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.
This will make things worse, not better.....because the media will spin it as Bush trying to circumvent the courts even more than they tried to spin the original story.
This would not have helped Bush to use this at all.
"The MSM is desperately doing all in their power to have another 9-11 occur so they can:
Sell more newspapers
Blame Bush for not protecting us "
===
I agree, except for the order. I think their first agenda is to get rid of President Bush, so a Dem can take over.
Great find.
" U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate. "
My first reaction: "Good for you, President Bush!"
My second reaction: "Ann Coulter said, "I would impeach any President who didn't wiretap calls to foreign terrorists."
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Though much of the court's workings are classified, there are known instances in which FISA's "probable cause" standard prevented the government from getting warrants where common sense made it perfectly clear surveillance was justified. Notably, there was the case of Wen Ho Lee, the Chinese--American scientist who worked at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab. Lee downloaded nuclear codes and databases from the lab's secure computers. "In the wrong hands," his boss noted, such information could "change the global strategic balance." Despite this, and the fact that Lee had access to a warhead design that had leaked to the Chinese, had visited China in the period when Beijing apparently acquired the data, and had obvious friendly ties to Chinese nuclear scientists, it was judged that a FISA warrant could not be obtained. It didn't matter how grave the damage might be if Lee was actually engaged in espionage; what mattered was the government had no real evidence that Lee was a likely spy.
"How the hell can we fight terrorism when apparently the entire United States government is aligned AGAINST us!!!!
"
By going around them at every turn possible within legal means.
The article you just posted (with link to it in your post 222 is EXCELLENT!)
I highly recommend that everyone on this thread read it.
Here is a link to your thread again:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1547770/posts
Everyone, please go to the above link, then also continue on to read the article in full at the Weekly Standard -- they have specific examples of the damage FISA is doing.
So are you saying that ALL presidents violated the Constitution?
There was no law against spying on people in the US until the law passed by Congress as a knee jerk reaction to the Nixon scandal.
My point was exactly that this law has nothing to do with the Constitution and the Constitution was never interpreted as prohibiting the President from spying on our enemies, foreign and domestic. So why is it a big deal now, when in fact the only way we can find out and prevent terror attack, is by spying on terrorists inside the US.
Sorry, count me out.
OK, you're out.
"Which legal opinions are you referring to?"
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Well, here is one, thanks to Howlin for posting it:
Appeals panel rejects secret court's limits on terrorist wiretaps
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1547700/posts?page=30#30
Don't bet on it. That would be Bush's fault, too.
"Why didn't Bush say this when he was justifying his actions? He seems to have no interest in defending himself."
Bush has too many principles for his own good...unlike the last administration.
He didn't admit to doing anything outside the established law.
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