Michael Hayden: "probable cause" is not in the 4th Amendment

YOUTUBE ^ | JUNE 17, 2013 | mildlybrilliant

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Mind boggling ignorance!

[MestaMachine]

I can’t hear, SWAMPSNIPER. Can you give ne a synopses of what he said?

[SWAMPSNIPER]

He was claiming that “probable cause” isn’t found at all in the 4th amendment. He got belligerent when corrected and refused to back down.

[abb]

Here ya go.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/eavesdropping_general_reveals_shaky_grip_4th_amend.htm

Defending Spy Program, General Reveals Shaky Grip on 4th Amendment

Editor and Publisher | January 24 2006

NEW YORK The former national director of the National Security Agency, in an appearance today before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., today, appeared to be unfamiliar with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when pressed by a reporter with Knight Ridder’s Washington office — despite his claims that he was actually something of an expert on it.

General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of National Intelligence with the Office of National Intelligence, talked with reporters about the current controversy surrounding the National Security Agency’s warrantless monitoring of communications of suspected al Qaeda terrorists. Hayden has been in this position since last April, but was NSA director when the NSA monitoring program began in 2001.

As the last journalist to get in a question, Jonathan Landay, a well-regarded investigative reporter for Knight Ridder, noted that Gen. Hayden repeatedly referred to the Fourth Amendment’s search standard of “reasonableness” without mentioning that it also demands “probable cause.” Hayden seemed to deny that the amendment included any such thing, or was simply ignoring it.

Here is the exchange, along with the entire Fourth Amendment at the end.

***

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I’d like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American’s right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use —

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually — the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But the —

GEN. HAYDEN: That’s what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable —

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says —

QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard —

GEN. HAYDEN: — unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: The legal standard is probable cause, General. You used the terms just a few minutes ago, “We reasonably believe.” And a FISA court, my understanding is, would not give you a warrant if you went before them and say “we reasonably believe”; you have to go to the FISA court, or the attorney general has to go to the FISA court and say, “we have probable cause.”

And so what many people believe — and I’d like you to respond to this — is that what you’ve actually done is crafted a detour around the FISA court by creating a new standard of “reasonably believe” in place of probable cause because the FISA court will not give you a warrant based on reasonable belief, you have to show probable cause. Could you respond to that, please?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. I didn’t craft the authorization. I am responding to a lawful order. All right? The attorney general has averred to the lawfulness of the order.

Just to be very clear — and believe me, if there’s any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it’s the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you’ve raised to me — and I’m not a lawyer, and don’t want to become one — what you’ve raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is “reasonable.” And we believe — I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we’re doing is reasonable.

***

Here’s the Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. “

A new Gallup poll released Monday showed that 51% of Americans said the administration was wrong to intercept conversations involving a party inside the U.S. without a warrant. In response to another question, 58% said they support the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the program.

[Tammy8]

He sure acted like he didn’t know the words “probable cause” were actually in the 4th Amendment. That is stunning. This man has served in many positions that directly dealt with/deal with the Constitution and yet seems clueless.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Too many of them consider the oath they take to be just a silly ceremony.

[sargon]

He sure acted like he didn’t know the words “probable cause” were actually in the 4th Amendment. That is stunning.

He acted like he didn't know the words, because he didn'tknow the words. What an utter, ignorant fool this General is. An asinine, moronic buffoon. A skulking poltroon. All the interviewer had to do was stop the interview right then and there, and go to the trouble of actually quoting the Fourth Amendment.

God save us from such imbeciles as this supposed expert.

[MestaMachine]

Thank you both. The daft and the spurious strike again.

[Flick Lives]

To the NSA, “probable cause” means “because we want to; that’s why!”.

[silverleaf]

He was an outstanding Air Force officer

I just dont get it

I wondered where he went after NSA, this reads he is back inside the government working with these people

Apparently he went over to the dark side at some point, maybe even before he became head of NSA

SO maybe this massive govt intrusion into individual liberty did begin under “Bush and Cheney” but the intent of gathering and use of individual information under o’bama sure isn't the same

[Redmen4ever]

The construction that Washington, D.C., is bringing to the 4th Amendment is that any “reasonable” search is o.k., but unreasonable ones require a warrant. Furthermore, that a warrant is required to search and seize particular persons and conversations, etc., while massive searches of everybody of everything they say or write or transact, is o.k.

