Spying on US citizens

[Ghost of BiB]

The point, before I went waltzing through the flowers with VA, is that wiretapping US citizens is illegal, and furthermore, the government can EASILY get warrants for terror-related wiretaps.

 

Bush's justification for the wiretaps is this (which is different than what Rice offered up on Sunday).

 

"As president of the United States and commander in chief I have the constitutional responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country."

 

That's bullsh1t. He can get these wiretaps without endrunning the 4th Amendment and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without court approval. No one in the administration has offered the slightest legal defense to the wiretaps.

 

For you and BiB, whose comments amount to an accusation that people like me are all fiddling while Rome burns, I don't buy it. The administration can get these warrants to wiretap with ease. The administration hasn't provided one iota of response for how it can justify violating the Constitution. That's troubling.

 

VA doesn't care what the administration does in trampling the Constitution. He doesn't care if the government wiretaps every public phone booth in the US. Basically, the rule of law, to him, is for pu$$ies.

537085[/snapback]

 

How the hell did I get drug into this?

[VABills]

How the hell did I get drug into this?

537181[/snapback]

Do you disagree with his argument that they are fiddling?

 

And I do care about certain rights, however, if it means that some dirtbag is planted illegally and it saves my family I have no problem with it. I don't go around making phone calls to order drugs, illegally gamble, make terrorists threats, etc... Isn't it great that the people who want to take every little nuance in the law and twist it so that anything goes, but when something bad happens it is the governments fault.

[Alexander Hamilton]

I'm not sure if you watched it, but Russert said, basically, okay, but give me one thing in the constitution, anything, any law that gives him this right. And she said the I know you have me dead answer of, "I'm not a lawyer". In all my and I would think anyone's years of watching politicians squirm, it's pretty damn easy to see when they know they are stuck or whether they are arguing a point and have conviction. She had zero conviction in her answers. He kept coming back to it, asking for anything resembling a precedent, or a law, or a law that superecedes other laws, and she was just blank.

537176[/snapback]

 

What's worse was that she had to know those questions were coming. What's worse than that is that she was the fugging National Security Advosor at the time this was all happening!!!!

[Alexander Hamilton]

How the hell did I get drug into this?

537181[/snapback]

 

Well, if you would shut up about the disposable cell phones, I would have left you out of it. As it is, between your disposable cell phones and VA's phone booths, I keep getting distracted.

 

At least give me this: this is one of the better topics discussed here in a few weeks, even with VA trampling on the Constitution.

[VABills]

Well, if you would shut up about the disposable cell phones, I would have left you out of it. As it is, between your disposable cell phones and VA's phone booths, I keep getting distracted.

 

At least give me this: this is one of the better topics discussed here in a few weeks, even with VA trampling on the Constitution.

537239[/snapback]

The constitution is for pussies.

 

The law of order should be what ever I deem goes.

[Mickey]

Well good for you.  You get all high and fucing mighty, and when the big bad us citizen doesn't get his cellphone sig capture and he blows up your work building or someones building that you love, don't go !@#$ing whining to me.  Because I will just say i told you so.

537044[/snapback]

BS.

They can tap it, capture it, whatever, all they want and without a warrant for the first 72 hours which gives them plenty of time to get that warrant and the body that issues them has a record of saying "yes" to the application 100% of the time.

You have posted many times in this thread and have not yet addressed this issue. The emergency scenario you outline just doesn't wash given that they can listen in all they want from the git-go. They can take their sweet time getting the warrant which is always, always issued.

[Mickey]

72 hours might not be enough to stop an event. 

 

But then, you're mixing your issues here - is this a law enforcement issue, or a national security issue?  Law enforcement NEEDS the warrant for reasons of criminal law...the military does not for national security purposes...though the military is also forbidden from operations within the continental US...except in time of war...which this may or may not be...

 

It would be nice if it were a clean, clear-cut issue.  It's not.  There is a definite gray area between the requirements of law enforcement and the needs of national security organizations...which is why the "quasi-warfare" methods of terrorists and insurgents frequently work so well, operating as they do in said gray area.  But everyone can just keep ignoring me and arguing about Katz or the public/private nature of Verizon equipment... 

537060[/snapback]

The 72 hours is to allow them time to get the warrant. The warrant request is always granted. The record is 1,222 granted out of 1,226 requested. The 4 rejects were then granted upon an expedited appeal. 72 hours is plenty of time to put together a warrant application. So the way it works is they start tapping from the git go and while doing so they get the warrant application together and before whoever the judges are that decide these things under FISA and bam, they have their warrant and continue listening in.

 

I just don't get it. I have no idea why they would just go ahead and tap without ever asking for a warrant when they know the warrant would be granted. I can only guess that they were tapping people with such a complete absence of grounds, that they knew FISA, even with its "any reason will do" standard, would have denied the warrant.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

So, if that is indeed the case, why have any civil liberty constraints on the Executive Branch at all if they deem the other two branches of power to be security risks?  Just about every action this administration takes could be deemed an action in the interests of national security with regards to the GWOT, and therefore not answerable to any laws.  Where is the line drawn if they are going to shout "9-11" at every constitutional roadblock?

