Posted on 12/20/2005 11:40:16 AM PST by JustAnotherOkie
Contrary to claims by Democrats currently hyperventilating on Capitol Hill over President Bush's decision to use the National Security Agency to monitor communications among terrorists, Bush's so-called "illegal" spy program has indeed undergone judicial review.
And a special foreign intelligence surveillance appeals court set up to review the case confirmed that such "warrantless searches" were completely legal.
Notes OpinionJournal.com today:
"The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978."
But the Journal notes that in a 2002 case dubbed: "In Re: Sealed Case," the FISA appeals court decision cited a previous FISA case [U.S. v. Truong], where a federal court "held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information."
The court's decision went on to say: "We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."
What's more, notes the Journal: "The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about" the Bush surveillance program.
"Routine" is your word, not mine, although it may fit. They so color their stories that I stopped reading them on a regular basis long ago.
I did read a recent piece of theirs headlined "John McCain: Torture Worked on Me," which claimed that McCain's experiences as a victim of torture contradict his oft-repeated assertion that torture fails to produce actionable intelligence.
Typically of NewsLax, they only tell half the story. I'm not a big fan of McCain or his "anti-torture" resolution; however, one shouldn't have to mislead or lie to make a point. McCain has repeatedly said over the years that torture on him resulted in him giving NO useful information to the Viet Cong and that he gave quite a bit of FALSE information. Was this in the NewsLax story? Of course not. They picked out a couple of minor USELESS tidbits of info McCain gave to his captors, while ignoring the rest of his remarks.
Again, this is why when I read a story from NewsLax, even when they are quoting another source (as they did with the McCain story and most of their stories) I wonder what they are leaving out. Obviously, from reading some of the other posts on this thread, I'm not the only one who asks the same question. If they reliably reported the gist of this story from the WSJ, that's great.
It appears to be. I would say in this case, it appears they faithfully reported on the WSJ report; however, since NewsLax is a dubious source of WHOLE facts, and often omit important detais to suit their purposes, posters would be wise to post the original story and not NewsLax's regurgitated version.
Then go to the Wall Street Journal.
This was reported yesterday, and it is a fact. Believe it.
LOL Exactly! It's funny - when I see a post that lists Debka or NewsMax as the source, 90% of the time the embarrassed poster starts his comment after the report with "I know these guys are not the most reliable, BUT, yada, yada, yada..."
Great, but I'm not going to believe because NewsLax tells me to.
Sorry, thats a bad link thats a DIFFERENT "sealed case"
I think the WSJ is on to something.
In short the only claim that leftist moonbats have that the President violated the constitution would be based on the 4th amendments prohibition against warrantless searches and seizures. However this court revisited the issue and decided that the Thruong Case settled this question and that the President has "inherent power" to conduct these actions. (629 F.2d at 914)
I will also look up the Thruong case, but so far it looks pretty solid to me.
Here is a copy of the link tho the 2002 case. Its in adobe format. Its a long opinion,(56 pages) but the relevant quote is on page 48.
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/fisa111802opn.pdf#search='In%20Re%20Sealed%20Case%20FISA'
Really .. President Eisenhower is on record as saying the NYT is untrustworthy.
In case their is a problem with my link, here is some more info on the 2002 case.
United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of For Review
In re Sealed Case #02-001 (Consolidated with 02-002)
Argued on Sep 9, 2002
Decided on Nov 18, 2002
Opinion filed Per Curiam
What the hell do I know.....
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Pardon my ignorance but what does "Per Curiam" mean?
In latin it means "By the Court". It means that all of the members of the court are endorsing the opinion as opposed to the "winners" writing the opinion and the "losers" writing the "dissenting opinion" or
or...a concurring opinion.
(Sorry for the break in the post.)
unanimous so to speak.....thanx
The real problem is that in order for Bush to prove that everything he was doing was "kosher", even more classified information will have to be revealed to the public - and our enemies.
This creates a "win win" situation for our domestic traitors. Either Bush is left to twist in the wind, or more covert info will be revealed to our enemies.
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