Posted on 01/21/2006 11:48:37 AM PST by wildbill
In a speech this week, former vice president Al Gore took another swing at the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program, which monitors international communications when one party is affiliated with terrorists...But the real issue is national security: FISA is as adept at detecting -- and, thus, preventing -- a terrorist attack as a horse-and-buggy is at getting us from New York to Paris.
(Excerpt) Read more at hnn.us ...
ping for later!
Mr. "No contolling legal authority" should worry about his own criminal activities while serving under the most corrupt administration in history.
Al Gore needs psychological help. His psychopathic lying has really gotten the best of him --- as it did during 2000. He, and Dean, should do the Beavis and Butthead show.
While the article points out the difficulty and time consuming nature of obtainng FISA approval quickly, it doesn't address the provision in the law to be ability to comply "after the fact". I would expect however that unfortunately the numbers of calls coming into the US from foreigners under surveillance is far more than just one or two a day but in the hundreds amd perhaps thousands a day (or more?). At the very least, the procedures for compliance with FISA need re-examination in light of current technologies and wartime needs.
Second that, for Mr "Contribute at the Buddhist Temple" guy.
I never thought of this scenario....
"....For example, al Qaeda agent X, having a phone under FISA foreign surveillance, travels from Pakistan to New York. The FBI checks airline records and determines he is returning to Pakistan in three hours. Background information must be prepared and the document delivered to the attorney general. By that time, agent X has done his business and is back on the plane to Pakistan, where NSA can resume its warrantless foreign surveillance. Because of the antiquated requirements of FISA, the surveillance of agent X has to cease only during the critical hours he is on U.S. soil, presumably planning the next attack...."
Because there were Clinton appointed/anti-americans on the FISA court bench.
What if they glean info which is urgent and necessary to fight terrorists, and then go to the FISA court, who then denies them access to the info. Do they just forget about it?
Just a possible scenario.
Also a question, none of this would be allowed to be used in court if there wasn't a warrant for the info, right?
This article was the topic of conversation over dinner last night. (Grilled pork chops, wild rice and buttered cauliflower.)
It should be required reading of every Democrat in congress, every dang Democrat in the country, for that matter. Excellent post and excellent article, Victoria.
bump for publicity
Not to be difficult, but the 72 hour provision should allow the NSA to keep tabs on agent X.
Of course, that still doesn't make the warrant application process any less cumbersome.
Just a possible scenario.
Not "Just a possible scenario." You've really gone right to the very deep heart of the whole issue. The answer is that the President can't just forget about it, because the Constitution gives him the responsibility and authority to protect the country. Forcing the President to comply with a FISA ruling in this very situation puts FISA in charge of the defense of the country. Your example is the nightmare scenario for a President operating under FISA rules instead of the Constitution, a nightmare that might shortly thereafter be shared by the American people.
* added by poster
Actually, FISA almost always approves the requests. Since 1979 there have been 19,000 FISA requests for warrants or wiretaps, and in that time only 5 have been denied. It's a rubber stamp.
We could always undercut the Dims by just broadcasting our plans directly to Aljizerra!
ABC CBS NBC CNN its all the SAME, Propaganda.
Might as well call them all AmeriJazerra.
Show them how much Psychological Gravitas Hugh Bris has. Vote with your remote! Shut down the Alphabet channels. *"aka the
He's Got A Plan
Zippo Hero
HNN
History News Network Because the Past is the Present, and the Future too.
Center for History and New Media
Victoria Toensing: Why Bush had to override FISA
SOURCE: WSJ (1-19-06)
[Ms. Toensing, a Washington lawyer, was chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration.]
..................
In a speech this week, former vice president Al Gore took another swing at the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program, which monitors international communications when one party is affiliated with terrorists. Specifically, Mr. Gore argued that George Bush "has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently," and that such actions might constitute an impeachable offense. The question he raises is whether the president illegally bypassed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). But the real issue is national security: FISA is as adept at detecting -- and, thus, preventing -- a terrorist attack as a horse-and-buggy is at getting us from New York to Paris.
