Government Spying...

[vraiblonde]

It seems to me like people do not want tobe protected. They complain about the measures the President wants to impliment and call them unconstitutional such as phone taps or "eaves dropping", and the security searches. Some places have gone as far as relaxing their searches to a few people. But as soon as something happens again, people will back peddle and say that it will be the Presidents fault. People will have forgotten that he tried to do as much as he can but the other people in government and some of the citezen's, who complain that their rights were infringed upon,
lobbyed to say that what the President wants to do is unjust.

That was a beautiful post and exactly the case. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

[vraiblonde]

No, but I think who ever leaked this needs to go to jail.

I completely agree

 

[itsbob]

national security did not override the gurarantee that before government could invade the privacy of its citizens

Ignorant Judges... Who cares if 5,000 Americans Die tomorrow, as long as this person 's, who is communicating with a known terrorist training camp, rights are protected.

 

[Schizo]

national security did not override the gurarantee that before government could invade the privacy of its citizens

Ignorant Judges... Who cares if 5,000 Americans Die tomorrow, as long as this person 's, who is communicating with a known terrorist training camp, rights are protected.

Three words...

checks and balances

 

[Pete]

OK, after a great deal of thought I am going to have to say, based on the information I have read, that Bush was wrong. Not wrong in what he wanted to do, just wrong in how he went about it because it seems to be in conflict with the precedents set and the constitutional protections of privacy and unreasonable search and seizure.

Why cannot the Justice Department go to a federal judge and get a warrant for wiretaps within minutes? Even a wide reaching warrant? They do it for other sorts of organized crime all the time and the warrant remains sealed. :shrug:

What makes this case break the other way for me is it seems Bush did not try at all to find a remedy for his needs within the system. Instead it seemed he presumably predicted an impossible situation trying to deal with the courts and he circumvented it totally. What did he need to make his needs met? Speed and secrecy. Why could he not get the courts to work with him to meet these needs? A section in the DC District court with a magistrate and a secure location to handle national security warrants. It is not like their would be that many people involved in the process, Justice Department fills out the affidavit, a Justice Department lawyer walks it over to the National Security Court, Briefs the Judge in a closed session, Judge signs it and wala.

This is all of course would be in accordance with the fourth amendment, which BTW is the law of the land no matter how unappealing it is to afford "rights" to people conventional wisdom indicates are criminals.

If these guys are wiretapping a suspected terrorist, and they find out about a load of heroin that is coming in to be sold can they tip off the DEA and local authorities? Not really. Cop: Judge we got a tip deez guyzz haulin in heroin. Judge: How did you get this information? Cop: We gotsa tip from some illegal wiretap stuff.

Fruit of the poison tree.

Now slippery slope speaking, say this National Security argument works. Now you can have government trying to link everything to "National Security" to bust people without having to get warrants.

 

[Steve]

Now slippery slope speaking, say this National Security argument works. Now you can have government trying to link everything to "National Security" to bust people without having to get warrants.

Totalitarian tactics?

Speaking from my personal experience, I would not allow the media and the pundits to get you all spun up concerning the level of "wiretapping" or the methods that are being employed. The rules and regulations that guide collectors are very much enforced and obeyed. In seeking out potential terrorists, you can bet that non-terrorist related information is also being collected. However, the sharing or further dissemination of this information outside the scope of the mission (i.e. terrorism) is highly controlled.

The media caught wind of the fact that such collection is occurring and immediately wants everyone to believe, everyone to actually fear to their very core, that "the government" will eventually get them using this collected information and usurp their freedoms under the guise of terrorist apprehension. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The media depends on chaos and discord to sell the evening's headlines, so it will do whatever it can to keep stories like this in the limelight. There is no Fifth Column in the shadows of the government. If anything, the media and it's cronies are the Fifth Column! Real life really isn't a Tom Clancy novel, you know.

 

[Steve]

And how dare Daschle, Levin, and Feinstein(!) shroud themselves in the Constitution as defense against Bush's decision on domestic intelligence?!? These three have done more to destroy Constitutional rights than perhaps any other group in American history! Their hypocrisy is UFB!

 

[2ndAmendment]

Warrantless ''National Security'' Electronic Surveillance .--

In Katz v. United States, 151 Justice White sought to preserve for a future case the possibility that in ''national security cases'' electronic surveillance upon the authorization of the President or the Attorney General could be permissible without prior judicial approval. The Executive Branch then asserted the power to wiretap and to ''bug'' in two types of national security situations, against domestic subversion and against foreign intelligence operations, first basing its authority on a theory of ''inherent'' presidential power and then in the Supreme Court withdrawing to the argument that such surveillance was a ''reasonable'' search and seizure and therefore valid under the Fourth Amendment. Unanimously, the Court held that at least in cases of domestic subversive investigations, compliance with the warrant provisions of the Fourth Amendment was required. 152 Whether or not a search was reasonable, wrote Justice Powell for the Court, was a question which derived much of its answer from the warrant clause; except in a few narrowly circumscribed classes of situations, only those searches conducted pursuant to warrants were reasonable. The Government's duty to preserve the national security did not override the gurarantee that before government could invade the privacy of its citizens it must present to a neutral magistrate evidence sufficient to support issuance of a warrant authorizing that invasion of privacy. 153 This protection was even more needed in ''national security cases'' than in cases of ''ordinary'' crime, the Justice continued, inasmuch as the tendency of government so often is to regard opponents of its policies as a threat and hence to tread in areas protected by the First Amendment as well as by the Fourth. 154 Rejected also was the argument that courts could not appreciate the intricacies of investigations in the area of national security nor preserve the secrecy which is required. 155


http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment04/05.html#6

Operative word is "citizens" in the opinion. Strictly, the guarantees under the Constitution apply to citizens and not to non citizens.