537167[/snapback]

 

 

My personal view is that the line should have been drawn before they got to the point of illegal wire taps. It was not uncommon in past precedent, though, for every action of an administration to be considered in the interests of national security and ergo extra-legal - I recall Lincoln was routinely criticized for even worse excesses than Bush has been. Bush, at least, has not suspended habeus corpus, last I checked.

 

Look, I'm not saying I agree with it - I don't; I believe that the freedoms given to us in the Constitution require certain trade-offs in security, one of those being the possibility of gomers flying planes into buildings and killing thousands. C'est la vie. Speaking as someone for whom 9/11 was a very concrete and real event (given that my apartment at the time was right next to the Pentagon, and I witnessed the whole thing first hand) and not an abstraction, if that's the price of the Constitution, I'm okay with it.

 

But I understand the opposing point of view, based on my knowledge of military history and intelligence, that the level of security perceived necessary in this day and age and war is not provided for by the guarantees of the Constitution. The Law - the arena in which the Constitution resides - is not meant nor designed to provide for security, it is intended to provide for justice. Two very different things, with two very different approaches, that in the arena of asymmetric warfare (i.e. terrorism) mix very, very poorly. How do you combat an opponent who uses the very freedoms guaranteed by a society to attack said society? You do it one of two ways: the Clinton method - guaranteeing society's protections, and thus allowing the terrorists to operate under a certain measure of freedom, or the Bush method - stomping all over the terrorists, but compromising society's protections. The problem is that either way, you're !@#$ed...either the terrorists operate largely unmolested and successfully (as al Qaeda did under Clinton), or they're greatly hindered but you lose guaranteed freedoms (as under Bush). Pick your poison. My preference is somewhere between the two (strict adherence to Constitutional law inside our borders, "anything goes" outside) - and is notably insufficient as well. The problem, at its most fundamental level, is that our legal and social systems are not set up to fight this kind of war.

[Mickey]

Isn't it a little early to jump on the bandwagon to say that there's no legal defense to what they've been doing?  There is an accusation from the NYT that conversations of US citizens were listened to, without a warrant.  That, in a vacuum, is pretty damning.  But we don't know the circumstance, nor the procedure, and as the monkey points out, we don't know whether it falls under criminal or national security grounds.  Why was Badilla held for years without a formal charge?

 

I also see a reason why the admin is being tight lipped on the explanation - chances are this is an ongoing activity.  NYT outing the process compromises the intel gathering, which now needs to be scrapped.  I'm guessing is that for a full accounting of this program to air, many secrets would have to be divulged.  You're asking them to come open on all of this in less than a week?

537103[/snapback]

Gonzalez spoke today and I expected him to lay out a very clear case for the legality of what was done. He didn't. His claim is that the authorization to use military force in Afghanistan issued by Congress somehow makes the illegal taps legal. It is an assinine argument that Congress, by allowing the President to send troops to Afghanistan was also authorizing wire taps in the US on US citizens. Really, I was expecting something that was at least debatable on its face.

 

Here is the Act:

 

Act Authorizing Military Force

 

The "Whereas" clauses by the way, mean nothing and have no legal effect as a matter of law. The long held rule of construction of laws holds that anything in a "whereas" clause is precatory, it means diddly.

[Mickey]

Operational security.  If you file the warrant, you're in effect giving notice that you're investigating someone.  You may not want that notice given, because that someone then skips town, and you have no more source of information. 

 

Or...you may not get the warrant (your evidence backing the request may be lacking), and it's much easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.  Which DOES smack of arrogance, indisputably. 

 

Or..the evidence backing the request, if divulged, would reveal methods and means, and the revelation ITSELF would compromise national security (which is possible). 

 

The bottom-line, non-arrogant reason, though, is that you're simply operating under constraints that preclude it.  Your basis for a potential warrant, for example, is data gleaned from interrogations at Gitmo, which I highly doubt are acceptable in a court of law.  (That particular example, of course, just shifts the accusation of arrogance from wiretapping to extra-legal prison camps, so it's not terribly satisfactory.  But it's hardly the only example...just the only one I have time for now.)

 

And "arrogance" certainly isn't outside the realm of possibility either.    It's just that there's plenty of valid ones, as well.  Of which "pay phones are public domain" is NOT one, I hasten to add... 

537153[/snapback]

The warrant requests are top secret, are they not? I thought that was the whole idea behind FISA, to come up with a way to honor our national security concerns while still maintaining constitutional principles.

[Mickey]

My personal view is that the line should have been drawn before they got to the point of illegal wire taps.  It was not uncommon in past precedent, though, for every action of an administration to be considered in the interests of national security and ergo extra-legal - I recall Lincoln was routinely criticized for even worse excesses than Bush has been.  Bush, at least, has not suspended habeus corpus, last I checked. 

