Replies

"When we broke the Jap code and used it to win the Battle of Midway, we didnt get a warrant for spying. Was that wrong???"

"Of course not. Were Japanese agents calling spies in the USA? Probably, and I'm sure we intercepted some of them."

And it would be strange indeed if the US army had to get court orders on any transmissions on US soil to Japanese contacts.

This is the issue. The Dems see this as a 'law enforcement' issue, and many of us see this is a wartime powers issue.
The President is well within rights to do this under the latter powers, and this is clearly not purely 'law enforcement' since what we are doing is preventing the next crime, not solving the last one.

"Please also remember that we put Japanese nationals in detention camps, legally."

It wasnt right then and wouldnt be legal now, USSC Korematsu decision was wrong.

"Why haven't we done that to Muslims here today? Do you think that would be legal now??"

No. Do you?

That's a bit of a red herring to bring up vis a vis a very limited, focussed, justified, not-very-instrusive program that is picking up information from those who talk to suspected terrorists.

Gore called the NSA program a 'massive domestic wiretap program'. Well, it's not massive, it's not domestic, and it's not really wiretapping. but other than that, he has it pegged.

This is the issue. The Dems see this as a 'law enforcement' issue, and many of us see this is a wartime powers issue.

I agree. But I'm having a hard time grasping the follow-through, the "action" that is taken to stop attacks. Will the military come on the scene with the information gathered? Will the suspects be ushered off to military brigs and subjected to military trials? Or will even those formalities be dispensed with?

If there is arrest, detention and trial other than military, i.e., ending up in court, then one bumps into evidentiary issues and the 4th amendment.

I can imagine the same sort of jumbled up situation with regard to surveillance that we now have with detention, Hamdi, Hamdan, Padilla, Rasul, etc.

Or is it better that Congress and the Courts forgo interaction with the President on this? Why bother with laws and judges, eh?