Originally Posted By: the G-man
 Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
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.

Fair play!