Posted on 01/26/2004 1:47:29 PM PST by Reagan Man
MAP is correct, probable cause IS NOT required for a FISA warrant. Its a rubber stamp.
From FindLaw:
FISA's Longstanding Special Procedures For Counterintelligence-Gathering
The FISA statute therefore created a secret process and secret court to review requests to wiretap phones, and conduct searches, aimed at spies, terrorists and enemies of the United States. The process and court were meant only for counterintelligence - not for ordinary criminal investigations.
The court issues FISA "warrants" - but these so-called "warrants," unlike traditional warrants in criminal cases, did not require probable cause of specific criminal activity. Rather, they are simply special court orders meant to be used for counterintelligence purposes.
The FISA court approves around 1,000 such warrants per year - and only rarely denies a warrant request. Persons who are the subjects of FISA warrants never know that they are targeted. An FBI agent might sneak into a suspect's house, have a look around and leave again, without leaving notice that he or she had been there.
What happens if the search happens to reveal evidence of ordinary crime that leads to a prosecution? The subject may be out of luck. The warrant and the grounds why it was granted can remain a secret - and thus will be impervious to challenge - if the Attorney General swears that the information must remain secret on grounds of national security.
How the USA Patriot Act Expanded the Basis for FISA Warrants
Originally, prior to the USA Patriot Act - enacted after September 11 - law enforcement could only seek a FISA warrant if gathering intelligence was the primary purpose of the investigation. But the USA Patriot Act allowed law enforcement to seek a FISA warrant if gathering intelligence was only a significant purpose, not necessarily the primary purpose of the investigation.
While this expansion can be debated, at least Congress authorized it. But without Congressional approval, Ashcroft acted to expand the uses of FISA warrants even further, allowing the evidence gathered as a result of the FISA warrants to routinely end up in the hands of criminal law enforcement - and even allowing criminal law enforcement to play a role in directing evidence-gathering.
Today, the FISA Court routinely approves the creation of information screening "walls" between FBI intelligence and criminal prosecutors in cases where there are overlapping criminal and intelligence components. The Justice Department procedures seem designed to tear these walls down.
The Court's Ruling: Evidence Improper Evidence Sharing Was Already Occurring
On May 17, the FISA Court ruled that the proposal was not permissible under current federal law. The ruling was signed by the court's previous chief, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth. However, it was released by the new presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
The ruling held that the proposed procedures would clash with FISA itself - for Congress intended, with FISA, to separate evidence gathering for counterintelligence from that for ordinary criminal investigations. It also pointed to evidence that, even without the procedures, both the Clinton and Bush Administrations' Departments of Justice had already ignored the divide between counterintelligence and policing. The evidence cited by the Court is troublesome.
According to evidence before the Court, the ruling said, DOJ had misused the FISA process and misled the court at least a dozen times. Justice Department and FBI officials had supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.
The Court also pointed to evidence that authorities had improperly shared intelligence information with agents and prosecutors handling criminal cases in New York on at least four occasions. (The Department discovered the misrepresentations and reported them to the FISA court beginning in 2000.)
Furthermore, the Court noted, in an "alarming number of instances" during the Clinton administration, the FBI may have acted improperly. In a number of cases, the FBI and the Justice Department made "erroneous statements" in eavesdropping applications about "the separation of the overlapping intelligence and criminal investigators and the unauthorized sharing of FISA information with FBI criminal investigators and assistant U.S. attorneys."
Indeed, the Court said, there was a "troubling number of inaccurate FBI affidavits in so many FISA applications" and violations of court orders. The inaccuracies and violations, "in virtually every instance," involved "information sharing and unauthorized disseminations to criminal investigators and prosecutors."
"How these misrepresentations occurred remains unexplained to the court," the opinion noted, somewhat ominously.
In striking down parts of the new procedures, , the Court also ruled that law enforcement officials cannot give advice related to the surveillance to investigators carrying out the searches or wiretapping. (A March Ashcroft memo had said consultation or sharing of information may include the exchange of advice and recommendations on how to carry out the surveillance and searches.)
No, she's not correct. She said little to nothing about "probable cause."
She claimed, just as you did earlier before you recanted, that the Patriot Act did away with court ordered warrants for secret searches.
You've already backed away from that claim. Why would you support her making that same claim now? Why would you throw out red herrings like "probable cause?" You know what she claimed, and it wasn't "probable cause."
Nobody in the country, not the ABA, not constitutional law scholars, not libraries, not prestigious law schools are concerned about the Patriot Act over reaching constitutional authority.
Way back, I knew this would be a fruitless enterprise.
Sit back, relax -- that's what I intend to do.
No ''viable alternatives''? You sound like a bloody CNN butt-boy. The alternative for a legitimate supporter of the U.S.Constitution is to simply withhold a vote for Mr. Let's-Let-Fatboy-Kennedy-Write-The-''Education''-Bill-and-Let's-Have-More-Farm-Porkie-Than-Any-Time-In-History-and-Let's-Have-The-Taxpayers-Buy-Bill-Gates'-Meds-and...above all...Let's-Let-Every-Dirtbag-Who-Enters-The-USA-Illegally-Get-A-Taxpayer-Paid-Free-Ride-On-Everything-Especially-Medical-Care.
