From the New York Times
The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.
[Translation: The NSA has performed the functions of the NSA]
The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said.
[Translation: The White House, believing it’s fighting a war, is touchy about discussing how it’s collecting information on terrorist communications. We at the Times find that kinda secretive and Bushy Bush. And we’ll have none of it.]
As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.
[Translation: if you close your eyes and squint hard enough, “streams of domestic and international communications” can almost look like the targeting of known particular US persons. Of course, it helps if you really hate Bush and think its high time “Woodward and Bernstein” was replaced with “Risen and Lichtblau” in journalistic circles.]
A reminder. Here’s the relevant FISA language for electronic surveillance:
the acquisition ... of the contents of any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes...”
Any of that happening here?
The government’s collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.’s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic “switches,” according to officials familiar with the matter.
[…]
The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many international-to-international calls are also routed through such American switches.
[Translation: Hopefully, all the additional paragraphs we stuffed between these two suggested malfeasance. Because even we know by now that streams moving into and out of the US don’t require warrants. But here’s the thing: what if they did? Then, the Bushies will have been guilty of a crime. And if our civil liberties are trampled, well, then the terrorists will have won!™….]
As I’ve argued in countless posts now, what we don’t know about the technical aspects of the intel gathering (phone trees, data mining, voice recognition) make all the cries about potential fourth amendment violations and the like moot. The specifics of the program itself were being guardly for tactical reasons—and because they were quite legal under the President’s constitutional authority and under existing FISA exemptions, the leaking of this information has done nothing more than divulge some of the particularls of a legal and highly classified program. In short, it has weakened our national security—all so the Times (and more than a few Democratic leaders) could try to add the new Watergate to the new Vietnam/Nixon narrative they’ve been writing for five years.
It’s shameful. And—more importantly—it’s illegal. And anyone—ANYONE—who was calling for investigations and prosecutions in the Plame case had better get ready to make the same call in this case.
This rest of this NYT non-story has already been handled quite ably by Dafydd at Big Lizard, so I’ll just excerpt a bit of it and then send you over there:
The left-stream media then breathlessly informed us that the CIA had scandalously started keeping the most important terrorist prisoners of war (without warrants) in prisons other than Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Hm….
Subsequently, we were treated to the scandal that the NSA had actually begun doing its job after 9/11, unlike the CIA, which had applied for the new job of leaking classified information to damage American security on the off chance that, like chemotherapy, such leaks would destroy the Bush “cancer” faster than they destroyed the country.
The media reported to us that the FBI domestic counterterrorism bureau was unfathomably keeping tabs on domestic terrorist groups and those who supported them. Then they whispered in our ears that the tyrannical Big Brother at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was deliberately and with malice aforethought checking for possible radiation leakage around various mosques and other Moslem sites in the United States that were well-known for having terrorist sympathies. And now, finally—actually, while I hope it’s “finally,” I rather doubt it—the Times completes its tribute to the late Jack Anderson by telling us that, in addition to eavesdropping on the phone calls and e-mails of known al-Qaeda groups abroad and suspected terrorist agents here at home, the NSA has also been monitoring traffic patterns surrounding these same terrorist plotters. Quelle horreur!
Having nailed down the actual terrorism-supporting vote for the next election, the Times and the rest of the MSM appear determined to seize the entire September 10th population of the United States as well.
Evidently, next November’s election bids fair to be the War Between the Dates: the 10th vs. the 11th. I wonder which is stronger in today’s America?
Read the whole thing.
(h/t playah grrl; see also Michelle Malkin)
Isn’t Daschle’s refusal (after 911) to authorize (because of 911) use of force against another 911 attack from inside the country (like 911) clear evidence that his party never did take 911 seriously, but only went along in the 911 aftermath with the bare minimum necessary (despite 911) to avoid political suicide (over 911).
Somehow I suspect this argument will appear closer to the elections.
Well, what’s even worse is that we’re spying on poor, defnseless muslims, and we’re doing it without warrants!!!*
Note: spying = atmospheric testing in publicly accessible places for excessive radiation levels
Disclaimer: reference to lack of warrants is meant only to infer that warrants are legally necessary, not to state that as a fact, because well…it ain’t one.
You guys are trying to bail out a boat with a coffee mug.
[link won’t render]
I can only conclude from the press’s reaction that they really want a dirty bomb to go off in the United States. I must say, I am beyond appalled. I had suspected they were on the other side in Iraq. I had no idea they were on the other side here as well.
Not as simple as html, but easy enough for you guys…LOL
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=343&invol=579
Fred, if you have a cite to a particular case make it. While you’re at explain this hypopthetical case creates the proposition that any government offical needs a warrant to go to a public place. Before you try, I’ll help you out. There ain’t one. Apparently you’re operating under the theory that the only terroists that can be arrested are the ones who confess and turn themselves in. Even then, they should receive only probation, along with new guns and fresh ammunition, right?
Er, ah, Fred……your link brings up 384 links to Supreme Court opinions. Which one?
I’m hoping that your legal expertise is better than your hyperlinking skills…….which usually as simple as a cut-and-paste.
Sorry,
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=343&invol=579
goes directly to:
U.S. Supreme Court
YOUNGSTOWN CO. v. SAWYER, 343 U.S. 579 (1952)
343 U.S. 579
YOUNGSTOWN SHEET & TUBE CO. ET AL. v. SAWYER.
google it if it’s to hard
Hell yes the MSM is complicit. If you own any NYT, Gannett, ect stock–time to sell now.
Fred —
If you aren’t going to bother to read the posts that already covered this stuff, why are you here? To make us endlessly reargue the same bullshit?
I covered Youngstown yesterday. In fact, it’s cited as justification in the DoJ memorandum (which you’d know had you bothered to read either it or my previous post responding to Glenn Greenwald.
And as Karl points out in the comments of that post, you people appear to be missing this passage:
The ruling doesn’t supercede the President’s Article II powers. It constrains them in some ways, but not with respect to signal intel gathering, which is an established military action.
The thing is, we are going to win the info war.
Because of the skill and brilliance of the analysts and technodroids in our covert operations programs, because of our willingness to push the technology envelope and our dedication to the protection of the american people and our way of life.
While you are remembering our troops and their service this Christmas season, spare some thought for the honorable and noble covert warriors, that work without praise or recognition behind the scenes, to collect, protect and analyse classified intel.
Only to be vilified as lawbreakers and leakers in the press.
Now, snow’s up in Denver!
and a very un-pc and hearty merry christmas to all, and ‘specially Jeff-san.
Fred, Are you suggesting that President Bush’s use of the NSA to search international email and phone calls looking for terrorists, and looking for traces of radioactivity nears Mosques to prevent a dirty bomb attack is equivalent to:
Fred, you are nuts. And the NY Times are traitors. As well as most of the MSM.
Signal intel gathering, with the “cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications.”
How voluntary is this “cooperation of American telecommunications companies?”
You’re joking, right, Fred?
Powerline is covering this one today also. Read it here http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012646.php
I especially liked the last 2 paragraphs.
He’s not joking. He’s just hoping the case says something other than waht it truly says. He’s also on the other side. Sorry Fred, I say it in the Christmas spirit and with every good thought on your behalf, but it’s just true.
Whenever some scandal would erupt in President Bill Clinton’s administration, the very first response was usually to ridicule the source of the story and deny, deny, deny. And they would stonewall. Later, when the scandal would re-erupt because the source was shown to be credible, the Democratic spinmeisters would opine that no laws were broken. And then they would stonewall some more. The next time the scandal came around (you know, after it was shown that laws were in fact broken), the Democrats would assert that everyone does it, what’s the big deal? Then would come even more stonewalling. Finally, just before a Special Prosecutor was ready to issue subpoenas, the President himself would speak to the nation. He would bite his lip and express his sincere regret about some minor detail of the scandal. The stonewalling would then have the added benefit of “he’s apologized, what more could you possibly want?” Last of all, when questioned again about the scandal, the Democrat response would be “so what?” So what are you going to do about it, suckers?
