Via Newsbusters, a David Burnham NYT story from November 7, 1982: “COURT SAYS U.S. SPY AGENCY CAN TAP OVERSEAS MESSAGES” 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. Because the

Drawing on remarks from both the President and the Attorney General yesterday—and on the responses I was reading around the blogosphere—I began to suspect that the divisions we’re seeing in the debate over executive authority to authorize domestic surveillance is a function not merely of politics, but also of the paradigm through which one choses to view the authorization itself.  Those who are committed to the civil / criminal paradigm—while

Beginning with a quote plucked from an Al-Ansar chatroom counseling jihadists to use our legal and cultural systems against us—not only to sow division and weaken our defenses, but to affect real and practical tactical defeats—the Counterterrorism Blog’s Dr Walid Phares, senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, goes on to discuss the domestic spying “scandal” that continues to lead every news cycle (and which Barbara Boxer

Al Maviva, writing at Cold Fury, well-encapsulates the argument I made yesterday for the legality of Bush’s domestic NSA monitoring program: […] In brief, the warrantless monitoring exception applies to domestic agents of foreign powers that are tied to national governments, to factions of nations, or to entities openly controlled by foreign governments, per 50 USC 1801(a). The warrantless monitoring exception does not per se apply to operatives of foreign

The Democratic spin doctors, spurred on by their disingenuous Congressional taskmasters , are all over the tube this morning trying to gin up additional outrage over this NSA domestic “spy story”—even as the President stands firm and defends the practice.  Forcefully. From his weekly radio addres (via Byron York): In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and

Over at RedState, Nick Danger bemoans the distraction that is Cindy Sheehan and points to the real growing scandal over Able Danger, which (for my money, at least) has more to do with hiding findings than with placing blame.  From “Meanwhile, Back at the News”: It turns out that at least one of our intelligence operations was sufficiently on the ball that they identified Mohammad Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and two