That would be Mr. Bush (in case you couldn't solve that clue), for whom I **gladly and eagerly** voted in 2000. And who has, short of his personally causing the assassination of both ol' Scottish Law and Tiny Tom -- AND -- vetoing EVERY spending bill the Regress proposes this year until they cut the NAMED DOLLAR AMOUNT in said bill by not less than 10% in THIS fiscal year, exactly zero chance of garnering my vote in this election.
Please note: I do NOT fancy my view as unique -- Mr. Bush had better start re-earning the support of the conservative side of his party, or he may well suffer the fate of his father.
To his advantage, he has only morons to run against, as opposed to polished (slimily, granted) politicos such as Bent Willy, but -- given his domestic policies to date, and as practical and pragmatic a person as I am -- I wouldn't put more than $50-100 bidding on www.tradesports.com for his re-election.
In this election, no matter which candidate wins, America loses.
Flame away, Bush-bots (let's avoid ad hominem, please, and stick to specific objections about the opinions expressed herein).
No, you haven't proved your original claim about the Patriot Act doing away with court ordered warrants, and no, I haven't claimed that the Patriot Act (or any law) is immune to abuse.
Must I set you straight on such simple facts on post after post? Don't you have some innate desire to be factually correct? Surely you can check your facts better in the future than what you've displayed so far in this thread...
Calm down and control your emotions. You'll obviously be voting for someone other then PresBush in November. So be it. It would be a waste of time trying to convince you otherwise. I'll let you wallow in your disgust for PresBush.
Btw, who will you be voting for? And don't tell me ABB.
The CNN comment, btw, was not in any way ad hominem; your comment did indeed sound like something one might hear on that misbegotten enterprise's broadcast(s), and I've no fear at all of being inaccurate by characterising their assorted employees as butt-boys, whether figuratively or literally I shall leave to your good judgment.
Naturally, I know that you were NOT the newsreader of such a comment.
Enjoy.
I'll go **THIS** far with you; if Mr. Bush would play real live hardball, take no prisoners kick-a$s politics, with the minority slimebags in the Senate as regarding judicial nominations, I would likely vote for him this time around. Sadly, he hasn't -- and in my view he never will. Let him prove me wrong.
His problem (or, at least, one of the principal problems now in American politics) is the ascendancy of the utterly cynical notion of ''triangulation'', otherwise translated as ''I'll beat the other candidate by selling out my core supporters and co-opting his (her) issues''.
Show me SOME -- just a little teeny tiny bit -- of indication that you, Mr. Bush, will honour your oath of office...and you can have my vote again.
He has not done so to date, and I consider it extremely unlikely that he will do so during the upcoming panderfest...pardon me, ''campaign''.
BTW, and for the record, I approve wholeheartedly of his foreign policy, except that I would wish for a MUCH more vigourous prosecution of the WOT.
LOL...
Well, MissAmericanPie, you can't say I didn't warn you... Doesn't he now remind you of that kid, "I know you are, but what am I?"
And y'all thought I was jokin'..... :-P
We've gotta' give the Devil his due: he is an accomplished sophist. When confronted with the undeniable, he's like that kid... But this time, he sticks his index fingers in his ears, closes his eyes, and sings "La, la, la, laaaa... I can't heeeaaaarrrrrr yoooouuuuu... La, la, la...."
ROFLOL. He doesn't get it, because he's impervious to facts and reality. Ask him to substantiate his position, and he'll quietly exit stage left...
"I've read the Patriot Act. Its actual legal text is harmless, and it is a far cry from how it is portrayed by various ideologues and sensationalistic media outlets. I've seen *nothing* in its actual legal text that would even begin to pose a problem to our Constitutional rights.
So after all the evidence presented to you, you still claim to see no danger to the 4th amendment regarding the abuse of elements in the Patriot Act legislation? Even though the abuse is going on right now in case after case.
That answers the question I put to you earlier, are you a child or do you just hope I am one. You are a child and it's past your bedtime.
This?
From you?
You were quite rude yourself.
I don't want to have to call the Mods on you. Your lie about me yesterday on the other thread wasn't reported, but if you continue to do this, I WILL report you.
You haven't got a clue as to who I am, and you never will because you lack the complexity to do so. Please keep your simplistic and erroneous psychobabble about me to yourself.
btw, mr capitalist here was so over the top rude and nasty that the Mod warned him about one nassty post and pulled his most offensive post, and if you care to find out the truth, you will see my apology for being dragged into the mud by his insults.......
Once again, you have no idea what you're talking about.
I didn't "follow you to this thread"...
Nor is commenting on your disingenuous pretense of innocence "harrassing you".
I don't want to have to call the Mods on you.
Oh please...
If you're going to be rude and obnoxious to others, the least you can do is stand behind your words like a grown up.
Yesterday you were talking about punching people in the nose.
Today you're hiding behind the mods and feigning innocence?
Sad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.