And just today we learned from another newspaper article that the FISA court has rejected more Bush administration warrants than in the previous 4 administrations (24 years) combined!
According to the December 2002 report of the House and Senate intelligence committees' Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, for one, the FISA system as a whole-and the FISA court in particular-went seriously off the rails sometime around 1995.
As the old saying goes "All I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11."
Now all I need to know about domestic spying is that there has not been another 9/11.
Thanks W.
And in late 2000, after federal prosecutors discovered a series of legally inconsequential errors and omissions in certain al Qaeda--related surveillance applications the FISA court had previously approved, the court's infamously prickly presiding judge, Royce Lamberth, appears to have had a temper tantrum ferocious enough to all but shut down the Justice Department's terrorism wiretapping program.
In another article, I read that FISA refused to accept warrants from a particular FBI agent because he had made an error in his application for a warrant. The FBI agent used FISA frequently and I think the FISA judges just got tired of dealing with his numerous applications.
And new applications were not forthcoming, the result being that, at least by the reckoning of one FBI manager who testified before the intelligence committees, "no FISA orders targeted against al Qaeda existed in 2001" at all. Not one.
Yes, of course, we should stop monitoring communication from Al Queda. Let the terrorists have their conversations and email to their terrorists over here and let them bring nukes, vials and bins of chemicals and let them have our cities and devastate our land.
Yes, let the judges dally for 2 minutes while the terrorist conversation is finished, and of course, anything monitored before that is inadmissible.
Yes, of course we want Jamie Gorlick's wall back up and the Department of Homeland security to be abolished.
Aren't you proud now?
bttt
The United States Constitution invests in the President, the power and responsibility to defend and protect the United States. The United States Supreme Court and Inferior Courts such as FISA, are given zip in national defense. The duty and responsibility rests in the executive. He must follow the enemy regardless of what FISA decides.
http://www.gordonthomas.ie/122.html
If true I find it very interesting when viewed in what this article states.
I wonder if the FISA court realized that America was attacked, right here on our own soil, that the President NEEDED info and fast.. God help us from insane biased agenda driven idiot judges. And God Bless the President for having the courage and sense of duty to do the right thing and protect Americans, despite the continual handcuffing from the enemy within.
bttt
Legally speaking, what was the reason for this wall of separation? Is it because intelligence officers can monitor "foreign agents" whether they are engaged in a crime or not, thus if a crime is discovered in the course of intelligence surveillance there would not be probable cause, thus the surveillance would be no good in court?
On the conspiracy side, I have always wondered if this wall was put in place to keep the FBI from discovering too much about Clinton connections to Chinese espionage.
I kept hearing how easy it was to get a warrant, why didn't Bush get warrants, judges just hand out warrants when asked without asking questions...well, now we know why the President had to resort to other legal remedies.