Gidari, whose clients have included major online companies, wireless service providers and their industry association.
"This is a huge expansion" of the FBI's authority "and burying it this way in the intelligence authorization bill is really intended to bury it from scrutiny," Gidari added.
Boyd, the Justice spokesman, said the changes being proposed will not allow the government to obtain or collect new categories of information; rather it simply seeks to clarify what Congress intended when the statute was amended in 1993, he argued.
Critics, however, point to a 2008 opinion by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel which found that the FBI's reach with national security letters extends only as far as getting a person's name, address, the period in which they were a customer and the numbers dialed on a telephone or to that phone.
The problem the FBI has been having is that some providers, relying on the 2008 Justice opinion — issued during the Bush administration — have refused to turn over Internet records such as information about who a person e-mails and who has e-mailed them and information about a person's Web surfing history.
To deal with the issue, there's no need to change the law since the FBI has the authority to obtain the same information with a court order issued under a broad section of the Patriot Act, said Gregory Nojeim, director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit Internet privacy group.
The critics say the proposed change would allow the FBI to remove federal judges and courts from scrutiny of its requests for sensitive information.
"The implications of the proposal are that no court is deciding whether even that low standard of `relevance' is met," said Nojeim. "The FBI uses national security letters to find not just who the target of an investigation e-mailed, but also who those people e-mailed and who e-mailed them."
As I said back in 2005 and 2009, if a president, including a democrat, follows the law and uses the law to go after terrorists (as opposed to harassing political opponents), I don't see a problem with it.
However, I'm still waiting for the people (other than Leahy) who went ape over Bush's "wiretapping" to say "boo" about Obama going even further than his predecessor did.
As I said back in 2005 and 2009, if a president, including a democrat, follows the law and uses the law to go after terrorists (as opposed to harassing political opponents), I don't see a problem with it.
However, I'm still waiting for the people (other than Leahy) who went ape over Bush's "wiretapping" to say "boo" about Obama going even further than his predecessor did.
'Going Dark': Feds Seek Broader Internet Wiretap Authority: Obama administration reportedly is crafting plans to require all Internet communication services — such as BlackBerry e-mail, Facebook, and Skype — to be capable of intercepting messages, as officials look to counter terror suspects 'going dark' online.
...or they'll just keep buying and using trac phones and the only people getting wiretapped will be the legitimate users of sites like Skype and Facebook.
As I said back in 2005 and 2009, if a president, including a democrat, follows the law and uses the law to go after terrorists (as opposed to harassing political opponents), I don't see a problem with it.
However, I'm still waiting for the people (other than Leahy) who went ape over Bush's "wiretapping" to say "boo" about Obama going even further than his predecessor did.
'Going Dark': Feds Seek Broader Internet Wiretap Authority: Obama administration reportedly is crafting plans to require all Internet communication services — such as BlackBerry e-mail, Facebook, and Skype — to be capable of intercepting messages, as officials look to counter terror suspects 'going dark' online.
Still waiting....
The double standard of what passes muster when a Republican is president, vs. when a Democrat is president, never ceases to amaze me.
Add this to a long list of Obama abuses that go virtually unreported, when George W. was vilified as a virtually a war criminal for actions that amounted to a fraction of what Obama has done toward crushing democracy.
As I said back in 2005 and 2009, if a president, including a democrat, follows the law and uses the law to go after terrorists (as opposed to harassing political opponents), I don't see a problem with it.
However, I'm still waiting for the people...who went ape over Bush's "wiretapping" to say "boo" about Obama going even further than his predecessor did.
Note: "Bush did it first" is a defense of Obama not a criticism.
As I pointed out when Bush was president, this would become an established right for future presidents. Nothing happened to Bush even after democrats won big in the 2006 wave election other than they eventually made some changes and created law that made what Bush was doing now legally covered.
Gman position: legal under Bush; legal under Obama MEM position: unconstitutional and illegal under Bush and investigation necessary; legal under Obama and no investigation necessary.
I think the record does speak for itself, so much so that I don't need to make one up for you like you constantly do for the other side.
My position is that it does need more oversight. Some of that was addressed by congress since this all started but I don't think it's enough of a check.
I'm especially concerned about abuse of this authority under Barack Obama.
A president who finds it impossible to label radical Muslims as terrorists --radical muslims, who attack Americans and even U.S. soldiers (such as muslim Col. Hasan, who killed 13 U.S. soldiers and wounded dozens more at Ft. Hood in Texas).
These Obama cannot label as terrorists.