Clearly, the Republicans are not doing it right. Only a week has passed since the NSA intercept “scandal” erupted and already the administration as said no laws were broken, everyone does it and the President has spoken directly to the nation. Bush didn’t even bite his lip, much less express regret for anything. And where’s the stonewalling? No wonder the Democrats are pushing this scandal for all it’s worth; did the Republicans learn nothing from President Clinton? I can just see it next summer: every Republican candidate for office will be asked if they support Bush and his NSA intercepts. The ones that do will then be tarred as soft on civil rights. Probably many will choose to drop out of the race right then. The Democrats clearly, clearly have won this one. Now I really regret becoming a Republican.
implied will of Congress
The AUMF was response to 911. The implied will of Congress therefore augments ArtII executive power wrt another 911 attack from inside the country. Hence power is actually highest ebb. Daschle’s partisanship notwithstanding.
Fred,
I’ll try to put it small words for you:
In the case you cite, the court said that what the Pres-i-dent was do-ing was not part of his job as head of the mil-i-tar-y. So this case is not the same as that case.
Plus, what you quoted (and, for that matter what GG has quoted) comes from Justice Jackson’s concurring opinion, not the opinion of the Court by Justice Black.
Jeebus.
Jeff:
Read this again, and tell me how this squares. First, you say “we don’t know” the extent or methods of the program; then you say it reasonable questions about legality based on what we do know are therefore “moot”; and then you say the whole thing was “legal”! Jeff, this is not argument. This is conclusory assertions based on conjecture. At best, what we don’t know about this program makes specific claims as to illegality perhaps premature, but not unreasonable or per se groundless.
You conveniently only cited to FISA s.1801(f)(1) in describing what “electronic surveillance” was covered by FISA. But look: FISA s. 1801(f)(2) defines “electronic surveillance” as “the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States, without the consent of any party thereto, if such acquisition occurs in the United States, but does not include the acquisition of those communications of computer trespassers that would be permissible under section 2511 (2)(i) of title 18.”
My reading of the NY Times article is that this is, at least in part, precisely what is being done. The only saving graces might be if (a) the “acquisition” is outside the U.S, or (b) no wire communications are being monitored. Nothing in the article suggests that either (a) or (b) is true. And the Administration has never claimed that either (a) or (b) is true. So I think there’s a legitimate problem under FISA with this program, unless you can tell me why this definition of electronic surveillance doesn’t apply.
Ya know…all anyone had to do was go to NSA.Gov and look at their very public mission statements.
They’re really not any sort of Special Forces black ops folks. They’re mostly a bunch of security geeks.
Nothing in the article suggests that either (a) or (b) is true
Or not true. It seems more likely that the NSA program is not in violation of FISA. Interception occurs outside the country and is not targeted at US persons.
tell me how this squares
Two serparate things are being discussed there sport. Let me guess … you’re not tech are you.
Boris:
If the data “acquisition” of the NSA program occurred outside of the country, thus making FISA inapplicable, don’t you think one administration official would have said as much by now, thus ending this kerfuffle? (At least as far as violation of FISA is concerned, anyway.)
And, as noted in my post above, FISA’s second definition of “electronic surveillance” doesn’t require the targeting of US persons, it simply requires the acquisition inside the US of the contents of a wire communication without permission. Isn’t that what the NSA is doing?
the administration as said no laws were broken, everyone does it
The admin has broken no law. All we’ve heard from the usual shriekers of the Left is charges with no substance. Even Freddie can’t get Daschle’s dick out of his mouth long enough to read what Jeff has already written and linked to regarding current law and precedent (you know, precedent as in what Dems are suddenly so loyal to now that Alito is up for confirmation) to understand the “everyone does it” has not been a part of the argument except to CITE PRECEDENT.
Now I really regret becoming a Republican.
I regret you become one, too. Go grab your burka and slither back to the dhimmicrats.
putz
no and no
Given the nature of the exceptions described, the only actual tech datapoint, interception outside the country is the more plausible.
It is rather apparent from those exceptions that the in country mistakes were the result of using international cellphoness which exited the country and reentered.
one of these things is not like the other
Kerr and boris:
It is beyond dispute that the communications being intercepted were, at least in part, “to or from a person in the United States.” The present question is whether the physical place of acquisition is within the U.S. Boris says it isn’t—but no one in the administration has ever claimed that the NSA intercepts were occurring outside of the country. So I’m not sure why he believes this. Boris, could you elaborate?
(I also realize that under definition (2) the communication has to be by “wire” and the “contents” of the communication must be acquired. Based on what I’ve read, these factors seem to be satisfied—again, by at least some of the interceptions at issue, if not all—but if anyone sees it differently I’m all ears.)
So I’m not sure why he believes this. Boris, could you elaborate?
The nature of the exceptions publicly noted indicate that surveilance occurs outside the country. The in country communuications mistakenly intercepted were calls that exited and reentered the country. Why only them unless the interception was outside also.
It is a simple technical solution to the problem of weeding out in country communication from the program. Again, you’re not tech are you.
This debate is starting to remind me of the claim that the TANG memos could not be proven fake without examining “the originals”. Some are attempting to promote ignorance of technology into a logical argument.
“We don’t get it therefore it’s unknown”
Boris:
Not convinced. My understanding is that the mistaken intercepted US-to-US calls occurred because the number on the cell phone was an int’l one that was being used in the US to call a US number. Nothing I can see requires that this interception occur in some other country or in/over int’l waters.
Also, you still haven’t explained why the administration wouldn’t have just come out and said, “The interceptions at issue are not made within the US, and thus FISA is inapplicable,” if what you are hypothesizing is true.
Not convinced
Don’t care. Didn’t claim proof. One datapoint plus tech logic beats hot air.
you still haven’t explained
I’m not a mind reader.
Jeff,
I really like the “translation” format. It’s truly fitting. Wish I’d thought of it first.
yours/
peter.
So far I see three newspaper editorial boards, lawyers and staff, at the very least fined. Some will go to jail to protect sources and this will be a long, long process. Stonewalling hath no scorn as democrat of the right circle backed by the press. This just gets worse from here.
Propaganda; It’s not just for breakfast anymore.
Yes Jeff, Peter is spot on. The translation format is acme.
It’s worth remembering that all the pious zealotry over Constitutional rights to private communications and the like are self-serving, hypocritical lies anyway. Let your kid fall out of a tree and have to go to the emergency room, or let slip to the teacher that you’re teaching him/her safe and responsible gun use, and watch all those “rights” disappear in the mad rush of bureacracts anxious to save the cheeeldring. Or say the wrong thing to the office feminist.
Democrats are, as usual, only solicitous of rights and privileges insofar as they support their own agenda. Let anybody else’s prerogatives get supported in any way, and stand by to be trampled.
Regards,
Ric
Well said, Ric. I’d add that under socialist nannyist government, your kids, your rights, and even your property are all let out on loan by our masters.
On the domestic front, the lying Dims need to explain, among others,
-mandatory arrest (domestic cases
-institutionalized sexism (think family law
-forced psychiatry (complete with juvenile drugging
-repeated attempts to institutionalize psychology at the federal school level as a component of education;
-what amounts to the institutionalized religion of state on taxpaid property;
-ditto repressing free speech on taxpaid property and elsewhere;
-unrepresentative taxation under penalty of law
-chronic feminist lobby-legislation;
-loss of private property.
There are many more examples of socialized government’s trumping fundamental rights and none square with the limited Leftist civil rights agenda of potential free association for terrorists, free speech just for pornographers, and “equal rights” just for women.
