Posted on 12/17/2005 10:12:01 AM PST by iPod Shuffle
Eavesdropping Program Netted Local Man
Dec 16, 2005, 02:35 PM
Reported by Kurt Ludlow
A former Columbus truck driver linked to Al-Qaeda was nabbed as part of a secret operation that's now out of the bag. The government spied on him and hundreds of other Americans without warrants.
It was a front page New York Times article that divulged for the first time that the National Security Agency spied on Americans, monitoring international phone calls and emails of hundreds of people including a Columbus man.
Columbus truck driver Iyman Farris pled guilty in 2003 to helping Al-Qaeda plan terrorist attacks in the US, and is was an admission that stunned his ex wife.
Geneva Bowling says, "It's still hard for me to believe that he did."
Two years later, Bowling knows that Faris was caught after agents monitored the couple's phone without a court order. She told the Associated Press, "If you're asking me if I think that's fair, I think it is."
Constitutional lawyer Benson Wolman says there's a reason court orders are required before the government can listen in on you; there must be probable cause you've done something wrong.
"While most of us aren't going to be victims of wiretap or eavesdrop, it's important to now that if the government can do it to the worst of us, it can do it to the best of us," says Wolman.
Supporters of the secret wiretapping order say desperate times since 9-11 call for desperate measures.
"In the perfect world we would just continue with laws as they were prior to 9-11 and we are unable to combat with due diligence and continue to face this new challenge. The fact is we can't do that," says one supporter.
A lot of lawmakers say they're troubled by this sort of domestic spying. The Senate has promised to hold hearings on it.
This, of course, has some pretty bad ramifications, the least of which are people voting who really shouldn't be. We have already seen the worst of what lax immigration can lead to - 9/11.
If immigration laws were much stricter, foreigners screened much better before being allowed in the country, and the flow of illegal immigration was stopped, we could reasonably have a little more faith and trust in those on American soil. Few have the political nerve to make it tougher for legal and illegal immigrants to enter the country, especially democrats; therefore, we have no choice but to spy on those who are here but really shouldn't be.
We have a choice - severely curtail the flow of foreigners into the country and expand civil rights by pushing government back, OR continue what we're doing. Any other option is asking for more terrorist attacks.
"..all's fair in love an war."
The sooner we learn that, the sooner this war will be over, it is after all, a war of and on intelligence (in more ways than one!)."
All is certainly not fair in love, though. For example you an tell a man that he needs to lose weight but God help the man who tells his girlfriend that.
"If the NYT is worried about a focus on a few hundred individuals, they are missing the big picture."
Yes. The killer issue for the next decade is privacy. And in the united States conservatives have been forced to argue against a right to privacy because somehow privacy has been interpreted to meaning it's ok to kill you unborn baby.
We need to de-link those issue - privacy should not be defined as including the right to abortion but the right to be left alone (i.e. privacy) is a fundamental conservative ideal.
I'd like to know which of these three things is worse:
1. The opposition party in the US is leaking to the enemy our SIGINT capabilities;
2. Our counter-terror and counter-espionage efforts are being hamstrung by the opposition party and their useful idiots;
3. Legislating our war effort away, providing for the anarchy that will make the more-than-thou's of Freerepublic happy.
Like visiting every major city in Europe in a week. Some of the local atmospheres may be missed if all one sees is train stations.
Privacy has been a dead issue since 1956, give or take. Every visit to the supermarket--swipe the card!--is more grist for the intel mill. Mostly it is corporate industry and marketing that cares; commerce is 80% corporate, Gummint is somewhere in the remaining 20%. Pres Bush is not even a blip in the background noise.
I'm amazed too.
I would hope so. We had a troll 2 nights ago that had escaped from a mental institution. Was blathering nonsense about GW and the SS.
Case closed!
Yep and it's worse than that on the internet.
Who needs the Witcheta lineman? One good receiver and you've got all cell phones covered.
Who do you think owns some supercomputers besides the local university? That's right. Retail industry. NSA might have one, too, but they are amateurs.
"Might' hell... NEVER underestimate the capabilities of NSA.
There are the unappeasables on FR who will never be happy with anything he does.
Then there are those on FR who don't even like certain freepers (like me) who try to educate lurkers and new freepers with the links between AQ and Iraq that go back to the 90's, along with my suggestions that the president talk about those connections and relationships in order to defeat the leftist mantra that I hear every single day that the president lied about the relationship.
The president isn't perfect, as he'd be the first to admit, but he's the best president of my lifetime and we're lucky to have him. And history will treat him kindly, regardless of what some freepers or the Old Media have to say.
Dick van Dyke--hand me the binos.
The real spy--the what?
I remember that assclown
BTTT
I note that Ms Bowling had nothing to fear
I know FR is being monitored!
This is true. The NSA isn't in the business of manufactoring hitech stuff. It is easier to farm it out. 'Here is what we need, build it for us'.
there are folks who would pan (insert name here) if they were president. Most of the whiners offer no insight as to what they would have done to address said complaints
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