And who only finds patriotic Americans (such as retired military personnel and Tea Party members) to fit this label, and warrant surveilance and investigation as a potential threat.
As a candidate for president, then-Sen. Barack Obama railed against parts of USA Patriot Act that gave the Bush administration sweeping powers to intercept phone and e-mail communications in the name of fighting terrorism with little judicial or congressional oversight, and Obama pledged to institute "robust" checks and balances if elected.
Now that he's in charge of keeping America safe, President Obama sounds a bit less strident. His attorney general, Eric Holder, has asked Congress to renew three controversial provisons of the Patriot Act that expire in 2010, disappointing liberal Democrats and civil liberties groups who say the provisions endanger civil liberties and foster inappropriate government spying. At the top of this list is the so-called "lone wolf" provision, which allows the government to track and monitor a suspected terrorist with far less evidence than typically required.
The Justice Department made 1,745 requests to a secret court for authority to wiretap or search for evidence in terrorism and espionage investigations last year.
That's according to an April 30 letter to the Senate.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court meets in secret to hear classified evidence from government attorneys. The court did not reject any of the requests, though judges did require some modifications.
It's an increase over 2010, when the department made 1,579 requests.
The FBI also made 16,511 national security letter requests for information, regarding 7,201 people, last year. The letters allow officials to collect virtually unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information like financial and phone records.
Originally Posted By: the G-man
As I said back in 2005 and 2009, if a president, including a democrat, follows the law and uses the law to go after terrorists (as opposed to harassing political opponents), I don't see a problem with it.
However, I'm still waiting for the people...who went ape over Bush's "wiretapping" to say "boo" about Obama going even further than his predecessor did.
That's the same dodge you tried over three years ago when this first came up. As noted back then:
Originally Posted By: the G-man
Quote:
Your leaving out the part where the FISA law was revised...
Funny. I didn't know they amended the constitution during Bush's term. You would have thought the media would have reported that a little more extensively, given how uncommon a constitutional amendment is.
Make up your mind. Either the wiretapping is unconstitutional or it isn't.
As I said back in 2005 and 2009, if a president, including a democrat, follows the law and uses the law to go after terrorists (as opposed to harassing political opponents), I don't see a problem with it.
However, I'm still waiting for the people...who went ape over Bush's "wiretapping" to say "boo" about Obama going even further than his predecessor did.
When you say "follows the law" do you mean if they make it legal some point in the future???
You didn't say it was simply a matter of revising the law when Bush did it. You said it was unconstitutional. Now you're claiming that statutes can override the US constitution?
Clearly that isn't the case. The constitution is the supreme law of the law. It trumps both state and federal statutes.
If you thought wiretapping was unconstitutional under Bush, absent a constitutional Amendement, it would be unconstitutional under Obama.
You didn't say it was simply a matter of revising the law when Bush did it. You said it was unconstitutional. Now you're claiming that statutes can override the US constitution?
Clearly that isn't the case. The constitution is the supreme law of the law. It trumps both state and federal statutes.
If you thought wiretapping was unconstitutional under Bush, absent a constitutional Amendement, it would be unconstitutional under Obama.
MY first post in this thread...
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
A big story on the Sunday shows this morning was Bush authorizing the NSA to wiretap Americans without going through a court. Sounds unconstitutional to me.
You are forgetting the part of the article that says "The FBI also made 16,511 national security letter requests for information, regarding 7,201 people, last year. The letters allow officials to collect virtually unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information like financial and phone records."
NSLRs do not require judicial approval. Therefore, the point still stands.
Not to courts. The "requests" are made to the entity from which the FBI seeks information:
A national security letter (NSL) is a form of administrative subpoena used by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and reportedly by other U.S. government agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense. They require no probable cause or judicial oversight. An NSL is a demand letter issued to a particular entity or organization to turn over various record and data pertaining to individuals
So, now that I have corrected your misunderstandings as to: (a) the precedence of the constitution over statutes; (b) the legal process involved in NSLRs; are you ready to discuss why what you claimed was unconstitutional under Bush is now constitutional under Obama?
Neither is Constitutional. Obama is no better or worse than the redneck cowboy's terror-driven campaign. They're both puppets of the corporate machine.
MEM, do us all a favor. Before you say "it's okay, they made changes to the law under Obama," or accuse me of supporting it under Bush but, not Obama, go back to the previous page[s] on this thread from May where I rebut both arguments.
You'll save us all a lot of effort and spare making yourself look foolish or weak of memory.