It’s all about rational, balanced, principled perspective, as corrupted as their values are, something the dysfunctional, mendacious Left obviously has no sense of. As you say, let anybody else’s prerogatives [especially if they really do adhere to bona fide Constitutional principles] get supported in any way, and stand by to be trampled.
Jeff, et al –
Thanks for the invaluable debate.
Well, maybe debate is too strong a word as what it mostly consists of is folks on the right saying “it’s not a crime, and here’s my fact-based reasoning”, and those on the left shrieking “it is too a crime, because it’s just gotta be!”.
The one point I would add it that anyone interested in an honest discussion should keep an eye on their local TV/print media.
By Tuesday evening, the local Fox affiliate (St. Louis) had distilled the issue down to “the president wants to listen to your phone calls”. If that is the closest to accurate that these clowns can come, we’re in deep shit. I emailed the anchor and asked him if he found it embarrassing to read copy that was written either by a 23 yr. old leftard intern or Charles Jaco (who also works at the station doing ever-so-sophisticated lefty analysis and reporting from the perspective of someone who couldn’t hack it at CNN).
The only way to ride herd on these lazy bastards is to call bullshit when they spew it on the air.
or we could just become a “nation” where whatever the media says must be true, sorta like NY or Boston.
I can only conclude from the press’s reaction that they really want a dirty bomb to go off in the United States. I must say, I am beyond appalled. I had suspected they were on the other side in Iraq. I had no idea they were on the other side here as well.
Patrick Henry, if he were alive today, and a Bush supporter:
Is freedom so dear, or liberty so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of life, or safety, or security? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, listen in on my private conversations and read my mail and break the law to do it if you have to, but please, please, please, keep me safe!
Very good Kathy. Very incisive.
Tuck that particular glob of wisdom away, and remember to trot it out the day after a nuke obliterates Syracuse or Berkley.
Merry Christmas, you snarky dumbass.
what goes on “inside” the kind of mind willing to risk all of our lives to score cheap debating points?
Kathy, what liberty has been lost?
OK, if your phone number shows up in the cell phone or address book of a terrorist captured overseas, somebody might listen to your phone calls for a while. I, for one, was unaware that supporting mass murderers was a fundamental right.
Kathy, I’m just guessing here, but I bet Patrick Henry wouldn’t have been on the terrorists side. Why are you?
OK, if your phone number shows up in the cell phone or address book of a terrorist captured overseas, somebody might listen to your phone calls for a while.
What if your phone number shows up in the cell phone or address book of your elderly next door neighbor, and her phone number showed up in the cell phone or address book of a student at a local university where your elderly neighbor had once taken a class, and the student’s phone number showed up in the cell phone or address book of her piano teacher, and the piano teacher’s phone number showed up in the cell phone or address book of a former pupil who, ten years after the piano teacher last saw him, turned out to be a member of Al Qaeda?
Would it be okay with you if the NSA listened to your phone calls, or arrested you for questioning?
And what’s this “of a terrorist captured overseas” about? How can someone be called a terrorist unless (a) they have been tried and convicted in a fair trial; or (b) they have been arrested while in the act of committing an act of terrorism? This spy program eavesdrops on international communications of Americans who appear to have a connection to someone else who is SUSPECTED of having ties to Al Qaeda. Only a handful of individuals arrested in the four years since 9/11 can actually, accurately, and fairly be called “terrorists”; the rest are just men (mostly men) of Arab or Muslim background who were caught up in sweeps and are guilty of nothing because they haven’t been charged with a crime, seen an attorney, or had a trial.
And what if—BLAMMMMMO!
Kathy has got to be another of these “smitty” types trying to pull our legs. I’m not buying it.
Merry Xmas, all! Off to watch It’s a Wonderful Life as a follow-up to The Polar Express (which was quite enjoyable).
Kathy, I’m just guessing here, but I bet Patrick Henry wouldn’t have been on the terrorists side. Why are you?
Corvan, are you telling me that if you worked at the NSA you would be eavesdropping on my phone calls and e-mails to my brother in Canada because I opposed Pres. Bush’s violation of the Fourth Amendment and of FISA oversight requirements?
You can see my point now, can’t you, Corvan? It does not take much to be someone whom the Bush administration decides is connected to Al Qaeda, does it? It certainly doesn’t take real, actual connections. All it takes is opposition to Bush’s policies. You’ve said it yourself.
As for Patrick Henry, he was clearly on the side of freedom, not of safety purchased at the price of freedom. I support freedom and all the rights and protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution. My guess is that real, bona fide terrorists don’t support those things. So if you value an illusory safety over actual freedom, maybe YOU are on the side of the terrorists.
Kathy —
Seriously. Go to sleep. Maybe when you wake up you’ll find that Santa has brought you some pills for your paranoia.
You haven’t the first clue how any of this stuff works. And yet you are sure that there’s a possibility Bush has his goons snooping on the conversations of people like you, people brave enough to SPEAK TO TRUTH TO POWER.
Christ, how narcissistic can one human being be?
Down with the fifth column!
You haven’t the first clue how any of this stuff works.
How about a lawyer for the Dept. of Justice? Might he have the first clue how any of this works?
If the little old lady were American, and the Afghan orphanage’s director had her phone number and/or e-mail in his records, and that money was passed to Al Qaeda, would her phone and Internet connection be wiretapped without a search warrant?
Kathy
How can someone be called a terrorist unless (a) they have been tried and convicted in a
fair trial;
That’s got to be one of the most mind-numbing dumb cunt statements I’ve seen in a long time…
How the FUCK do you think (for example) goddamned law enforcement identifies and watches MOBSTERS? or GANGBANGERS? or the KKK? or the Aryan Brotherhood?
JAYSUS you are embarrassment to women. AND I feel quite sorry for ANY student that comes your way.
It’s real easy, you just point at them and scream:
TERRORIST!!!
Hm. So if you leave bombs in a school or marketplace, blowing up/maiming innocent people but never get convicted in a fair trial you’re not a terrorist?
What a concept.
I’ll do you one better, Patrick.
The 9/11
hijackers“men (mostly men) of Arab or Muslim background,” died when the planes slammed into the WTC, the Pentagon, and that field in Pennsylvania. They were never charged with a crime, never got to speak with an attorney, and never got a fair trial.How could they be called terrorists?
You’re really not following, are you? We don’t need warrants to listen to purely overseas communications. Why? Because our courts don’t have jurisdiction over calls between oh…Switzerland and Afghanistan.
Ah, well. Have some egg nog.
tw: As per common sense.
Does anyone know when the notion began that liberty and privacy are one and the same?
Does anyone know when the notion began that liberty and privacy are one and the same?
LOL
Kathy: “Give me Privacy or give me DEATH!”
The resrictions on wire tapping are statutory, not constitutional. I believe they are flawed. We need a law that says no one has an expectation of privacy for anything he broadcasts, and that defines broadcasting as any communication outside the protected domecile.
Hey, look what they did to Martha Stewart’s communications.
Boris, lol!
Let the Privacy Bell ring out throughout the land !!
Kathy demonstrates what we have to watch out for; though I don’t consider it likely to happen, we have to avoid becoming a bunch of Kathies. Her post is such a desperate, obsessive, and hysterical reaching for something to be alarmed about that is amusingly pathetic. I never ever want to become like that; life is way too short and too much fun if you allow it to be.
And, if Kathy is still listening to this thread, I want her to know that NONE of her scenarios bothers me one damned bit.
I consider anything I say/hear on the phone or enter into my computer will be listened to or reviewed by “others”, somewhere, somehow, legally or illegally. To anyone with an agenda, it would be terminally boring and CERTAINLY not actionable. To anyone with a vendetta against me personally, they might be able to come up with something in about 1 of 10,000 transmissions that would be embarrass me. Example: I told my landlord’s wife one time over the phone that I “loved her to death”, after she had done a big favor for us watching our dog for 2 days, and my wife has always wondered if Grace has the hots for me and assumed she has.
