NSA Spying isn't "Domestic Abuse"

Townhall.com ^ | 2/7/2006 | David Limbaugh

[palmer]

The Constitution does not allow Congress to pawn off its powers onto other branches.

JOINT RESOLUTION

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.

...

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

[SR 50]

......our Founding Fathers didn't grant sweeping spy powers to the president".

Do you mean George Washington?

[dirtboy]

Yep, the same courts who once ruled black people were property and still say the same of the pre-born.

So, in other words, you have NO INTENTION of reading up on this.

go with the original text before some liberal judge's interpretation of it.

Hey, knock yourself out. But the courts have quite a bit more sway in this matter than you do.

Our Constitution was written at a time when the threat of espionage, invasion and attacks on civilians was even greater than today,

I guess those attacks on the WTC were just a dream, kinda like Bobby being in the shower in Dallas.

and our Founding Fathers didn't grant sweeping spy powers to the President.

Oh, puh-leeze. The stuff Lincoln did during the Civil War was far more draconian than anything Bush is doing now. And you also might read up on the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by ... the Founders. So much for your claims.

Oh, and Washington? He sent the military to crush the Whiskey Rebellion. So much for a weak executive in domestic affairs.

[Kaslin]

All Bush needs to do it go to a judge and get a warrant, like we've been doing for covert surveillance for years, and there wouldn't be any issue at all.

This is is a different situation. Our lives could be indanger if the president had to wait for 72 hours until a warrant is issued

[M. Dodge Thomas]

At a minimum, it seems to me (as a lay person), that even if in the end SCOTUS would determine this to be unconstitutional

The first question is whether the White House would recognize the authority of the SC to decide such questions – such authority is not unequivocally present in the constitution.

If not, then impeachment, conviction and the removal from office of the POTUS would be the only manner of answering the question in the affirmative – this is potentially a very high-stakes game.

they would also find that President Bush did use due diligence when determining his opinion, that he does have the Constitutional right to intercept communications with possible terror suspects.

An act is constitutional, or it’s not – there’s no exception for good intentions in the Constitution.

The question is whether there is a wartime exception to the normal operation of constitutional protection of US citizens against certain sorts of actions by the executive branch. As you note, to the extent there is legal president it appears that the courts recognize the existence of such rights, and they are pretty broad.

OTOH Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt were faced with a much more clearly definable threats, there was a clear end-point to the durations of the actions they took, and in retrospect executive actions in least two of the three situations are pretty generally agreed to have been unnecessary infringement individual rights based on unrealistic assessments of the threats they were meant to address.

So what the ultimate practical limits such powers?

At present there are at least two clearly constitutional means of curbing them: removal from office by impeachment and refusal to vote funding to carry out a President’s wishes - the latter is the reason the executive branch’s behavior during the” Iran-Contra” affair was subversive of the Constitution; it attempted to undertake executive programs specifically prohibited by Congress. (Many conservatives were in favor of the effort at the time, but I doubt many would have been equally supportive if a Democratic President had undertook to covertly fund Left-Wing parties in South America after Congress prohibited him from doing so. Same principle.)

As I said, potentially a very high-stakes game, and not one in which it's wise for ANY administration to play Chicken with congress unless its hands are perfectly clean.

[hershey]

CNN thinks it's abuse. They were shrieking this am....'Five thousand Americans spied on!' No mention of attacks thwarted and lives saved. Oh well.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

This is is a different situation. Our lives could be indanger if the president had to wait for 72 hours until a warrant is issued..

Under current law you can intercept communications for those 72 hours while waiting for a warrent.

[princess leah]

This whole issue is taking place because DEM senators LEAKED this PROGRAM in the first place. I would have much rather kept the whole thing secret until we atleast had a few more years of the War on Terror under our belt. There is no way of knowing how much damage we sustained to our defenses, but if we're attacked this year, it'll be on the heads of those who leaked this program!

[inquest]

The Constitution itself recognizes that things are different in wartime - habeas corpus, for example, can be suspended during times of war or insurrection.

The fact that the Constitution makes specific exemptions for certain of its provisions in wartime would strongly imply that those provisions that don't have such an exemption are in full force during wartime.

[inquest]

And the courts have ruled that Congress also cannot regulate enumerated Executive Branch powers with FISA.

What part of FISA have the courts held unconstitutional?