...A handful of in-the-know lawmakers lined up to defend the program, while acknowledging the need to protect privacy.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House intelligence committee, said the effort is not "data mining," and has helped quash a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the past few years. He would not elaborate.
The leaders of the Senate intelligence committee also defended the program, saying it is "nothing new." Republican Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss said it's been going on for seven years.
It never ceases to amaze me how quick some people are willing to chuck their rights just so that they can feel safe.
U.S. agencies have secret Internet-monitoring program: The NSA and FBI appear to be casting an even wider net than thought under a clandestine program code-named “PRISM,” which gives the U.S. government access to email, documents, audio, video, photographs and other data belonging to foreigners on foreign soil who are under investigation.
Originally Posted By: the G-man
This presents a dilemma for Obamaphiles.
You will hear the excuse that Bush did it. From people who hated Bush for doing it, but still love Obama.
I think that using software to discover suspicious patterns of call-placement — and going no further without a court order — is reasonable in times of war, and we are at war, and Americans continue to die.
The problem is that President Obama’s administration has a history of using data gathering to harass opponents, as demonstrated most recently by the IRS scandal.
Furthermore, just recently he explained that all wars should end, and accordingly he was ending the War on Terror by divine fiat ...so how can he justify wartime levels of domestic spying?
The IRS stuff started under a Bush appointtee and your also going with a very partisan translation of what Obama said about and ignoring what doesn't fit.
Quote:
Now, make no mistake, our nation is still threatened by terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded of that truth. But we have to recognize that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions -- about the nature of today's threats and how we should confront them.
What it boils down to is you now have somebody from the other party in power like I did with Bush and you (surprise) don't trust them. You can't have it both ways though. There might however be enough upset partisan conservatives out there that some real checks and balances could be implemented with these programs.
Shulman may have been a Bush appointee, but he was a DNC donor, who's married to a liberal activist.
So let’s start calling him “Democrat supporter” Doug Shulman. All this shows is that Bush, unlike perhaps Obama, wasn’t an ideological bigot. Great gotcha there, MEM.
Point is Obama didn't put this guy in. Kind of fucks up the whole conspiracy for the "republican investigators" (see that works both ways) with it starting with somebody Bush chose.
Btw "unlike perhaps Obama" is deceptive on your part G because you know Obama has appointed republicans in various positions like the FBI guy just recently. Why do you even say stuff like that? It just casts a shadow on any percieved sincerity on your part and doesn't help your argument. Not trying to be nasty there but just honest. The partisan crap is boring and it would be nice just to hear what you really think.
Point is Obama didn't put this guy in. Kind of fucks up the whole conspiracy for the "republican investigators" (see that works both ways) with it starting with somebody Bush chose.
Not at all. If the "Bush appointee" was following instructions from his superiors and they were Obama and/or Obama appointees, the fact he once worked for a republican administration is wholly irrelevant to whether or not this is a failing of the current administration.
As for your other point, you are confusing ideology with party registration.
Point is Obama didn't put this guy in. Kind of fucks up the whole conspiracy for the "republican investigators" (see that works both ways) with it starting with somebody Bush chose.
Not at all. If the "Bush appointee" was following instructions from his superiors and they were Obama and/or Obama appointees, the fact he once worked for a republican administration is wholly irrelevant to whether or not this is a failing of the current administration.
As for your other point, you are confusing ideology with party registration.
The Democrat argument that Shulman was a Bush appointee doesn't hold up. First off, he was selected as someone non-controversial that Democrats wouldn't have a problem appointing. Second (as G-man pointed out) Shulman is a Democrat campaign donor.
When did all this IRS harassment of conservatives begin? Around March 2010 (coincidentally, right after Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's former seat in the Senate). So this IRS harassment of 501 groups was clearly intended to kneecap Republican political rallying in the 2010 mid-terms, and then was continued to neutralize Republican opposition in 2012 as well. Last time I checked, Obama (not Bush) was president in 2010. The point being, Shulman did all his dirty work, and unprecedented 157 visits to the White House, as an Obama operative.
I'm seeing politically motivated accusations and even one republican talking points that has been debunked WB. Accusations are fine but eventually your party will have to have some real evidence. And remember things can get as bad as having Scooter Libby type obstucting an investigation and that wouldn't mean necessarally mean all that much trouble for the White House.
Btw the Supreme Court decision was probably the true catalyst for the IRS situation. These political groups don't deserve a special tax break and should be scrutinized. The scandal there was that it appears that wasn't done equally.
As for the 157 visit meme as noted previously it's based on flawed math and the Bush appointtee's actual visits end up being much less. Something closer to single digits. The number of visits actually doesn't matter though does it?