Let’s say Joe Blow, who has tutored Muslim college students from the Middle East, has conversations with one of them who’s been talking with a suspected Al Qaeda member overseas. You bet I want the feds checking to see if Joe and that student and his overseas friend are having conversation about something more than the upcoming Econ 201 paper. Joe has a real estate brokers license and therefore could get into the half-vacant up- for-sale building across the street from the Federal Courthouse. AND there are tunnels underground in this old downtown area where hot air moves in the winter from the incineration plant to heat buildings, like the courthouse and that former furniture warehouse.
So, yes Kathy, I want some monitoring done. I guess we can’t snoop into communiques between Joe and that student to see if Joe is being “recruited” to help out, unless the student is back across the pond or uses some non-US cell phone number or email address (which he would not, of course). That’s fine; that would be a very low probability to be monitoring for. BUT if Joe is communicating with people overseas who are on some kind of “possible trouble” list, then by all means I’d want him to be snooped on for a while to see what’s up.
My question is, if I am Joe in this example, why should any of this be offensive or unacceptable to me? You have to establish that case before I will start to worry … because I am a pragmatist.
My Christmas-inspired advice would be: Take the time and energy wasted by worrying about this kind of illusory issue and go do something positive instead. The world will be a little better for it, but it will not change one darned bit based on some whining about civil liberties when there is no evidence that anyone is being abused in that regard.
Terry, I love you. [is anyone looking?]
I assume that you then fully support,
-freedom from unreasonable domestic searches, seizures, confiscations, and imprisonments;
-equal protections under the law, regardless of gender;
-the inherent right to the presumption of innocence, and freedom from imprisonment without due cause;
-freedom from institutionalized sexism;
-the right to say what you want on public, taxpaid property, and to practice your personal faith there;
-the right to educate your children where you see fit without being forced to pay for statist schooling under penalty of law;
-as a sovereign citizen, the right to own property, regardless;
-as a sovereign citizen, the right to own posessions and property and to practice legal activities without license, regulation, or restriction;
-the right to representation and representative taxation;
-the right to laws unsullied by professional lobbies;
-the right to wholely Constitutional law, 24/7?
You may have missed the question Ric implied of all leftists earlier in this thread: How do liberals reconcile their love of all things Constitutional with the grossly overbearing socialist nanny government they’ve created?
And I love you, Walter. Oh, the shame of it!
Really, no one should operate under the illusion that any such communications have any guarantee of privacy in practice. Privacy is violated billions of times a day by everyone from toddlers to identity thieves to gossipy coworkers. For all we know, Chuck Schumer has someone snooping in our credit reports right now. Me, I like my intelligence agencies nosy.
If you want privacy, it’s up to you to make your own. If you want to ensure a conversation is private, don’t have it on an unsecure line. Or even a secure one…because you just never know. If someone is really motivated to intercept it, they will. Your best bet is to install a Cone of Silenceâ„¢.
As if a judge suddenly makes it all nice. REmember, judges approve no-knock which makes most of the rest of the rights meaningless.
Let me get this straight. Is the argument that to wiretap Jeff Goldstein, and listen in on all his international calls, a warrant is needed, but to systematically snoop ALL the international calls coming into or out of the state of Colorado through the switchboards, NO warrant is needed?
Hmmmm. Has anyone made that specific argument in law, rather than the reading of one passage from FISA above?
I suspect the desire for secrecy is to put a little uncertainty into the lives of Jihadists. Write the rules large and it is easy to find ways around them.
If they want a criminal prosecution, then they need a warrant.
It’s real easy, you just point at them and scream:
TERRORIST!!!
ROTFLMAO! Thank goodness somebody has a sense of humor here!
So if you leave bombs in a school or marketplace, blowing up/maiming innocent people but never get convicted in a fair trial you’re not a terrorist?
And on what do you base your certainty that someone has done that, absent evidence publicly presented in a fair trial that results in a conviction?
The 9/11 hijackers “men (mostly men) of Arab or Muslim background,†died when the planes slammed into the WTC, the Pentagon, and that field in Pennsylvania. They were never charged with a crime, never got to speak with an attorney, and never got a fair trial.
How could they be called terrorists?
Your statement is beyond stupid. The vast majority of Arab and Muslim men captured by U.S. forces and sent into indefinite detention with no legal rights whatsoever were arrested arbitrarily, because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time; or because they attacked U.S. troops on the battlefield – which doesn’t automatically mean they were terrorists; or because they were fingered by Afghans or Iraqis who had been paid a lot of money (up to thousands of dollars) to “turn in terrorists.”
The vast majority of Arab and Muslim detainees in U.S. custody were not arrested in the act of hijacking a plane.
That said, if the 9/11 hijackers had survived the plane crashes and been arrested, under our legal system they would have to have been charged with a crime and given a fair trial subject to rules of evidence. Would you have sent Scott Peterson into indefinite detention with no legal rights or executed him with a shot of poison without a fair trial, even though everyone knew long before the trial was over that he was guilty as hell?
We don’t need warrants to listen to purely overseas communications. Why? Because our courts don’t have jurisdiction over calls between oh…Switzerland and Afghanistan.
If one of the callers is American, yes we do. We’re talking about calls between Americans and someone in another country, not calls between Switzerland and Afghanistan. That’s why I said, What if the little old lady WERE AMERICAN.
Does anyone know when the notion began that liberty and privacy are one and the same?
Since the Fourth Amendment became a part of the U.S. Constitution. And you incorrectly state that liberty and privacy are “one and the same.” They are not “one and the same”; one is an essential component of the other.
Let’s say Joe Blow, who has tutored Muslim college students from the Middle East, has conversations with one of them who’s been talking with a suspected Al Qaeda member overseas. You bet I want the feds checking to see if Joe and that student and his overseas friend are having conversation about something more than the upcoming Econ 201 paper.
Fine. Then let the feds go to FISA and get a search warrant. That’s why FISA was set up, to give the feds the latitude to do wiretapping in secret without violating the law. But no judge is going to agree to issue a warrant with no probable cause, and having been born in the Middle East is not probable cause. THAT is the real reason why the Bush admin authorized warrantless searches. Because they know they would not GET a warrant for many of the people they want to monitor. They want to be able to spy on anyone they choose to, whether there is probable cause or not. That is illegal and unconstitutional, and as a patriotic American, I object.
If you want to ensure a conversation is private, don’t have it on an unsecure line. Or even a secure one…because you just never know. If someone is really motivated to intercept it, they will. Your best bet is to install a Cone of Silenceâ„¢.
Then you’d be told that you must have something to hide, because if you didn’t, why would you want to install something that prevents the feds from listening?
There you go … Kathy wants a judge to prevent the NSA from racial profiling. Considers it a patriotic duty too.
It never was about privacy or liberty, those were just excuses. Everybody knows Republicans are racist racist racist and without a nanny judge would waste their time surveiling on the basis of race and religion instead of “probable cause”.
Fine then, just be up front about it and tell the rest of America the president they elected to secure the country can’t be trusted and YOU GET TO DECIDE who the real enemy is …
Probable cause is a subjective thing. Many judges take pleasure in throwing their weight around as with William O. Douglas and his Warren Court ilk. Imagine if every infantryman had to have an atorney with him to tell him when it is O.K. to shoot – wait a minute, that is how it is, now.
You’ve avoided the question at least twice now, Kathy: Do you or do you not weigh in as heavily when domestic law and social policy disadvantage millions of free citizens in the US? As a presumed leftist, where is your ire when unconstitutional law and enforcement every day violate the constitutional rights of innocent American citizens?