 

Look, I'm not saying I agree with it - I don't; I believe that the freedoms given to us in the Constitution require certain trade-offs in security, one of those being the possibility of gomers flying planes into buildings and killing thousands.  C'est la vie.  Speaking as someone for whom 9/11 was a very concrete and real event (given that my apartment at the time was right next to the Pentagon, and I witnessed the whole thing first hand) and not an abstraction, if that's the price of the Constitution, I'm okay with it.

 

But I understand the opposing point of view, based on my knowledge of military history and intelligence, that the level of security perceived necessary in this day and age and war is not provided for by the guarantees of the Constitution.  The Law - the arena in which the Constitution resides - is not meant nor designed to provide for security, it is intended to provide for justice.  Two very different things, with two very different approaches, that in the arena of asymmetric warfare (i.e. terrorism) mix very, very poorly.  How do you combat an opponent who uses the very freedoms guaranteed by a society to attack said society?  You do it one of two ways: the Clinton method - guaranteeing society's protections, and thus allowing the terrorists to operate under a certain measure of freedom, or the Bush method - stomping all over the terrorists, but compromising society's protections.  The problem is that either way, you're !@#$ed...either the terrorists operate largely unmolested and successfully (as al Qaeda did under Clinton), or they're greatly hindered but you lose guaranteed freedoms (as under Bush).  Pick your poison.  My preference is somewhere between the two (strict adherence to Constitutional law inside our borders, "anything goes" outside) - and is notably insufficient as well.  The problem, at its most fundamental level, is that our legal and social systems are not set up to fight this kind of war.

537266[/snapback]

A friend of mine died on 9/11, we were on the soccer team, the swim team and in the same choir for 4 years in HS. I have no problem cutting it close on the constitution when it comes to security. It seems to me however, that FISA does just that. You can wire tap your fannies off for 72 hours before you even have to ask for a warrant and when you do, its a stone-cold-lead-pipe-lock that you'll get it. That pares down the constitution on this issue to almost nothing. Even that brief nod to constitutional principle was too cumbersome for this administration.

I want to know why.

[Ghost of BiB]

Just a thought...but there MAY be communications mediums out there where one has to fish with a big net, and then sort through the fish to get the tuna in question. In other words, whatever warrant everyone is talking about might well require the intercept of thousands of communications, to enable the software to identify the ones of interest, which in themselves might be fairly vague in description.

[slothrop]

PUBLIC phone booth.  It isn't yours.  Therefore I have no problems with anything said on it to be captured.

536820[/snapback]

 

Its irrelevant whether you have a problem with anything said on a public phone being "captured." Luckily, the Constitution has a problem with "capturing" conversations on a pubic phone without a warrant.

[Mickey]

Just a thought...but there MAY be communications mediums out there where one has to fish with a big net, and then sort through the fish to get the tuna in question. In other words, whatever warrant everyone is talking about might well require the intercept of thousands of communications, to enable the software to identify the ones of interest, which in themselves might be fairly vague in description.

537292[/snapback]

If you are saying that there were cicumstances where it was not possible to get a warrant, or a complete one, then that would be easy enough to defend. "We didn't use FISA in certain limited situations where the technology involved made it impossible to process the warrant application in 3 days." They are not saying that. They are saying that the authorization to use military force in Afghanistan gave the President the authority to tap US Citizens.

 

As for the need, why the barest of minimums under FISA couldn't be bothered with, they haven't offered anything. I imagine there are some "excuse gnomes" buried beneath the White House chained to the wall and being whipped daily until they come up with a plausible excuse for all this. Early money is on "9/11".

[Mickey]

Its irrelevant whether you have a problem with anything said on a public phone being "captured." Luckily, the Constitution has a problem with "capturing" conversations on a pubic phone without a warrant.

537334[/snapback]

If you can tap a "public phone" because it is "public", can you also film a stall in a "public" bathroom because it is "public" after all?

[PastaJoe]

If you can tap a "public phone" because it is "public", can you also film a stall in a "public" bathroom because it is "public" after all?

537339[/snapback]

 

Great, now I have to worry about pictures of my junk being stored at the NSA.

[ieatcrayonz]

If you can tap a "public phone" because it is "public", can you also film a stall in a "public" bathroom because it is "public" after all?

537339[/snapback]

Technically, sloth called it a pubic phone. This must be covered under some blanket anti-porn legislation.

[Mickey]

Great, now I have to worry about pictures of my junk being stored at the NSA. 

537359[/snapback]

That would explain why Condi spent so much time pouring over surveillance footage. And we thought she was merely being vigilant.

[Berg]

That would explain why Condi spent so much time pouring over surveillance footage.  And we thought she was merely being vigilant.

537390[/snapback]

 

"footage"?? Maybe it was "inchage"????

 

 

I crack myself up sometimes

[Alaska Darin]

I find it VERY humorous that the proponents of the "big government" parties are surprised that the power they have turned over is being misused.

 

Keep it up, lemmings.