Posted on 12/27/2005 10:47:23 AM PST by Pragmatic_View
WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate.
A review of Justice Department reports to Congress by Hearst newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined.
The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.
But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.
A longer article on the subject:
Secret court modified wiretap requests. Intervention may have led Bush to bypass panel
I posted the UPI article, because it had the numbers.
Apparently the FISA court doesn't know we have been attacked on 9-11-2001 and doesn't care if the terrorists will nuke a US city.
This is just astounding.
Why didn't Bush say this when he was justifying his actions? He seems to have no interest in defending himself.
It would be interesting to know how many on the FISA court are Clinton placements.
Oh, but there's no bias or hatred towards GWB. None whatsoever!
Wonder if this will make the front page of NYT's? NOT.
Clinton Appointees.
"NSA prides itself on learning the lessons of the 1970s and obeying the legal restrictions imposed by FISA," Bamford said. "Now it looks like we're going back to the bad old days again."
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I guess they are very proud, that they may have prevented 9-11, but didn't and want to make sure they won't be responsible for preventing a nuke attack on a US city.
As they say, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. If the leftists want to commit suicide by jihad, I urge them to buy one-way tickets to Iran.
Good for Bush.
He did defend himself. As usual the Whine All the Time Choir just tunes everything out so they can find the next thing to whine at Bush about
No wonder Bush used his Constitutional Authorities rather than the FISA Courts. Any President in their right minds would have done the same thing and skip this sham court.
Because going around the court when it denied your requests isn't exactly a stirring defense. Regardless of how justified it may have been. We always must remember that it's Bush today, Hillary tomorrow.
It is isn't it..
Great grounds for impeachment.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created by section 103(a) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1803(a)). It was originally comprised of seven district judges from seven circuits named by the Chief Justice of the United States to serve a maximum of 7 years. THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT
2005 Membership
In 2001, the U.S.A. Patriot Act (section 208) amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to increase the number of FIS Court judges from seven to eleven, "of whom no fewer than 3 shall reside within 20 miles of the District of Columbia." The membership of the Court in 2004 was as follows.
Appointed Expires KOLLAR-KOTELLY, Colleen (Presiding) D.D.C. 5/19/02 5/18/2009 BENSON, Dee D.Utah 5/2004 5/2011 BROOMFIELD, Robert C. D.Ariz. 10/01/02 5/18/2009 CARR, James G. N.D.OH 5/19/02 5/18/2008 CONWAY, John E. D.N.M. 5/19/02 5/18/2007 DAVIS, Michael J. D.Minn. 5/18/99 5/18/2006 GORTON, Nathaniel M. D.Mass. 5/18/01 5/18/2008 HILTON, Claude M. E.D.Va. 5/18/01 5/18/2007 HOWARD, Malcolm N.C. 2005 2012 KAZEN, George P. S.D.Tex. 5/18/03 5/18/2010 ROBERTSON, James D.D.C. 5/19/02 5/18/2006
FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT OF REVIEW
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review was created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to review applications that were denied by the FIS Court. The Court of Review is comprised of three judges, one of whom is designated as the presiding judge, named by the Chief Justice of the United States from the U.S. district or appellate courts. Judges serve a maximum of seven years and are not eligible for redesignation.
Appointed Expires GUY, Ralph B. (Presiding) Sixth Circuit
to Presiding10/08/1998
5/18/20015/18/2005
5/18/2005LEAVY, Edward Ninth Circuit 9/25/2001 5/18/2008 WINTER, Ralph K. Jr. Second Circuit 5/18/2003 5/18/2010
*****The members are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
I am glad they went around the court...my family is safer because they did......now besides the DEMS we have 11 freaking judges trying to stop us from catching the bad guys.
When people bring up the Contstitution, that's a red herring.
The entire wiretapping was unrestricted until 26 years ago, when Congress made a law and created FISA, as a knee jerk reaction to the wiretapping of the Nixon adminstration. Is anyone going to claim that prior to that, for some 200 years the Constitution was ignored?
This is an unintended consequence of that law, and if Congress had any backbone and some other appropriate body parts, they would change the law to make it easy to catch terrorists, instead of handcuffing our President and intelligence agencies, making it virtually impossible for them, to find out about imminent attacks, once the terrorists are already in place, in the US. How idiotic is that?!
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