Your answer will go a very long way to determining if you are a political opportunist or the genuine constitutionalist you say you are.
The Fourth Amendment doesn’t say anything about privacy.
Just like the right to health care, I assume? Because you can’t really be free without proper health care. Bums have liberty all over them, and they still sleep in public. Having someone watching you doesn’t interefere with your life, liberty or pursuit of happiness, paranoia notwithstanding.
kathy
Since when is the NSA involved in law enforcement? They can’t arrest you for anything. Sheesh, Kathy.
NSA gathers intelligence, not evidence.
All this really boils down to is the word ‘reasonable’ in ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’. Technology has leaped over the inherent bureaucracy in laws and we have to define anew what ‘reasonable’ means.
That’s all you’ve got, girl.
RE:
WARRANTLESS INTELLIGENCE GATHERING, REDUX (UPDATED)-(UPDATED REBUTTAL REDUX REDUX)
I have three short rebuttals;
I have to get this out of my system before I implode
First
THE NEW YORK TIMES & MATERIAL SUPPORT
Title 18 United States Code Section 2339A Part I, Chapter 113B – Terrorism
Section 2339A.
PROVIDING MATERIAL SUPPORT TO TERRORISTS
(a)Offense. – Whoever provides MATERIAL SUPPORT or RESOURCES or conceals or disguises the nature, location, source,
or ownership of MATERIAL SUPPORT OR RESOURCES, knowing or intending that they are to be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, a violation of section 32, 37, 81, 175, 229, 351, 831, 842(m) or (n), 844(f) or (i), 930(c), 956, 1114, 1116, 1203, 1361, 1362, 1363, 1366, 1751, 1992, 1993, 2155, 2156, 2280, 2281, 2332, 2332a, 2332b, 2332f, or 2340A of this title, in preparation for, or in carrying out, from the commission of any such violation, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both, and, if the death of any person results, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life. A violation of this section may be prosecuted in any Federal judicial district in which the underlying offense was committed, or in any other Federal judicial district as provided by law.
(b) Definition. – In this section, the term “MATERIAL SUPPORT or RESOURCES” means expert advice or ASSISTANCE, documentation or identification, communications and other physical assets,
The New York Times in concert with the Senate Democrats have now exposed to the world and to every terrorist and would be terrorist The National Security Agency’s classified highest level intelligence gathering program of electronic intercepts of telephone calls and e-mails of people with known ties to Al Qaeda and other terror groups.
Not to mention the New York Times and the Senate Democrats have †outed †classified intelligence gathering of the strategic covert terrorist communication intercept program, that is now of little to no worth what so ever rendering a major terrorist intelligence gathering tool useless, compounded with the fact the Times has “outed” the FBI/CIA checking for radiation levels at specific know Islamic meeting centers “outing” these programs
It is beyond reprehensible,
It is beyond illegal –
It is an act of treason under these post
9-11 circumstances
See Title 18 U.S.C Section 2339.(a),(b)
This week the Senate democrats have put every American at risk, and by every – I mean you directly. You should know the Senate Democrats have blocked the Patriot act, and this “fact†leaves the entire country unprotected from terrorist attack.
Osama Bin Laden has nothing to fear, The New York Times has exposed covert details of our intelligence gathering programs, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy and Sen. Charles Schumer, feel America has nothing to fear and you don’t need The Patriot act to protect you and the government specifically the Justice department, law enforcement the FBI the CIA, the National Security agency does not need any tools to fight the likes of Osama Bin Laden.
So when Osama and his jihad army is marching down Fifth Avenue with a nuclear weapon and you are half dead from dirty bomb radiation just call Reid, Leahy and Schumer and The New York Times
An allegation “the President is unlawfully spying†that is so baseless in law and fact it smacks of reckless disregard, misconduct and malicious abuse of the senate. Harry Reid and his cronies are dead wrong and while the law is clear – See below verbatim
Osama Bin Laden
Al Qaeda
The Taliban
Saddam Hussein
Enemy Terrorist Combatants
Each and every all and singular
Are “NOT†citizens of The United States
They are “NOT†entitled to “ANY†Constitutional privilege
or “ANY†Constitutional protection specifically Al Qaeda.They are enemy combatants inside and outside of the United States
FOURTH AMENDMENT RIGHTS
AGAINST UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE
As in wire taps as in all intercepts of electronic communication the fourth amendment is not a right entitled an enemy combatant
Al Qaeda is at war with America –
Al Qaeda is the enemy –
Al Qaeda are enemy combatants,
Second
Glenn Greenwald
Has authored another long post arguing that Bush broke the law in authorizing the NSA warrantless surveillance program:
Mr.Greenwald sets fourth among other things these
Three issues, I must respond to,
1.The issue is not whether the President has this authority to eavesdrop without a warrant but whether it is legal for him to do so in the face of a Congressional law, which makes it a crime to engage in such conduct.
2.President possesses inherent constitutional authority to order warrantless surveillance “ on American citizens,” that does not mean that it is legal for him to do so in violation of a criminal statute enacted by Congress.
3.Cites- Youngstown Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) President does not have the right to exercise his “inherent executive authority†in contravention of Congressional law.
They appear on its face to have some merit,
However,
They are of little relevant under the circumstances and events that indeed and in fact and in law demand the President to take such measure as he deems fit, first Greenwald is failing to recognize want of factual evidence
Regarding this “ spying on Americans†B/S, this is one of the most implausible statements to ever come out of the left wing, “spying on Americans†for what? I am all ears baby lay it on me ..
The case authority Greenwald cites relates to domestic criminal cases.
Not a national emergency and is void of any mention of war or incidents of war, pay attention my friends “ war national emergency
incidents of war. Further the case law and statues Greenwald relies on do not address a national emergency wherein the entire country is under a direct attack or imminent attack, emergency provision in fact in law and in practice give the President The Commander in Chief every tool available to protect, defend and conquer the enemy. Indeed statute after statue from agency to agency all state clearly convincingly in plain language – following Title 50 as a model statutory code
Title 50 United States Code Chapter 36 Subchapter I Section 1811.
Authorization During Time of War
§ 1811. Notwithstanding †ANY †other law, †THE PRESIDENT “, through the Attorney General,
†MAY AUTHORIZE ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
WITHOUT A COURT ORDERâ€Â
under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information.
WITHOUT A COURT ORDER
Keep in mind we are at war, something the Democrats only remember when it advances their Self-serving interest over the peoples well being, Lets us all keep in mind we are at war, we are not fighting a criminal case, our country has been in a continuing National Emergency Status
Let us look at the Federal agency morphing into quasi DOD mode during times of war The Justice Department FBI, CIA and The National Security Agency are to some degree part of the DOD. The Department of Justice USAM Title 9 Chapter 9-90, policy on the use of electronic surveillance. Commonly referred to collectively as Title III are codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2510, et seq. 9-7.000 Electronic Surveillance 9-90.640 International Emergency Economic Powers Act—50 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq has very specific language relating the Executive warrantless Surveillance, in fact these provisions have been around for decades long before 9-11 long before
The Patriot Act.
Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. § § 1701 to 1706, the President is granted authority to declare a national emergency with respect to any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source outside the United States, and to take action to meet that threat including the imposition of controls over property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has an interest. Criminal violations are investigated by the Treasury Department. Prosecution of violations which involve the exportation of property in which a foreign national or foreign country has an interest shall not be undertaken without prior approval of the Counterespionage Section of the Criminal Division. See USAM 9-90.020.
WE ARE AT WAR
1.Protection from unreasonable search and seizure is not a right of an enemy combatant.
2.The fourth amendment argument is useless as it protects Americans “ the right of the people” and as in this case.