I have extensive experience with the consequences of government bungling due to over-strict interpretations of FISA. As chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee from 1981 to 1984, I participated in oversight of FISA in the first years after its passage. When I subsequently became deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, one of my responsibilities was the terrorism portfolio, which included working with FISA.
In 1985, I experienced the pain of terminating a FISA wiretap when to do so defied common sense and thwarted the possibility of gaining information about American hostages. During the TWA 847 hijacking, American serviceman Robert Stethem was murdered and the remaining American male passengers taken hostage. We had a previously placed tap in the U.S. and thought there was a possibility we could learn the hostages' location. But Justice Department career lawyers told me that the FISA statute defined its "primary purpose" as foreign intelligence gathering. Because crimes were taking place, the FBI had to shut down the wire.
FISA's "primary purpose" became the basis for the "wall" in 1995, when the Clinton-Gore Justice Department prohibited those on the intelligence side from even communicating with those doing law enforcement. The Patriot Act corrected this problem and the FISA appeals court upheld the constitutionality of that amendment, characterizing the rigid interpretation as "puzzling." The court cited an FBI agent's testimony that efforts to investigate two of the Sept. 11 hijackers were blocked by senior FBI officials, concerned about the FISA rule requiring separation.
Today, FISA remains ill-equipped to deal with ever-changing terrorist threats. It was never envisioned to be a speedy collector of information to prevent an imminent attack on our soil. And the reasons the president might decide to bypass FISA courts are readily understandable, as it is easy to conjure up scenarios like the TWA hijacking, where strict adherence to FISA would jeopardize American lives.
The overarching problem is that FISA, written in 1978, is technologically antediluvian. It was drafted by legislators who had no concept of how terrorists could communicate in the 21st century or the technology that would be invented to intercept those communications. The rules regulating the acquisition of foreign intelligence communications were drafted when the targets to be monitored had one telephone number per residence and all the phones were plugged into the wall. Critics like Al Gore and especially critics in Congress, rather than carp, should address the gaps created by a law that governs peacetime communications-monitoring but does not address computers, cell phones or fiber optics in the midst of war.
The NSA undoubtedly has identified many foreign phone numbers associated with al Qaeda. If these numbers are monitored only from outside the U.S., as consistent with FISA requirements, the agency cannot determine with certainty the location of the persons who are calling them, including whether they are in the U.S. New technology enables the president, via NSA, to establish an early-warning system to alert us immediately when any person located in the U.S. places a call to, or receives a call from, one of the al Qaeda numbers. Do Mr. Gore and congressional critics want the NSA to be unable to locate a secret al Qaeda operative in the U.S.?
If we had used this ability before 9/11, as the vice president has noted, we could have detected the presence of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in San Diego, more than a year before they crashed AA Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
And to correct an oft-cited misconception, there are no five-minute "emergency" taps. FISA still requires extensive time-consuming procedures. To prepare the two-to-three-inch thick applications for non-emergency warrants takes months. The so-called emergency procedure cannot be done in a few hours, let alone minutes. The attorney general is not going to approve even an emergency FISA intercept based on a breathless call from NSA.
For example, al Qaeda agent X, having a phone under FISA foreign surveillance, travels from Pakistan to New York. The FBI checks airline records and determines he is returning to Pakistan in three hours. Background information must be prepared and the document delivered to the attorney general. By that time, agent X has done his business and is back on the plane to Pakistan, where NSA can resume its warrantless foreign surveillance. Because of the antiquated requirements of FISA, the surveillance of agent X has to cease only during the critical hours he is on U.S. soil, presumably planning the next attack....
Well the point that I've heard people try to make is that they can act as long as they go to the court afterwards. I would think that there however needs to be some blanket provision otherwise there would be hundreds or thousands of these wireless calls coming into the US that paperwork would have to be filed. The old FISA law should be re-examined.
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