Posted on 06/17/2013 1:27:19 AM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER
Mind boggling ignorance!
This is not my opinion or concept. I am merely pointing out pertinent info that can be found on the internet without having to look too long or far.
And if the general says the US AG said it was a lawful, I accept that. I would also conclude that NSA lawyers concurred.
Now, I can see where Congress might disagree with the AG but we will never know about that because shortly after this, Congress passed their FISA amendments act.
In fact, if you look at the entire period, you see Bush out in front of Congress and Congress codify-ing or rubberstamping what Bush was already doing.
The military will stand with us. Those few at the top play politics with whoever is in charge at the time, to get an appointment, they have to. a full 99% of the “grunts” will be with their moms and dads when shtf. Hence, Obama wants his own “army” right out of the Nazi playbook. I’m betting that won’t work here in the USA.His admimistration is falling apart as we speak, thats why their responses are increasingly stupid and defensive. Keep the heat on them !!
Exactly.
“talked with reporters about the current controversy surrounding the National Security Agency’s warrantless monitoring of communications of suspected al Qaeda terrorists”
So, since they were monitoring everyone’s communications, does this mean they view us all as “suspected al Qaeda terrorists” now?
“talked with reporters about the current controversy surrounding the National Security Agency’s warrantless monitoring of communications of suspected al Qaeda terrorists”
So, since they were monitoring everyone’s communications, does this mean they view us all as “suspected al Qaeda terrorists” now?
It doesn’t matter if it was worse under Obama or Bush, because this isn’t a partisan issue. The excessive size and power of the federal government corrupts politicians from either party just as readily. We need to seize this issue (and the IRS abuses) to hammer that home, whether or not we can make political hay against our opponents with it. This issue is far more important.
Well, maybe they go before a “court” eventually, after they have already started their warrantless surveillance, but that’s just a rubberstamp affair.
I helped my son with a report awhile ago about “no knock” entries by police. Back in the old days (England, colonial America, early U.S.), it was deemed “unreasonable” for the police (or King’s men) to not announce themselves at someone’s home. With or without a warrant.
Although today that argument is long gone after fighting the “war on drugs”. And obviously wire-taps have been around for a long time, and they are not announced. But it seems to me that these invasions of privacy are one of the reasons the Founding Father’s fought.
It seems to me that the British “writs of assistance” are in some ways similar to the modern-day NSA snooping (replace smugglers with “terrorists”). From a link:
Excerpt:
...The colonists were particularly concerned about broad, unparticularized searches performed under the authority of general warrants. In England, general warrants were widely used to suppress seditious publications. One particularly influential incident involved the North Briton, a series of pamphlets criticizing government policies published anonymously by John Wilkes, a member of Parliament.
After a particularly critical issue of the pamphlet was published, the Secretary of State issued a general warrant to search for the people who published the pamphlets. Wilkes and others who had been searched and arrested challenged the warrant issued against them. In Wilkes v. Wood, the King’s Bench held the warrant illegal.
In colonial America, general warrants were used to ferret out smugglers. These warrants, called writs of assistance, were issued to customs officials by the colonial courts. Writs of assistance commanded all subjects of the Crown to assist the officer executing the writ. The writs authorized customs officials and their subordinates to search anywhere they thought smuggled goods would be hidden and to break open containers suspected of holding smuggled goods. A customs official possessing a writ of assistance had “practically absolute and unlimited” discretion as to how the writ could be executed.
A particularly offensive feature of these writs was that they served as permanent search warrants, effective until six months after the death of the reigning sovereign. These writs inspired resentment through out the colonies, and after the revolution, seven states enacted constitutional prohibitions against general warrants.
Yes, the Fòunding Fathers hated warrants, which is why the Fourth Amendment has restrictions on how they may be issued.
Something like six clauses in the Bill of Rights were adopted because of abuses committed by the British government against MP John Wilkes. And Wilkes’s biography colored clauses in the original Constitution as well: for example, members of Congress may be excluded from office only for constitutional qualifications or for not having won the election, and members of Congress who are expelled are eligible to be reelected, because of the precedent set in one of the cases involving John Wilkes.
Of course, it’s obvious to a sane person that blanket searches such as NSA “whole pipe” data capture are seizing electronic records and communications (email and phone records being analagous to physical letters and phone bill detail and them some; note the term email refers to electronic mail) from literally millions of American citizens.
And without a doubt almost none of them have absolutely anything to do with terrorism, and if there was normal police investigative “legwork” done for each of these people, this would be obvious rather quickly.
Which is why law enforcement investigations never use the “brute force” method of finding suspects, where every single citizen is considered a suspect and house to house searches conducted for entire towns. Not only would it be unconstitutional, it would be very ineffective, as compared to narrowing down the searching as much and as soon as possible.
Of course, if this were actually to be done regarding terrorism, the first criteria would be islam, and then finding the terrorists would be a realistic proposition.
Since this terrorism is merely a tool of the financial oligarchy, if the path were followed to its end, this it would lead back to them. But we never even start on the correct path, islam, so the financial oligarchs are safely hidden behind it. And they get to have the Executive Branch leadership continue to use the full force of the government to root out and marginalize any and all significant threats to their new world order goals.