3.The President has the means and the duty and the emergency war authority to authorize a warrantless electronic surveillance, of enemy combatants inside and outside the United States
4.Warrantless surveillance, during an active war are an
incident to war, an incident of military force,
5.Greenwald asserts cases related to a domestic criminal investigations and domestic crimes the doctrine of probable cause has no merit in connection to an incident of war.
Having said that, Emergency Authority via Executive orders have primarily been written at times when the country was threatened or had notice of a threat or a perceived threat
See Executive Order 12949 Foreign Intelligence Physical Searches
Section 1. Pursuant to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (â€ÂActâ€Â) (50 U.S.C. 1801, et seq.), as amended by Public Law 103- 359, section 302(a)(1) of the Act, the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches,
WITHOUT A COURT ORDER, Enacted February 9, 1995
See Executive Order 12139 Enacted May 23, 1979
WITHOUT A COURT ORDER,
See Executive Order 12333 Enacted December 4, 1981
THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY CAN
INTERCEPT ANY COMMUNICATION-
All enacted by a threat without the substantial urgency or an ongoing war
Third
Tom Daschle -Washington Post op Ed
Moving on to Mr. Disingenuous, and The Washington Post Op Ed.
Mr. Tom Daschle today, in the Washington post made a statement under the illusion that he along with his fellow democrats seem to believe they denied the President the Warrantless authority. Perhaps if Title 50 U.S.C § 1811, – among others, did not exist, Mr. Daschle seems to think that a Pre Patriot Act warrantless electronic surveillance limitation existed, FISA was amended in 1994 to include warrantless physical searches See Pub.L No.103-359, 108 Stat.3444 (Oct.14, 1994) 50 U.S.C §§ 1821-1829
The main support is found in – In re: Sealed Case No. 02-001 page 15 specifically states citing United States v Thuong Dinh Hung 629 F2d 908 (4th Cir.1980) “ The Executive branch should be excused from securing a warrant only when the object of the search or surveillance is conducted primarily for foreign power “ Al Qaeda defines its agents or collaborators” the FISA court goes on to say – the Executive may ignore the warrant requirement of the “Fourth Amendment” Id.at 915. The inherent power of the Commander in Chief is clear, we are at war, the Justice department the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency all
are in fact morph into a branch of the defense department, can you say, “ agency information sharing “ ..You do remember the agency/departments were not sharing intelligence with each other back in 2001 See “Law and Policy Governing the Conduct of Intelligence Activities.” National Security Agency is governed by Department of Defense Directive 5240.1-R, “DoD Activities that May Affect U.S. Persons,” U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive 18. DoDD 5240.1-R, Classified Annex §4.A.3; USSID 18 §5 and Annex A; FBI FISA Minimization Procedures §3. CIA Headquarters Regulation 7-1, “Law and Policy Governing the Conduct of Intelligence Activities.”
Lets go to the cases See- United States v. Duggan, 743 F.2d 59 (1984)
President had the inherent power to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence information, United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972).
United States v. [Cassius] Clay, 430 F.2d 165 (5th Cir. 1970),United States v. Butenko, 494 F.2d 593 (3rd Cir. 1974),United States v. Buck, 548 F.2d 871 (9th Cir. 1977), FISA Court Sealed Case No. 02-001. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347.
In United States v Thuong Dinh Hung 629 F2d 908 (4th Cir.1980) The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. All of the cases cited above involved warrantless searches inside the United States. Article II makes the President Commander in Chief of the armed forces. As such he is preeminent in foreign policy, and especially in military affairs In Fleming v. Page, 9 How. 603, 615 (1850), the Supreme Court wrote that the President has the Constitutional power to “employ [the Nation’s armed forces] in the manner he may deem most effectual to harass and conquer and subdue the enemy.”
Probable Cause, does not exist during a war the fourth amendment becomes
An unreasonable procedure to tracking sophisticated terrorist, who are aware of being “tapped†further Mr. Tom Daschle seems to think enemy combatants and Al Qaeda members are lawful citizens of the United States, Mr.Dashcle assertion has no merit what so ever, another phony ploy by a democrat say it over and over to the media they will believe it.
Sorry Tommy, 9-11 indeed was an incident of war an incident to a national emergency the aftermath still ongoing to this day.
Reasonable Executive authority demands every tool and every means be employed without delay without agency road blocks the warrant “chaperone requirement†process is indeed an unreasonable, irrelevant, merit less act, as John at Protein Wisdom asserted in his 5 star post
ON THE LEGALITY OF THE NSA ELECTRONIC INTERCEPT PROGRAM, “
War most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand.” The President has the Constitutional power to “employ [the Nation’s armed forces] in the manner he may deem most effectual to harass and conquer and subdue the enemy.” See Fleming v. Page, 9 How. 603, 615 (1850) I concur with John’s analysis
“A Special Forces soldier can pick a cave arbitrarily and search it. He isn’t trying to prosecute terrorists; he is trying to kill them.â€Â
Incident of the use of military force the soldier doesn’t need probable cause, the solder is not a prosecutor in a criminal case, neither is the President fighting crime he is The Commander in Chief in a real war with a real threat of a catastrophic attack on American soil this issue before us is an incident of war
Let get back to Mr. Daschle a man who feels he wrote the constitution himself and within his arrogance actually believes he alone controls the law of the land, Daschle’s statement in the Washington Post quote “ I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up. I did not and never would have supported giving authority to the president for such wiretaps.”
Mr. Daschle attempts to show some form of superior position, evidently he feels we are fools don’t flatter yourself the authority was in no way yours to give, enacted four decades ago See 50 U.S.C. § § 1801, 1811, 50 U.S.C § 1802, 18 U.S.C. § 2510, et seq. Executive Order 12949, Executive Order 12139, Executive Order 12333, there was no need to debate warrantless surveillance/wiretaps or Inherent Presidential authority.
Mr. Daschle went further quote- “Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White House sought one last change. Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words”
“in the United States and” after “appropriate force”,
I seem to recall on 9-11-2001
AMERICA WAS ATTACKED
FROM WITHIN THE UNITED STATES,
accordingly the language “in the United States and” after “appropriate force” has substantial relevant and merit, incorporating such language is mandatory to remove any appearance of ambiguity
I apologize for the long rant,
I had no control over my fingers
Too long, IP. Far too long.
(See, cloudy? It ain’t just for folks on your side of the aisle.)
People need to realize it is not a game.
Walter: Oh, they don’t see it as a game. People like Kathy are fully dedicated to making sure we all live as prey. For the smug sense of moral superiority, of course.
Deep down, they feel that someone will throw a flag if he enemy mistakenly hits them.
Wow, odds that Fred has never heard of the Youngstown case before the silly, ignorat leftist argued it was the case regarding this issue is about 1000:1.
MF is still here arguing the President violated FISA. (here is a hint: The NSA has always treated communications of which a party is not a US citizen and is out side the US as an “international” communication).
And then there is Kathy, arguing silly moonbat conspiracy theories as fact.
Merry Christmas!
Several points.
First, merely a mention that you consider a post overly long is not the same as half-a-dozen posts simply razzing, often when the post is short. I see nics designed to satirize Phoenician, but none on the other side. C’mon, let’s be real. There isn’t pure symmetry by a long shot. The idea is simply to render meaningful debate possible, just for starters. There has been some improvement, and I have tried to keep most of my posts short.
Second, the issue of not having a warrant for systematic data mining is not because it is OK with FISA, but because of the presumption that warrants ARE NECESSARILY for specific targets. It’s like saying:
You need a passport to travel outside the US. Oh, they don’t have any passport provisions for Cuba and N Korea (or wherever)? Well, I guess then it’s OK to go there WITHOUT a passport!
The absence of provisions for open-ended snooping warrants under FISA does not thereby create the presidential prerogative to do so WITHOUT a warrant.