[LurkingSince'98]

what were the five thousand poor amercians doing talking with AlQueda? Ordering out falafal??

There are some real twits that can't figure out that there are people planning to do them harm - real harm - as in their avowed intention.

Yet when the shock wave washes over one of their loved ones - they will be the first to piss and moan.

Lurking'

[LurkingSince'98]

you have it exactly backwards, it is not that FISA is unconstitutional, it is that FISA cannot compel a sitting president to violate his oath of office.

Lurking'

[MamaSwami]

re: It used to be that we didn't trust government very much around here. I still don't.

And you're right to distrust. Continue that, by all means.

However, there is no logical reason to distrust the government in this case. It doesn't make any sense. If you think about the technology involved, the reason is obvious.

We lost an enormous amount of personal privacy security when our phone systems went from analogue to digital. It brought enormous improvement in speed and quality and options, but now we are talking to each other over what are, at the end of the day, basically radio waves.

Wiretappers used to have to physically plant a bug on a hard phone line. Now your phone conversations can be picked out of the air. This is something that any idiot with a few pieces of eqipment from Radio Shack can do, and that is why it doesn't make sense to ask NSA to do it. It simply does not require the resources of a government agency to pull it off.

Why should a president... or ANY politician, for that matter... order a government agency with a history of leaking to monitor citizens uninvolved with non-national security situations when it would be so much safer, both politically and security-wise, to just hire a hacker to do it?

Personally, I don't think there is ANY reasonable expectation of "privacy" on any phone or internet activities these days.

[inquest]

it is not that FISA is unconstitutional, it is that FISA cannot compel a sitting president to violate his oath of office.

If it's not unconstitutional, then it's not compelling him to violate his oath.

[inquest]

Why should a president... or ANY politician, for that matter... order a government agency with a history of leaking to monitor citizens uninvolved with non-national security situations when it would be so much safer, both politically and security-wise, to just hire a hacker to do it?

It would hardly be safer. If the hacker is caught, and the trail is leaked back to the President, he'd be impeached in two seconds. But if he has the NSA do it, he can always deflect investigations by appealing to national security.

[MamaSwami]

re: "It would hardly be safer. If the hacker is caught, and the trail is leaked back to the President, he'd be impeached in two seconds. But if he has the NSA do it, he can always deflect investigations by appealing to national security."

Not for long... or even for sure. It's my contention that the NSA would be far more likely to get caught than a hacker. The reason is that a loyal citizen within the NSA would rat. The more people involved, the more chances for leaks there are. The fewer people who are involved in a conspiracy, the safer it is.

[mrsmith]

"is there any procedure available to a sitting Senator, or the Administration to ask SCOTUS for their opinion without first having an actual trial?"

No. Absolutely not. There has to be a "judiciable" case or controversy before them. John Jay refused Washington's request for Supreme Court advise because it was not a power they had under the Constitution.

Though individual members have been known to individually and quietly advise, unofficially, on how an issue would be viewed.

[Wiseghy]

"Just who are they looking out for?" should be our GOP national matra, on ads in debates on websites.

This goes to heart of this issue, in a way that people can understand.

[inquest]

But you also need to take into account the fact that in security agencies like the NSA, there's very often a culture of conformity, of "the-nail-that-sticks-up-is-hammered-down", of "ours-is-not-to-reason-why". It's a very tough attitude to break people out of. For every hardy brave soul who tries to blow the whistle there are many others who consider it more advantageous to look the other way. The whistleblowers get a lot of coverage, at least when they're successful, and that may lead to the idea that it's a commonplace attitude, but I think that's a very misleading impression.

[okie01]

Just pointing out how opinion on presidential power did a 180 on this site when the clock hit 12:00 p.m. on January 20, 2001.

I would date the 180 to about eight months later -- around 9 AM CDT, on September 11, 2001.

We are at war, silly.

During WW II, it was understood that all international telephone calls and telegrams were open to governmental surveillance. It was less understood, but still true, that ALL first class mail going into or out of the company was steamed open and read (and, if necessary, censored).

Gathering intelligence is a legitimate military activity. And it is NOT subject to the purview of the courts, anymore than the enemy can sue for injunctive relief.

If you're in communication with al-Qaeda, then your lines of communication shouldn't be "secure". If you're not in communication with a-Q, then you have nothing to worry about.

The same would be true if Clinton were President. Thank God, he's not.