A requirement that agents of government be bound by oath to the Constitution implies that those who act contrary to the Constitution do not do so as legitimate agents of the government. As such, it is right and proper that evidence they gather in such fashion be regarded as illegitimate, and not be usable against the interests of anyone whose rights were violated in its acquisition.
My objection to the exclusionary rule is the implication that any evidence which judges don't exclude must be considered legitimate. Judges generally only exclude evidence in cases where they find that they cannot justify as legitimate the methods used to collect it, even taking those who collected it at their word. I would posit that defendants have the right (alas not properly acknowledged) to challenge the legitimacy of presented evidence on the basis that people involved in its collection may not have been acting in good faith. Such matters are matters of fact that hinge on witness credibility; as such, the defendant should be allowed to have the jury consider them [disregarding any evidence they find to have been gathered in illegitimate fashion].
While police without a warrant may not have to let the driver leave without being searched, that wouldn't imply that they have the right to search without a warrant. I would posit that a driver should be within his rights to wait with his car until such time as police can produce a warrant, and that police who are preventing a driver from leaving should be required to make a good faith effort to get the warrant as expeditiously as practical. In cases where a warrant would clearly be justified, a driver could save everyone's time by simply consenting to a search. On the other hand, if a warrant wouldn't be justified, a driver should be entitled to refuse.
Note that even if it's likely that a court would rubber-stamp a warrant, requiring that the cop apply for one would require the cop to document what he believes to be legitimate basis for the search before it is conducted, and prevent a cop from conducting a search and then using his findings to formulate a plausible justification.
I’m no lawyer, but I think it’s something like what you’re sayin’.
Cuz if it came out later if a search was unreasonable and there was no warrant, the searchee might have some legal recourse, i.e., the police or dept, etc., might be in some hot water.
This is where this whole situation is completely different from seizure of basically everyone’s phone bill extended call detail.
While it’s a nice fantasy for the Feds to have such data at their fingertips and have it be Constitutional, it’s very obvious that it’s an overreach of titanic proportions.
Swimming on the n.coast of Calif, is very recreational. Not quite like rowing on the Potomac. We will usually find a body, from mishap. Parts or pieces, dna is dna. Open invitation, Mikey Hayden. Come swimming and riding. Heck, we may even get in a hog hunt, in the redwoods. You did mention those trees, at one time. Come back.
Looks like a revenge of the nerds quality twerp.
The greater concern is in the anger and arrogance and contempt he displayed when challenged. He looks so bad...
Maybe we shouldn't. We're not on high ground to be denouncing what we pay hard-earned money to make possible.
That would be nice in theory. Unfortunately, those in government often show little interest in prosecuting even patently illegitimate actions by government agents.
If I may use an analogy, suppose that in a baseball game, the first nine pitches by the home-team pitcher didn't even come within five feet of being over the plate, and batters made no move to swing at them, but the Home Plate Umpire nonetheless called "strike". Under the rules of baseball, those would be strikes.
Suppose further that the visiting pitcher then threw sixteen perfect pitches right down the middle, but the Home Plate Umpire called "ball", walking in a run after the sixteenth pitch. According to the rules of baseball, the First- or Third-Base Umpire may overrule a call of "ball", but only if in their judgment a batter swung at a pitch. If those officials were to start declaring that batters had swung at well-placed pitches, should such conduct be considered legitimate or illegitimate?
Suppose that after a few innings of such patently-unreasonable officiating, the visiting team walked off the field and went home. Would the game of baseball be better served by having the scorekeeper record it as having been forfeit by the visiting team, or as having been disrupted by natural disaster prior to the start of the first inning?
I would posit that it's impossible for any system of rules to fully anticipate malfeasance by those responsible for enforcement. If those who conduct searches without warrants were routinely punished in cases where they acted without clear probable causes, there might seldom be a need for warrants. On the other hand, the fact that governments seldom punish their own often makes it necessary for judges to invent remedies which go beyond anything expressly provided for in statute; such behavior by judges would be a good thing if they were more explicit about the fact that their actions have no direct statutory basis, but are instead compelled by the long-standing legal principle that criminals should not be allowed to profit by their actions (which should apply even when those criminals are agents of the state).
Cases where there is police wrongdoing can result in civil lawsuits brought by injured parties, they don’t require government prosecuters to prosecute criminal cases.
Unconstitutional searches often wind up in criminal case acquittals and dismissals.
LEOs, their bosses and most prosecuters don’t like to lose cases.
If a person suffers damages, i.e., is injured in some way, they can pursue a civil case and many do.
I don’t think there are routinely many warrantless searches (other than the Feds) that don’t fall under the reasonable case (though doubtless there are some), like I said, where the LEOs are engaged in a gun battle, they ask for consent first, etc. Well, there may be cases where search warrants should not have been issued.
In any case, our law schools and legal system - and our laws - need to be more simple and logically rigorous. I do think the no-knock warrants and swat teams, etc., are unnecessary, when normal investigative work and a little patient cleverness could effect the same arrests, just without all the cool gear.
This NSA stuff is on the grandest of scales; nationwide, blanket seizure of phone bills, to be used later in searches. Doing this on a routine, ongoing basis, is simply not reasonable.
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