Third, I sense from several of the above posts that judges aren’t trusted, citing William O Douglas. But it is my understanding that such warrants, especially where terrorism is alleged, are virtually never denied. So it is a complete red-herring to blame the supposedly uncooperative Courts. And if Courts or the Congress decide against allowing, eg, Total Information Awareness stuff, guess what? In a functioning Constitutional democracy, sometimes you have to live with decisions you don’t like, even if you are a Tory in the White House! It’s a price or risk, I, for one, am willing to accept. I don’t see Congress in fact being unwilling to grant proper and necessary powers to get terrorists. I DO see Bush completely flubbing it on Tora Bora and many other things, and his apologists in a chorus simply standing by their man with justifications whether he is right or wrong.
One other thing. If the AG can authorize a wiretap for 72 hours BEFORE a FISA court grants approval, is the claim here that the application for a FISA Court can’t be prepared in a supposed emergency, in LESS THAN 72 hours? Like the idea of “extraordinary rendition” without 24/7 US supervision to countries like Egypt and Syria because of their ‘cultural and linguistic expertise’, that simply doesn’t pass the smell test.
Indeed.
cloudy
See how reliance on the law enforcement model is inadequate for war fighting? No warrant, No looky.
We could have caught Atta BEFORE 9/11. We didn’t. Now we can.
It’s not the ‘90’s anymore, buddy. We can no longer pretend the end of history hath arrived.
Probable cause is a subjective thing.
Probable cause is the legal standard set by the Fourth Amendment for issuing a search warrant. Subjective or not, it’s the law.
Many judges take pleasure in throwing their weight around as with William O. Douglas and his Warren Court ilk.
You cannot violate the law just because you don’t like the judge.
Imagine if every infantryman had to have an atorney with him to tell him when it is O.K. to shoot – wait a minute, that is how it is, now.
What does that have to do with going to FISA for a wiretap search warrant?
The Fourth Amendment doesn’t say anything about privacy.
Here is the text of the Fourth Amendment:
What is the right that is violated when the government when someone’s body, home, personal documents, and possessions are searched and seized unreasonably without probable cause and a warrant to demonstrate probable cause? If not the right to privacy, then name the right that is violated when the government conducts unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant to demonstrate probable cause.
Since when is the NSA involved in law enforcement? They can’t arrest you for anything. Sheesh, Kathy.
NSA gathers intelligence, not evidence.
So you’re saying no one ever gets arrested on the basis of intelligence the NSA has gathered?
Technology has leaped over the inherent bureaucracy in laws and we have to define anew what ‘reasonable’ means.
Then let’s define it anew in the appropriate fashion for a democratic society: through the legal system. If the Fourth Amendment is unworkable as currently written because of modern technology, then change the law. No one, not even the president—actually, ESPECIALLY not the president—has the right to put himself above the law because he thinks it doesn’t apply anymore.
The resrictions on wire tapping are statutory, not constitutional.
Yes, but those statutes derive from constitutional protections. This IS a constitutional issue.
I believe they are flawed. We need a law that says no one has an expectation of privacy for anything he broadcasts, and that defines broadcasting as any communication outside the protected domecile.
There are a whole bunch of laws I think are flawed. Does that mean I can break them with no adverse consequences? If you think the law is flawed, change it. Don’t violate it.
Do you or do you not weigh in as heavily when domestic law and social policy disadvantage millions of free citizens in the US?
Yes, I do.
As a presumed leftist, where is your ire when unconstitutional law and enforcement every day violate the constitutional rights of innocent American citizens?
It’s out in the open, up close, and in your face.
Geez Kathy
I sure noticed how you sidestepped labeling even the 9/11 hijackers as “terrorists”.
Come on, [almost] teacher. Let’s see if you can answer a question straight up.
Were the 9/11 hijackers terrorists?
Or are you trying to say we must all suspend our personal judgments until some judge tells us what to think?
Or one of those patriot icons like Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi?
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Personal property and personal liberty. Privacy has nothing to do with it.
Kathy
BTW..even though you seen to think that the military operates under the same rules as civilian law enforcement (they don’t), let’s just get back to civilian law enforcement for a bit and DOMESTIC intelligence gathering vis a vis organized crime or gangbanging.
You do KNOW don’t you, since you’re such an expert, that law enforcement units can/do designate people they have under surveillance as “gang members” “mobsters” et al, without ever getting a judge to sign off as “yes, the court recognizes Tookie as a gang member.”
It may also ratchet up your paranoia a few notices to know that in the early 80’s when my husband worked at Northrop in Pico Rivera on the B-2 stealth bomber, it was such a black project at that time that we were briefed that our neighbors would be background checked, especially any new ones, my husband’s brother (a first mate in the Merchant Marines) would be under periodic protective surveillance and that none of these people would know about their surveillance and we were forbidden to alert them.
Ya think THAT was a violation of their “privacy”?
cloudy wrote:
That’s oversimplified. But if we’re going to oversimplify things, I can say that the authorities generally don’t have the right to search my person and effects without probable cause, but the TSA does get to make everyone who wants to get on an international flight walk through a metal detector, and the same with their luggage.
Is there any case law on it? Not to my knowledge, and I suspect there is none.
Why? Because such ops are generally pure intell ops. For a court to decide the legality of a program like Echelon (of which the current program seems to be an extension), there needs to be a party injured by the program, which generally would be someone prosecuted on the basis of such intercepts.
If the US gets the info and does not use it in a prosecution, who can challenge it? Certainly not the terror cell in Anbar that has its hut blown up by a JDAM.
Which brings us back to one of Jeff’s underlying themes—are we in a war, or aren’t we? If we are, no one should be surprised that we will be collecting all sorts of intell for all sorts of reasons other than a criminal prosecution—just as an administrative search like an airport metal detector is done for reasons other than criminal prosecution. In both cases, prevention of a potential threat is deemed sufficient for a warrntless search.
If we revert to the pre-9/11 mindset of seeing terrorism as primarily a law enforcement issue, then there is no need for such activity. That would not affect the legailty of that activity, but it appears that people with the second mindset have trouble grasping the concept that intell can be collected for purposes other than law enforcement.
As far as I can tell, airport searches—while a pain in the rear—have not heralded the end of the Republic. And I suspect that having a computer flag calls between Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq and numbers that have turned up on computers of combatants in those countries (esp. if certain keywords are used) won’t end the Republic either—it’s more likely they will help preserve the Republic. I would note that any number of other countries expressly allow domestic intell gathering. If the Left succeeds in crippling this program, the next terror attack on US soil may well result in the creation of a domestic intell agency here.
cloudy also wrote:
Actually, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review noted that every court which has decided the issue has ruled that the POTUS has inherent constitutional authority under Article II to conduct warrantless foreign surveillance. And collection of such intell has probably been done in every war involving the US, with the possible exception of the civil war.
Good points, Darleen. Let’s also not forget that they send people out wearing wires, and have people informing on others…all with no warrants.
You’d think you’d have the right to a private conversation with the expectation that no one is listening. But then, you’d be wrong.
tw: “Reading” It’s fundamental.
This in answer to, what?—8 or 9 posts now that I’ve noted that, though SCOTUS has never ruled on this, every court has simply presumed it to be within power of the President.
Why bother continuing this discussion if the answer to repeated statements of fact is simply a repeated, ungrounded assertion that refuses to acknowledge repeated statements of fact?
It’s useless. And tiresome.
Pablo
Another thing, almost all beat cops wear wires, or have a video cam in their car to monitor/record even the most simple traffic stop.
And I shouldn’t have to tell anyone how much INFORMATION cops gather when they plunk suspects into the rear of the patrol car and THOSE conversations are recorded, too!
Ahah… ahahahahahaha…. AHAHAHAHAHAA!!!
Dude, you’re killing me.
