Posted on 12/19/2005 9:53:25 AM PST by wildbill
This poll is referred to on the C-Span organization.
Do you agree with President Bush's decision allowing domestic surveillance without court order?
Premise of the poll is wrong.
It is NOT domestic surveillance.
It is INTERNATIONAL surveillance.
The intercept occurs OUTSIDE the USA.
And it would be a simple matter for the government to get a warrant to monitor any communications you make over your telephone"
This quote from Byron Yorks column presents the argument for the policy and knocks down the 'simple matter to get a warrant' response:
Lawmakers of both parties recognized the problem in the months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. They pointed to the case of Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who ran up against a number roadblocks in her effort to secure a FISA warrant in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the al Qaeda operative who had taken flight training in preparation for the hijackings.
Investigators wanted to study the contents of Moussaoui's laptop computer, but the FBI bureaucracy involved in applying for a FISA warrant was stifling, and there were real questions about whether investigators could meet the FISA court's probable-cause standard for granting a warrant. FBI agents became so frustrated that they considered flying Moussaoui to France, where his computer could be examined. But then the attacks came, and it was too late.
Rowley wrote up her concerns in a famous 13-page memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, and then elaborated on them in testimony to Congress. "Rowley depicted the legal mechanism for security warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, as burdensome and restrictive, a virtual roadblock to effective law enforcement," Legal Times reported in September 2002.
May be we do live dangerously but that is what makes this country great and it's people strong.
Yes – 36%
No - 64%
I can’t see why – other than politics as usual – there is a big stink being raised. Clinton did more domestic surveillance than President Bush has.
WITHOUT A COURT ORDER!!??
What did Thomas Jefforson say about trading freedom for security....
That's an excellent point. What if we have another 9/11? Or another after that? Draw enough blood, and the American people will start demanding measures that make the current operation look like child's play. Isn't it more prudent to do the minimum to win now, rather than risk doing nothing but wait for the next attack, and then facing truly intrusive measures?
Why should we allow the President to break the law. Um, it is against the law isn't it? It's not? You mean there's a Law in the US code that allows what he did? Hmm, then obviously he and Karl Rove masterminded in the past to get this law passed so he could do it.
Blame "Karl Rove's Time Machine." (Sounds like a new Sci-Fi Channel series.
I don't think so, once you step over the line it gets easier to step over it again and again. If you keep moving the line, sooner or later we'll all forget where the line was originally.
The biggest problem is not getting that warrant in a timely manner. A warrat that isn't received until after the damage has been done is worthless.
35% Yes & 65% No
May be so but that is how our system works. By removing the bureaucracy everything would get done much more quickly and efficiently. This would also be a very different nation.
Umm, I have serious questions about it.
I'm not concerned about Bush doing it, but I'd be VERY concerned if it were Clinton or Kerry.
I'm not necessarily opposed, but I'm not necessarily happy about it either. I want to learn more.
cspan is nothing but du and moveon gangsters....
Decades worth of citizen surveillance...but now all of a sudden, the left is "outraged" and the far right fringe is screaming about about "jack booted thugs". {Sigh...}
Well said! It makes you wonder, who's on who's side?
Clinton DID use it. He even used it for economic spying.
That's suppose to make me feel better?
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