Posted on 12/17/2005 5:21:42 PM PST by frankjr
According to everything I've read warrants were obtained. What say you now?
--- And I didn't see the part in the New York Times article where US citizens were targeted at all. Unless you can quote that, I continue to believe that terrorist identities overseas and their connections to PERSONS here in the states (remember sleeper cellls?) were listened to.
It was very clever of the Times to obfuscate on this critical point. Here's paragraph 16 of the article (from Michelle Malkins site)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, the officials said.
In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said.
Read the definitions again. If a connection is shown to in international terrorist organization, the communication is considered foreign intelligence.
What would you propose be done if a laptop is siezed from a terrorist in Afghanistan and it has phone numbers in the United States listed?
Again, if you have documentation that says that US citizens were targeted, please provide it.
From post #24:
"EAVESDROPPING INS AND OUTS [Mark R. Levin]
Some brief background: The Foreign Intelligence Security Act permits the government to monitor foreign communications, even if they are with U.S. citizens -- 50 USC 1801, et seq. A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications are wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
The reason the President probably had to sign an executive order is that the Justice Department office that processes FISA requests, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), can take over 6 months to get a standard FISA request approved. It can become extremely bureaucratic, depending on who is handling the request. His executive order is not contrary to FISA if he believed, as he clearly did, that he needed to act quickly. The president has constitutional powers, too.
It's also clear from the Times piece that Rockefeller knew about the government's eavesdropping, as did the FISA court.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_12_11_corner-archive.asp#084896
I don't have a major problem with this under the circumstances, but I also don't have a problem with people being concerned about it. We have to be careful about how far we let our government go. The war on terror will probably never end. Law enforcement and government officials will use it as an excuse for all sorts of things that don't have anything to do with terrorism. People mindful of the Constitution and concerned about our rights are not always in power. We just need to be careful about how far we let them go, that's all.
so only the ACLU, the Times, and liberal federal judges can provide the "oversight" needed to make something "legal" in your mind? that's basically what you are saying.
there is no such thing as "independent oversight". everyone has an agenda; senators, federal judges. certainly we have learned that by now.
even a "24x7" panel of judges isn't going to help you when a phone call or an email can cross a switch with a duration of perhaps seconds or minutes, and you have to monitor it.
if you think the President broke the law here, speak up and call for his impeachment - as that would be the only legal remedy.
yeah, let's instead put our faith in the ACLU and the 9th circuit to protect us.
The masks are off. The Democrats are now clear defenders of Al Qaeda and their agents in the United States.
but you seem to be willing to "trust" the other entities in this - the judiciary, the FISA court, the intel committees headed up by people like Jay Rockefeller.
all laws are arbitrary. one day, you wake up and the constitution no longer protects private property rights. the FISA laws can be read to allow for these actions, the administration felt they were acting in the best interests of the country in setting up monitoring for the phone numbers collected from various AQ laptops, the congressional committees were informed and the decisions were reviewed every 45 days. to whom should they have been forced to seek agreement before implementing the plan?
Ok...let's just not have any oversight. That will be perfect if the Rats are ever back in power. We wouldn't want to trust anyone but them, right?
Flashback, Jennifer Loven is a Biased DNC Whore Alert!!
In light of today's WH smack-down of the insufferable Jennifer Loven by both President Karzai and President Bush, I went looking for some of her past glories. So many of her article really do read like DNC press releases, it's hard to believe she is allowed to play reporter for the AP.... but then considering how badly journalism has been degraded at places like the AP, I guess it's not a surprise at all.
Found a different version of her hit-piece on the Bush WH from last December (see below). Looks like it came out before she had lined up the deranged quotes from Nancy Pelosi that lead off the new Yahoo version in this thread (above). Notice how in this version she has a slightly different litany of leftist complaints, with almost no counter-balancing at all.... yeah, she's a real "objective" journalist for a DNC hack.....
bttt
One things for certain. The demorats shall continue in their ignorance by design keep the lame brained main stream media hopped up on things that should not even be an issue due to the new requirements to seek and capture Islamofacist goon balls the world wide. Guys like Leahay should be kicked out of the hill and signs posted on their backs indicating they should be avoided at all costs.
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.