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.
What are the consequences of getting this particular activity wrong?
Don't expect to find much support here. Thank God we are in the majority in this country at this time, not you. You all are acting as if this is a debate that's being scored on points.
We are under threat, 7x24x365, of nuclear attack engineered from within, in cooperation with external enemies. You would rather find yourself proven "right" than protecting our nation from a threat that supercedes any in history.
Thank God President Bush doesn't see things the way you do.
"Terrorism could be effectively fought within the laws of the land. "
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Sure, the prevention of 9-11-01 attacks is a perfect example of that. Oh, wait, we didn't prevent them because of a major "intelligence failure" a part of which the lack of ability to get a warrant from FISA for Moussaui's computer. Yep, the facts sure support your assertions. (/sarcasm, in case it wasn't obvious to begin with)
FISA IS NOT WHAT DETERMINES EXECUTIVE POWERS.
"The Constitution designates the president as commander in chief, and Congress can no more direct his exercise of that authority than he can direct Congress in the execution of its constitutional duties. As the FISA court itself noted in 2002, the president has "inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."
It is. No laws have been broken. Get over it and be thankful that someone is saving your sorry a--!
Who cares if he followed FISA or not. You keep putting strawman arguements out there to try and "trap" someone.
Please take your fishing expedition elsewhere.
Horrid logic. Congress is given the power to make rules for the government. The President is given no such corresponding power.
And as for any magical aura of protection supposedly emanating from the term "commander in chief", here is the commission that the Continental Congress bestowed upon General Washignton during the war of independence. After appointing him "General and Commander in chief, of the army of the United Colonies", the commission made it clear that "you are to regulate your conduct in every respect by the rules and discipline of war, (as herewith given you,) and punctually to observe and follow such orders and directions, from time to time, as you shall receive from this, or a future Congress of these United Colonies, or committee of Congress."
Obviously the founders did not view the status of "commander in chief" as being inconsistent with taking orders from a council, any more than the status of captain of a ship is inconsistent with taking orders from an admiral. And if it's not inconsistent with taking orders from a council, it's certainly not inconsistent with obeying laws passed by a legislative body that's given express power to make rules for the government.
You are not following anyone's "lead" you sound like a broken record, constantly find an excuse to keep saying that President Bush broke the law, but you have NO EVIDENCE, because he did NOT break the law.
The point I was making, very obviously, that in the pre-9-11 world they were treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue, punishing the guilty, IF and when we catch, them, AFTER the committed their crime. AFTER 9-11 it became clear to most people, that the stakes are so high, that waiting until AFTER the terrorist act was committed is TOO LATE, several thousand lives and now potentially several hundred thousand lives too late. That's why the President asked for and got the Patriot Act.
The president's duty is to protect our lives and the country. You are interested in protecting the terrorists and bringing down President Bush.
Who cares? You were the one upset over the supposedly "false" statement that the President's actions were illegal. You answered your own question.
An excellent editorial, which hits the nail on the head, regarding what's at stake:
"Top Secret" Front Page News
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1547918/posts
A big part of the problem, as Frank Gaffney and his collaborative authors (full disclosure: I made a small contribution) explain in the new book War Footing, is that one of the greatest challenges facing America today is the inability – or denial – of a large number of Americans to face the fact that we are actually at war. Many on the Left actively deny existence of such a war. They speak and behave as if al-Qaeda were a criminal gang running wild.
The phony indignation is about a clandestine, highly productive operation intended to thwart another terrorist attack on America. The president authorized limited, tightly controlled electronic eavesdropping by the NSA on terrorist supporters’ calls overseas to terrorists. The president consulted frequently with the Congress. He reviewed the program every few months. This is done in order to prevent another attack and since we have not had an attack since 9/11, this limited program has been effective. In return, the opposition talks hysterically of impeachment.
Now that this program has been exposed, you can rest assured – just as Hitler would have instantly changed his codes had he known about ULTRA – bin Laden, Zawahari, and other terrorists have already changed their methods of communications, making intercepting their plans for future attacks that much more difficult. Suppose NSA analysts caught them talking about bringing a dirty bomb into the U.S.? Or perhaps how they could effectively distribute weaponized anthrax around the country? Are leftists really content to miss that intelligence information on the absurd hypothetical that some innocent grandmother’s cell phone privacy might have been violated?
The Founders did not draft the Constitution to be a suicide pact. "
There is nothing in the Patriot Act that would define us as being terrorists.
At least broken records are consistent. You on the other hand are all over the map. You're saying that he didn't break the law, yet at the same time justifying his actions by inisting that the law was inadequate to our needs.
The liberals hate President Bush so much that they will stop him at all costs; even if that price is an American city.
"The liberals hate President Bush so much that they will stop him at all costs; even if that price is an American city."
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Absolutely right.
bump for read later
So basically...after reading through all 300 plus posts here, am I correct in asserting the main question as to TRUE legality is if the person being "tapped" is a US citizen or a foreign citizen?
When constitutional questions arise about authorities, which has happened hundreds if not thousands of time through our history, then we resort back to case law, can you please find the case law to support your argument that the President broke the law?
Well you can bet on this. The FBI obtained the information under the Clinton Administration and was not for circulation. Then they delivered the files to Hillary who had hundreds of them stacked up casually in a common filing area. The whole operation was illegal because there was not continunity of controllership of the documents.
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