[meema]

Great post, Howlin. I didn't catch it all this a.m., so I'll enjoy reading this a little later.
Also, it should be on c-span, Real Player.

[leadpenny]

Howlin, go here and you can watch it via RealPlayer. I saw it this morning. It was great!

http://www.c-span.org/VideoArchives.asp?z1=&PopupMenu_Name=Defense/Security&CatCodePairs=Issue,DESE;

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, Principal Dpty. Dir. of Nat'l Intelligence
General Michael V. Hayden, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, talks about what the intelligence community and the NSA are doing to protect the country.
1/23/2006: WASHINGTON, DC: 1 hr.

[ErnBatavia]

I just had to click into this thread to confirm that I hadn't gone bonkers and that this referred to Tom Hayden...

[pollyannaish]

THANK YOU! Excellent post Howlin.

Marking for future reference.

[okie01]

Every day, in every way, the media demonstrate the accuracy of my tagline.

[leadpenny]

"Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency"

BTW, he's now a full General and I believe he is still the director of NSA. The other hat he wears is Negroponte's deputy.

[Enchante]

"I testified in open session to the House Intel Committee in April of the year 2000 [DURING THE CLINTONISTA ADMINISTRATION]. At the time, I created some looks of disbelief when I said that if Osama bin Laden crossed the bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario to Niagara Falls, New York, there were provisions of U.S. law that would kick in, offer him protections and affect how NSA could now cover him. At the time, I was just using this as some of sort of stark hypothetical; 17 months later, this is about life and death."

This is one of the most important statements in the entire talk: here we have that Gen. Hayden, 17 months before 9/11, told the weasels of Congress in OPEN SESSION (and thereby the MSM and the Clintonistas, as well, if any were paying attention) that the NSA was severely handicapped in its ability to track Osama Bin Laden (or by implication any of this followers) and could track virtually nothing once they entered the USA. If anyone had drawn the appropriate implications and taken the appropriate steps, as Gen. Hayden indicates elsewhere in the talk, the 9/11 plotters would have been thwarted. Sooooo, the clear implication of Gen. Hayden's remarks is that everyone in the Clinton administration, Congress, and the MSM was put on notice by him 17 MONTHS before 9/11 of a serious type of vulnerability to terrorist infiltration of the USA, and nothing was done..... smoke that in your pipe, Richard Clarke, Algore, and other mindless critics!!

[Elsiejay]

Thanks for posting. I saw/heard nearly all of the general's comprehensive, detailed presentation, obviously, in my view, a dogged but necesary attempt publicly to educate the wilfully ineducable. The final inquisitor, ostensibly a learned student of the law and Constitution, evidently by his tone and rhetoric is convinced that the Fourth Amendment, and I would assume the entire Bill of Rights, is every bit as relevant and applicable to foreign nationals and enemies of America as it is to U. S. citizens. Or, perhaps it merely suits his immediate anti-Bush purposes to pretend that he believes this.

[Mike Darancette]

I hope the Senate Committee calls this guy. It should be a short hearing, I can see Hayden eating Kennedy's lunch.

[Mike Darancette]

I hope the Senate Committee calls this guy. It should be a short hearing, I can see Hayden eating Kennedy's lunch.

[heckler]

bump for later

[Yardstick]

Well this clears up some stuff I've been wondering about.

Like, rather than go around FISA, why not use the 72 hour provision? That way the NSA can immediately monitor a suspected terrorist call and simply file the paperwork later. Right?

"NSA just can't go up on a number for 72 hours while it finishes out the paperwork. The attorney general is the only one who can authorize what's called an emergency FISA."

Ah, I see. So even under the 72 hour provision, the attorney general still has to approve the call. And the attorney general requires a certain amount of paperwork before he'll approve.

"The standard the attorney general must have is that he has sufficient evidence in front of him that he believes he can substantiate that in front of the FISA court."

Oh wow, so the AG actually requires the same amount of evidence that would be needed to convince the FISA court that monitoring the call is warranted. I can see how compiling that kind of evidence could slow things down.

But it still sounds like the issue is mainly one of shuffling papers and completing forms and getting approvals and, you know, process stuff. Surely there would be a way of getting around these process hurdles without totally bypassing the FISA court.

"If FISA worked just as well, why wouldn't I use FISA? To save typing? No. There is an operational impact here, and I have two paths in front of me, both of them lawful, one FISA, one the presidential -- the president's authorization. And we go down this path because our operational judgment is it is much more effective. So we do it for that reason."

So it's not just process then. It's operational. What is the operational difference?

"The president's authorization allows us to track this kind of call more comprehensively and more efficiently. The trigger is quicker and a bit softer than it is for a FISA warrant..."

I see. With the Presidential authorization, the threshold has been lowered a bit for when a call can be monitored. You guys have more flexibility to go after the bad guys.

"[we]specifically target communications we have reason to believe are associated with al Qaeda, and we use all of the tools, Katie, available to us to do that."

So the threshold under the Presidential authorization is "reason to believe" rather than "probable cause" as under FISA.

"but the intrusion into privacy is also limited: only international calls and only those we have a reasonable basis to believe involve al Qaeda or one of its affiliates."

So the threshold is lower but more limited... it's narrower. Even so, isn't there a 4th Amendment problem with the lower threshold?

"what you've raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we're doing is reasonable."

So what the NSA is doing under the Presidential authorization is surveilling without a FISA warrant in the narrow instance of international calls that are believed to involve alQueda. This activity meets constitutional muster under the 4th Amendment so long as it is "reasonable". Under the circumstances it does seem reasonable.

The PowerLine writer caps things off with this:

General Hayden was correct, of course, as to the constitutional standard. It is not unreasonable to intercept international communications that are reasonably believed to involve al Qaeda; therefore, the program is constitutional.

[PogySailor]

Great post!

[mware]

Chalres Krauthammer who was on Brit's panel tonight again said that the Dem's are going to lose politically on the issue. This is a question of presidential power and in the end the people think the president did what he did to protect the American people.

[citizencon]

Did they say this conference was held at the NPC or at a Journalism Club in a high school in D.C.?

[7mmMag@LeftCoast]

Excellent! Bump.

[Mo1]

Listening to the speech now

[Mo1]

Cspan just had a scroll news - Federal Judge rules that changing LA Congressional election date is unconstitutional

[Mo1]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA .. After being "challenged" buy this nit wit ... the General says .. what was your question

[Texasforever]

QUESTION: Yes, Wayne Madsen, syndicated columnist

Good God does everyone know who this idiot is?