You know what, kathy? I’m sure this will be disturbing to you, but those terrorists captured and interrogated without trial are the lucky ones. A whole bunch of them are simply shot, bombed, blowen up, or burned down without being convicted or even tried; a lot of them never even get to hear their Miranda rights.
But I thank you for providing such a lovely example of the degree to which the counter-arguments are fundamentally unserious.
I do hold most judges in contempt. Remember that judge Ito said that O.J’.s shouted “I killed the bitch” was not admissible because Rosy Greer was functioning as a confessor.
There is nothing in the 4th Amendment that says when you yell across the street that is privileged communication. Wiretap prohibition is satutory and as such is narrowly considered. Even the Miranda warning is a piece of fatuous nonsense advanced by game playing judicial tyrants. And don’t get me started on judicial exclusion of evidence.
Excellent. Then for the last time, tell me where you come down on civil rights violations that happen every day in the domestic US at the behest of leftwing social law.
As you well know but conveniently ignore, we’re talking impaired freedoms of religion and speech on taxpaid property, institutionalized education by government paid under penalty of law, chronic and statistical gender bias in family court, completely violated due process in domestic cases, no equal protection for fathers vs mothers, a government that sells law to the highest bidders, excess regulation of damn near every personal property imaginable, no right to own real estate except under what amounts to a lease to government, and a general harm to just about every basic constitutional right.
These and more routinely occur at the hands of your socialist nanny government, presumably led by self-blinded, dishonest socialists such as yourself who know and care nothing for the Constitution except when you can use it for some other purpose.
I propose that your chronic refusal to comment on that simple fact exposes a dishonest, one-issue, and entirely partisan agenda.
IOW, you chronically lie out in the open, and you do so in the face of your claimed constitutional sensibilities. Your virtually invoking the constitutional values of say, Jefferson, is of course, utter bullshit.
Nothing about that is genuine, balanced, or equitable, Kathy. It’s as functionally challenged as the other leftist headcase arguments that pollute this board.
Heh. This issue needs to go libertarian/authoritarian instead of left/right …
Meanwhile, before some ostensible concervative (hi Darleen) takes my face off for agreeing with you that government IS and HAS ALWAYS been the domestic problem—even with necessary intelligence-gathering in time of war aside—I’ll content myself asking the likes of these sudden, strict, one-issue, “constitutional” leftist converts where they’ve been for the last 50 or 75 years …
Liars. Shameless, disordered, opportunistic moonbat liars.
Most of them smell funny, too.
One more post on one-issue, anti-Bush, hair-on-fire, moonbat mendacity: A single, routine example of where ACLU-style socialists not only have zero respect for the Constitution, but actually aid and abet it’s ruin:
One day Dad comes home from work to find the cops on his front lawn. Mom filed a domestic violence charge, a bogus one. Mom’s divorce lawyer knew the system well and they chose this well-worn practice as cover for Mom’s indescretions and in order for her to bilk Dad out of everything he owned and lived for.
Because of mandatory arrest law, the cops hauled Dad away anyway—they’d seen this before but had no choice. There was no hearing. Dad was fingerprinted and entered into the system. He was told not to go home.
Mom’s attorney, aided by a feminist domestic violence group housed in the court building on taxpaid property, had already filed a restraining order and a motion for divorce. Dad spent the next three months in a motel, prohibited any contact with his three children.
When the case came to trial, preexisting law—modeled on a national standard designed by the Washington women’s lobby and made into federal law—rubberstamped Dad’s permanent loss of the house, “granted” his child custody (alternating weekends) and ordered $2400 a month in unmanaged, tax-free “child support”. Mom moved to Florida with her boyfriend and Washington matched 2/3 of the “support” amount and fed it back to the local government that’d made the bust on Dad.
At the end of the day, Dad had spent $29,000 in legal fees to lose his home, his kids, and half his income.
The stress produced chronic fatigue, post traumatic stress disorder, and probably led to Dad developing terminal cancer. Dad lost his job and was jailed for nonpayment of “support” even though he couldn’t work and the US has a constitutional provision against debtor’s prison.
Dad died less than four years later, in poverty, his oldest child aged nine and 2,500 miles away.
Kathy, given your consistent, vocal defense of the Constitution, I’m curious if you can pick out the half dozen or more violations of the rights of this innocent taxpayer … or if you even care to try. I’m curious if you know how many times a year this happens. And I’m curious if you know the power your local legal associations have on and off the bench, and how much they and the feminist lobby wield in your state’s legislature. And I’m wondering if you have any “constitutional” compassion for the loss of a father’s life.
Oh, bear in mind that this Dad actually fought the system. Every year thousands of others, faced with the permanent and irrevocable loss of every last trust they had in society—in this constitutional republic of Jefferson and Franklin—just elect to put a bullet through their heads. So it goes in socialist nanny American government.
So, Kathy, where are the protesting leftists? Have you personally gotten in the faces of the sisterhood and its enablers?
tw: Street.
Kathy is yet another person who does not understand the immense difference between law enforcement and war.
The war on terror is indeed a war and “constitutional protections” are almost nonexistant for combatants – and should be almost nonexistant. Those who created our Constitution and those who governed under it for more than a century and a half understood this but suddenly this common sense understanding has evaporated for no reason.
A few thoughts on the ‘Youngstown’ case/analogy/precedent:
1.)Harry Truman also had his troubles with politicians who at first whole-heartedly supported the Korean War, but then lost their nerve. At least he didn’t want to lose that war…
2. If Bush=Truman, do Steelworkers=Terrorists? That’s a funny position for a liberal.
3. It would be interesting to know if any Communist sympathies on the part of union leaders precipitated that strike.
4. Okay; say that the strike was not just an inconvenience, but was causing troops under fire to go without ammo–and Congress still wouldn’t act? What then? Elect a new Congress in two years?
5. Under ‘Kelo’, wouldn’t Truman have been justified in seizing private property for a ‘public purpose’ (winning a war)? Or Bush, for that matter? Hey; you’re the ones who say the Court has “the Last Word”!
FISA was passed in ‘78. I take it Jimmy Carter signed it. Figures. Regardless, Congress cannot remove any Constitutional duty or prerogative from another branch, except as specified in the Constitution itself. And there is always an inherent tension. For example, no president of either party has ackowledged himself to be bound fully under the War Powers Act. Nor would a Supreme Court ruling change that. How could it?
Imagine yourself driving in Dallas in 1963. The Secret Service come and commandeer your car to chase Lee Harvey Oswald. Are they car theives? No. They’re in hot pursuit of a grave threat to the nation. I maintain President Bush is too. And the Times & co. are merely in hot pursuit of a Hillary presidency. Feh.
The reason that Youngstown doesn’t apply to the NSA controversy is this, there wasn’t any statutory authorization passed by Congress ( because Congress holds the war powers, not the President ) for Truman to seize control of private business during the Korean War.
Here, the President has a resolution by Congress authorizing him to use all force necessary against Al Queda and other terrorists and surveillance is rather obviously part of the nation’s military assets.
There’s no parallel.
Robin,
I agree that ‘Youngstown’ has no bearing. Also that Congress authorized this. But I further stipulate that the Constitution authorizes–no, demands–this. This should have been done all along. Indeed, the NSA was doing some of this before 9/11 and had wind of some of the hijackers. But the Gorelick Great Wall of Chinese Contributions precluded any action.
Having the CINC’s power to defend the nation contingent upon the whims of Congress could be a little like McCain’s ‘Ticking Time-Bomb’ exception: “Well, we’ll make it illegal–but if it works out well, we probably won’t prosecute you.” No thanks.
I never forgave Ike for his “If I am elected I will go to Korea and end the war.” He handed the North over to Kim and son, and gave the commies heart to keep fighting. That bastard.