Clearly, the warrant is the method by which the reasonableness of the search is to be guaranteed. That is, the executive needs to go to a judge for the warrant. And, that warrant has to specify the particular person or thing to be searched and seized. No blanket searches and seizures.

[LearsFool]

Wiretapping is such BS.

After a crime has been committed, the Fourth Amendment permits a warrant to be issued for the purpose of searching for and seizing the person(s) accused of the crime or the evidence concerning the crime. Someone has to testify before a judge that the person(s) or evidence exist at the place specified.

In order to solve our current problem (i.e. terrorism), other means than wiretapping must be used. For instance, stop importing terrorists, export the ones that are already here, and permit the people of this nation to speak out - loudly - against the enemy’s ideology.

Since our government is doing the precise opposite, one might assume that the intent is to make Americans so desperate that we’ll abandon the protection of the Fourth Amendment.

[AuH2ORepublican]

He’s correct that the constitutional standard is “unreasonable search and seizure,” and that “probable cause” is only the standard in cases in which the government seeks a warrant. The Framers thought that warrants—used and abused by the British to search people’s homes without facing civil liability (the warrant would give immunity to the officer doing the seach)—were a bad thing that needed to be preconditioned on a high standard (thus “probable cause”) and required a certain level of specificity (the “general warrants” used by the British would not be allowed). But the Fourth Amendment, properly understood, does not require that all searches be preceded by a warrant, or even that there be probable cause before a search. It was liberal judges who conflated the unreasonable search prohibition with the probable cause requirement for warrants—liberal judges also confused the Fourth Amendment with the Fifth Amendment’s autoincrimination protection and created the ridiculous “Exclusionary Rule” from whole cloth.

I’m not saying that the guy is correct that the government’s phone-call-surveilance program meets the “reasonable search” requirement, but he is correct that the Constitution does not require that the government get a warrant first.

[SE Mom]

In a way this is even worse because Hayden said this when he was in charge. The video date is 2006. Galling to have to be agreeing with Keith Olberman (on the video) ..

[1010RD]

Typical bureaucratic appointee. He's there to give the agency a veneer of respectability, but he doesn't even know the 4th Amendment.

Too many FReepers think the US military is going to stand with us. Hayden's the perfect example. He knows where his bread is buttered and the US Constitution doesn't pay his mortgage.

[Hardraade]

There’s a general who is

A. A criminal military coup maker

or

B: A retard who cannot teach himself a oneliner.

[Old Sarge]

Too many FReepers think the US military is going to stand with us. Hayden's the perfect example. He knows where his bread is buttered and the US Constitution doesn't pay his mortgage.

And when he retires, he will have his taxpayer-funded pension, his taxpayer-funded health care for life, and his dacha by the lake, just as his Soviet counterparts did in a bygone era.

Remember this quote:

"Everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready because we don’t forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded, the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve." ~ Val Jarrett, the "Martin Bormann" of the Obamanation

[Lazamataz]

This reminds me of the Star Trek - The New Generation episode where Picard is kidnapped and an alien tries to break him, telling him to 'see' five lights, when there were only four being displayed.

It's as if the far left wishes to get us to say that things that are clearly there, are not.

[txrangerette]

He’s already been condemned as one of the most stupid people on earth. And here you come along and say he made a valid point.

The words probable cause are in the 4th amendment, and his statement implies the actual words are not even in there.

So that must be why he’s considered to be so stupid.

Your point seems to be, how is the 4th amendment applied to situations? And on that, you are saying he made a valid point.

Do I have that right?

Gotta admit, on the point of whether the words probable cause are in there, he did sound stupid.

Just for the record, I don’t think Michael Hayden is stupid. Doesn’t mean I’m on board with everything he says.

VP Cheney isn’t stupid, either. Doesn’t mean I agree with his recent pronouncements on this subject.

One thing I note with amusement. Hayden left himself and “out”, of sorts, I think.

He said, “I’m not a lawyer and don’t want to be one”.

LOL

[magellan]

A couple of key points:

This was January 23rd 2006, just after Hayden moved on from NSA.

As Director of the NSA from 1999-2005, Hayden implemented the post-9/11 telephone surveillance programs.

This National Press Club event in January 2005 was just as the Bush-era “Warrantless Wiretapping” scandal was starting to break.

This was prior to the amendments to the FISA law in 2008.

So Hayden is defending the Bush program at this point, he is not defending the post “Warrantless Wiretapping” program after 2007, the post FISA amendments after 2008, or the Obama program after 2009.