FBI Can Turn On Your Phone Mic: To keep up with suspects who communicate in ways that cannot be wiretapped, sources reportedly say the FBI has programs that can remotely activate the microphones in phones running on Google's Android software to record conversations.
FBI Can Turn On Your Phone Mic: To keep up with suspects who communicate in ways that cannot be wiretapped, sources reportedly say the FBI has programs that can remotely activate the microphones in phones running on Google's Android software to record conversations.
Yet another way to bypass Constitutional protections.
Another I've become aware of is they can trace your location through your cel phone, even if you have it turned off.
I'm seeing politically motivated accusations and even one republican talking points that has been debunked WB. Accusations are fine but eventually your party will have to have some real evidence. And remember things can get as bad as having Scooter Libby type obstucting an investigation and that wouldn't mean necessarally mean all that much trouble for the White House.
Btw the Supreme Court decision was probably the true catalyst for the IRS situation. These political groups don't deserve a special tax break and should be scrutinized. The scandal there was that it appears that wasn't done equally.
As for the 157 visit meme as noted previously it's based on flawed math and the Bush appointtee's actual visits end up being much less. Something closer to single digits. The number of visits actually doesn't matter though does it?
M E M, you have a remarkable talent for slice-and-dicing the truth, and repackaging it into liberal-progressive talking points. The sad part is, I don't think you're a dupe, but that you instead KNOW that what you say is a lie, and yet you are fully willing to sell that lie in the service of the political machine you support.
The Republican investigation has not been "debunked", in point of fact they have been rright about many things. What Clapper and NSA officials said before Congress (after the Ed Snowden leaks) alleging it was fantasy and exaggerated capability, turned out not even a month later to be absolutely true. That the NSA has the ability to spy on people, even the President's communications. Secret warrant-authorizing courts, with no accountability and no paperwork! Not to mention the abuses of the IRS, auditing, harassing conservative opponents of Obama and the DNC. And even leaking their confidential IRS information to other agencies like DEA, ATF, FBI, and OSHA, for further harassment. Even giving their information to liberal political groups as opposition research! Or Fast-and-Furious. Or Benghazi. Or betraying Israel, Poland and Czech Republic. Or the intrusions on freedom in Obamacare. Or the intrusions on freedom in the way Obamacare was passed (buying Senate votes with billions in taxpayer dollars, against a public that opposed it by 53%, vocally!
The fact that you can eve try to write that off as "just Republican talking points" is unbelievably deceitful. This is deadly serious, and you're still flying Obama talking-points- cover as they shred the Constitution.
And regarding the 157 visits by Shulman to the White House, maybe only a fraction of those visits he didn't acually show for. But that's not proven. Let's say Shulman was only there for half --78-- of those scheduled. That would still be 77 more visits to the White House than his predecessor.
So you cede that your previous statement about 157 visits really wasn't truthful?
No, that's what's on the books. It could be less, and by your notion, there could actually be even more visits by Schulman to the White House, since W H scheduling was allegedly lax.
Audit Challenges Obama NSA Claims: Despite Obama claims, an audit, other secret documents allegedly show the NSA broke privacy rules and overstepped its authority thousands of times since it was granted new powers in 2008.
Between this and the IRS abuses, and the undisputable lies by the administration over Benghazi, and the weak economy, I'm amazed that even any Democrats at this point can support him.
All this proves they are cattle, who will pull that "D" lever in the voter-booth, no matter what.
Between this and the IRS abuses, and the undisputable lies by the administration over Benghazi, and the weak economy, I'm amazed that even any Democrats at this point can support him.
All this proves they are cattle, who will pull that "D" lever in the voter-booth, no matter what.
Naw, if you want a defense of Obama just reread the earlier part of this thread when yourself and WB defended a President's authority to do this type of stuff. You guys have to decide what you're actually comfortable with because as I said back than it's not always going to be a republican in the WH.
Naw, if you want a defense of Obama just reread the earlier part of this thread when yourself and WB defended a President's authority to do this type of stuff...
Please take a moment and read what this latest report says (emphasis added):
Originally Posted By: the G-man
Audit Challenges Obama NSA Claims: Despite Obama claims, an audit, other secret documents allegedly show the NSA broke privacy rules and overstepped its authority thousands of times since it was granted new powers in 2008.
This is about Obama breaking rules. It isn't about Bush doing something you thought was illegal [and wasn't] and now Obama is doing the same thing.
Bush's activities were retro-actively made legal later on though. There wouldn't have been an audit either btw.
