Posted on 01/07/2006 4:34:58 AM PST by balch3
Topeka U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., on Friday said the Bush administration needed to answer questions about spying on Americans without court authorization.
And Brownback said he disagreed with the administrations legal rationale, which he said could hamper future presidents during war.
There are questions that should be examined at this point in time, Brownback said during a news conference.
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.ljworld.com ...
Go ahead. (moderatoer, sorry if this shouldn't have been in breaking news)
Another Frist we don't need.
The rest must apply when deemed reasonable, and to keep the searches reasonable.
How true.
I remember Trent (the "Peter Principle" has stopped his career in its tracks) as being that way also.
Too bad we don't have someone with the leadership ability of Newt Gingrich in the senate.
I think that is not the case. I think the net is cast more broadly. But we don't know for sure because none of the reports particularly describe the scope of the warrantless surveillance.
If the surveillance is in the scope of FISA, then it's a non-issue. The fact that it's an issue is an indicator that the surveillance is outside the scope of FISA. "Outside the scope of FISA" does not mean the surveillance is unconstitutional - but it takes particular facts (which we don't have) to reach a judgment on that.
This statement is positively stupid. It totally contradicts itself. I suspect this is another case of the "journalists" misreporting what Brownback said. I bet the actual quote doesn't say this at all. Notice the "Report" is TELLING us what Brownback said, NOT actually QUOTING Brownback. My guess is Brownback, being the good little careerist Senator he is, said things to try and be on BOTH sides of the issue at the same time.
Then, if elected, Brownback would not monitor phone conversations from abroad with suspected terrorists?
Ok. That is all I need to know about him.
Lets be fair here.Since the MSM isn't going to report it then we should..I am sick and tired of these dems and these RINOS..Please read this..
Clinton NSA Wiretapped Top Republican
During the 1990's under President Bill Clinton, the National Security Agency conducted random telecommunications surveillance of millions of phone calls daily under a top secret program known as Echelon.
But according to at least two people familiar with the spy operation at the time, some of the surveillance was far from indiscriminate.
In a February 2000 interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," NSA operator Margaret Newsham revealed that the agency's listening post in Great Britain was involved in monitoring the phone calls of at least one top Republican on Capitol Hill.
Questioned by "60 Minutes" interviewer Steve Kroft, Newsham recalled how she learned of the illegal surveillance:
"I walked into the office building and a friend said, 'Come over here and listen to--to this thing.' And he had headphones on, so I took the headphones and I listened to it, and I looked at him and said, 'That's an American.' . . .
Ms. Newsham remembered, "It was definitely an American voice, and it was a voice that was distinct. And I said, 'Well, who is that?'
"And he said it was Senator Strom Thurmond."
Until his retirement from the Senate in 2002, Thurmond was a frequent critic of the Clinton administration, who played a leading role in the 1998 impeachment drama - though there's no known connection to the decision to wiretap the South Carolina conservative.
During the same program, however, Kroft consulted with Mike Frost, who worked for Canada's version of the NSA for 20-years.
Asked if it was commonplace for the NSA to monitor the phone calls of top U.S. politicians, Frost told CBS: "Of course it goes on. Been going on for years. Of course it goes on. That's the way it works."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/6/111205.shtml
Kansas City and St. Louis come to mind. That and the fact there is at least one Al-Qaeda cell operating in Kansas.
Correction:
It is unreasonable if these accountability measures are violated or government employees violate to their oath to preserve and defend the Constitution.
I don't see anyone right now. Maybe Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Grassley, Lugar, Bond, etc are just putting in their time. Sad.
Yep. Technically, there was no "wiretap." It is "eavesdropping."
What gives the civil liberty-types diaper rash is that the voice recognition software used in "sweeping" the key words in phone calls might have overheard a sentence or two from two domestics talking about Momma's biscuit recipe. Of course, the NSA is not interested in Momma's biscuit recipe, and dropped the call immediately, but the constamatooshinalists think protecting Momma's biscuit recipe by making the executive branch jump through judicial hoops is the highest priority versus raising the odds that an al-Qaeda call might be intercepted and thereby protecting thousands of lives.
Again, nice you have feelings. Sorry your feelings are completely irrelevant. Please do us the courtesy of NOT stating emotive opinions as statements of fact. Your Opinions ARE NOT legal fact. They are NOTHING but your own partisan opinions. Just because YOU feel that is what law means is totally irreverent. You are not a Judge. Your legal opinions are meaningless. Sorry we are a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy. You do NOT get to vote on this, and if we DID, your opinions would STILL lose. You are irrelevant, learn to live with it.
"I do not agree ... that when the Congress gave the authorization to go to war that that gives sufficient legal basis for the surveillance," ... if the justification holds up, "you're going to have real trouble having future Congresses giving approval to presidents to go to war."
In other words, he's saying that if Congress perceives a president as stretching a resolution too far, it'll change Congress attitude about crafting and granting them. He's basically saying that he didn't have "extension of FISA" in mind when he signed on to the AUMF.
Brownback said he wasn't opposed to the administration conducting surveillance but that the legal basis had to be straightened out.
Is this an "off the reservation" attitude? The premise (which we don't have precise facts to gauge) was "Bush has confirmed that he approved allowing the National Security Agency to monitor Americans without seeking warrants."
Good gad. Really? Paging Nurse Ratched...
Oh, Senator....
My, what a leap. Where did you draw that conclusion from?
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