 

[vraiblonde]

OK, after a great deal of thought I am going to have to say, based on the information I have read, that Bush was wrong.

Did you happen to read the information that said what Bush authorized is NOT illegal? And that it's been done by every US President in modern history? EVEN Willie Jeff?

AND, last but not least, apparently this came to a Congressional vote and the verdict was But now these Democrats have the NERVE to want an investigation!

Rush Limbaugh was all over this today - I got to listen while I was out shopping.

 

[wmburdette]

The echelon program was so secret that 60 Minutes was only able to run one complete segment on this in February of 2000, when, if I remember correctly, the Disgraced Former President William Clinton was in office.

 

[Steve]

The echelon program was so secret that 60 Minutes was only able to run one complete segment on this in February of 2000, when, if I remember correctly, the Disgraced Former President William Clinton was in office.

But Europeans were the victims in the Echelon incident, not Americans per se, so the media let it drop. Oh, and Clinton was in office, so the media let it drop.

 

[SAHRAB]

And how dare Daschle, Levin, and Feinstein(!) shroud themselves in the Constitution as defense against Bush's decision on domestic intelligence?!? These three have done more to destroy Constitutional rights than perhaps any other group in American history! Their hypocrisy is UFB!

did you miss Pelosi on purpose?





(that would be the Pelosi that has a Concealed permit, but wants to ban you or i from said protection)

 

[SAHRAB]

The echelon program was so secret that 60 Minutes was only able to run one complete segment on this in February of 2000, when, if I remember correctly, the Disgraced Former President William Clinton was in office.

Shhhh you said the hallowed one. nothing he did was ever wrong. Heck now their saying the aspirin factory he cruise missiled (in the middle of the night) is what destroyed SoDamnInsanes WMD's

 

[Steve]

did you miss Pelosi on purpose?
(that would be the Pelosi that has a Concealed permit, but wants to ban you or i from said protection)

Throw her on as well! Feinstein had concealed carry also, probably still does.

 

[SAHRAB]

Throw her on as well! Feinstein had concealed carry also, probably still does.

Heck my favorite is Rosie (Camily, that would be O'donnel not Palmer)

 

[Steve]

Heck my favorite is Rosie (Camily, that would be O'donnel not Palmer)

Feinstein, Pelosi, O'Donnell...I think I'm sensing a pattern here. At one time, "Feindstein" was apparently the only person in San Fransisco with a concealed carry permit.

Senator Feinstein is a staunch gun control advocate. Despite her stance, in the 1970s, she obtained a concealed firearms carry permit, and carried a handgun with her. A CCW permit was then rare in California, and was the only such permit in San Francisco. At the time, she was the target of a terrorist group that had shot out all the windows in her home. She no longer carries a gun.

She felt threatened - by terrorists! Oh, the hypocrisy... And what did she feel about the importance of this 2nd Amendment right at the time, that she has worked so long and so hard to deny everyone else?

"And, I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that's what I did. I was trained in firearms. I'd walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me."

How does she live with herself? Oh, that's right...she's an elitist like most politicians and celebrities.

 

[SAHRAB]

Feinstein, Pelosi, O'Donnell...I think I'm sensing a pattern here. At one time, "Feindstein" was apparently the only person in San Fransisco with a concealed carry permit.

She felt threatened - by terrorists! Oh, the hypocrisy... And what did she feel about the importance of this 2nd Amendment right at the time, that she has worked so long and so hard to deny everyone else?

[/i]

How does she live with herself? Oh, that's right...she's an elitist like most politicians and celebrities.

My Bad i got Feinstein and Pelosi mixed up. there too much alike

 

[tikipirate]

The reason he didn't go to the courts is obvious, more so today then yesterday. It was Covert, it was Secret, you take it to the courts the press would have been all over this WHEN we needed it to be secret the most.

I believe a bigger reason Bush didn't go to the courts is the possibility that the courts would have turned him down. Then he could no longer skirt laws, going forward would have been an obvious crime. It is better to ask forgiveness than permission.

 

[Ponytail]

I feel sorry for the poor agent who listens to my boring phone calls.

I feel the same way. I don't givvuhshit who is listening or watching me. If that's what it takes to give another American a job, cool. I feel sorry for him, but hey, it's one less person not leaching off of welfare.

Do I REALLY think anybody is listening to my phone calls? Nope. They have no reason too. If they did, or have, so what? Do I think the country is safer for the pres taking this action? Yep, I sure do.

It's mostly technology that is listening anyway, not people. People don't start listening until the 'puter "hears" a catch phrase, word, or is turned on to multiple calls to/from known threats.

 

[Bruzilla]

Sounds like Americans thinking like Americans and having a John Kerry Treat Terrorists Like Criminals moment. I think that the point that's missed here is that we're at war with these folks... they aren't the mafia. We're not worried about building court cases against them, we're interested in defeating them.

If an infantry leader gets word from a POW that the enemy is about to make a major push into his area, is the infantry leader expected to document that fact for a future trial? No, he's there to stop an enemy's actions so we can win a war not prosecute someone.

It's an established fact that illegally-obtained evidence can't be used against someone at a trial, but we're not "at trial" with Al Qaeda... we're "at war." I doubt anyone but the yellowist of yellow dog Dems would toss a hissy fit if a housefull of armed terrorists got shot up and killed by the FBI after being eavesdropped on by the government without a warrant.