It still comes down to you guys having to decide how far is acceptable because you can't flip back and forth on it depending if your party is in the WH or not.
Bush's activities were retro-actively made legal later on though...
Nope. Try again. My first (serious) post in this thread, way back on page two, explained why Bush’s actions were legal at the time:
Originally Posted By: the G-man
Only those people thought to be communicating and collaborating with al Qaeda terrorists overseas were subject to surveillance.
In other words, this was a narrowly-tailored executive order targeting just a few hundred or few thousand terrorist-linked email addresses and phone numbers, not general surveillance of all citizen communications in a nation of 295 million.
In addition, while it should be noted that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) requires a court order to seek surveillance on suspected terrorists or spies, there is legal precedent from 2000 entitled U.S vs. bin Laden that says in part: “Circuit courts applying (FISA law] to the foreign intelligence context have affirmed the existence of a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement for searches conducted within the United States that target foreign powers or their agents.”
[I]t would seem to me that this demonstrates that U.S. courts have an established judicial precedent for bypassing FISA in certain circumstances - the circumstances that two Attorney Generals, Justice Department lawyers and White House Counsel all seem to affirm that President Bush was within his constitutional authority in addressing with his executive order to the NSA.…
The Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures has not been interpreted by the Supreme Court to restrict this inherent presidential power. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (an introduction from a critic of the Act is here) cannot be read as a limit on a constitutional authority even if the Act purported to so limit that authority.
Further, the instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country."
That is from the 1972 decision in United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan et al, (407 U.S. 297) which is where the debate over the president's executive order ought to begin and end. The FISA statute can have no impact on a constitutional authority. Statutes cannot add to or detract from constitutional authority.
In short, it would appear that there was an arguable legal basis from which the authority was drawn.
Please also note that, in the above post, I differentiated what Bush did (and what I found acceptable) from “general surveillance of all citizen communications in a nation of 295 million.” That is, the type of surveillance that Obama appears to be engaged in.
Between this and the IRS abuses, and the undisputable lies by the administration over Benghazi, and the weak economy, I'm amazed that even any Democrats at this point can support him.
All this proves they are cattle, who will pull that "D" lever in the voter-booth, no matter what.
Bush's activities were retro-actively made legal later on though...
Nope. Try again. My first (serious) post in this thread, way back on page two, explained why Bush’s actions were legal at the time:
Originally Posted By: the G-man
Only those people thought to be communicating and collaborating with al Qaeda terrorists overseas were subject to surveillance.
In other words, this was a narrowly-tailored executive order targeting just a few hundred or few thousand terrorist-linked email addresses and phone numbers, not general surveillance of all citizen communications in a nation of 295 million.
In addition, while it should be noted that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) requires a court order to seek surveillance on suspected terrorists or spies, there is legal precedent from 2000 entitled U.S vs. bin Laden that says in part: “Circuit courts applying (FISA law] to the foreign intelligence context have affirmed the existence of a foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement for searches conducted within the United States that target foreign powers or their agents.”
[I]t would seem to me that this demonstrates that U.S. courts have an established judicial precedent for bypassing FISA in certain circumstances - the circumstances that two Attorney Generals, Justice Department lawyers and White House Counsel all seem to affirm that President Bush was within his constitutional authority in addressing with his executive order to the NSA.…
The Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures has not been interpreted by the Supreme Court to restrict this inherent presidential power. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (an introduction from a critic of the Act is here) cannot be read as a limit on a constitutional authority even if the Act purported to so limit that authority.
Further, the instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country."
That is from the 1972 decision in United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan et al, (407 U.S. 297) which is where the debate over the president's executive order ought to begin and end. The FISA statute can have no impact on a constitutional authority. Statutes cannot add to or detract from constitutional authority.
In short, it would appear that there was an arguable legal basis from which the authority was drawn.
Please also note that, in the above post, I differentiated what Bush did (and what I found acceptable) from “general surveillance of all citizen communications in a nation of 295 million.” That is, the type of surveillance that Obama appears to be engaged in.
The problem with that is that Bush was doing more than just picking out just those calls you feel are legal to wiretap. The data mining for example that bothers you now began long before Obama. It still comes down to you having to decide what you want. The gop can join with the dems and change things but I don't think you can continue having different standards according to whose party controls the WH. At some point a standard both sides find acceptable needs to be set.
N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power: Officials at the National Security Agency, intent on maintaining its dominance in intelligence collection, pledged last year to push to expand its surveillance powers, according to a top-secret strategy document.
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