Funny how liberals right now are not talking about the constitution as a living document. Libs will also say things about this (can't give up freedom for security) that they won't say about guns.
But...but...George Bush is doing it now so it's got be illegal.
This history proves one thing...Presidents throughout American history have violated the Constitution and the Supreme Court has, in most cases, acceded to these violations...but we all knew that
Helluva good post !
Wire taps might very well prevent this from happening...
On the other hand we are in the fix we are in because the door was left wide open for terrorists by many administrations..and the door is still wide open to our south..and millions of invaders of all persuasions have infiltrated.
BINGO
BINGO
BUMP!
This is one of the best posts I've ever read on FR.
Good post.
Excellent research and information. Thanks.
You might also want to include a note about Benjamin Franklin, who as Postmaster General, regularly opened mail on a national security basis, and did so without warrant.
Before Katz v. U.S., 389 US 347 (1967), warrants were not needed for ANY wiretaps, and were specifically okay under the rule of Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).
President Roosevelt order gave the Government of the United States access without a warrant all communications by mail, cable, radio, or other means of transmission passing between the United States and any foreign country.
I'd have to look it up, but I believe there were Congressional grants. 100% of international mail to and from the US was -openly- censored.
Kennedy used warrantless wiretaps on Martin Luther King that were simply approved by his little brother, the attorney general at the time. That fascist Kennedy, listening to a preacher's telephone calls without a warrant!
That one actually raised a bit of a stink. So did the blackmail threats and suggestions that he commit suicide in order to avoid embarrassing disclosure of personal activity. The FBI at its finest hour! Oh for a return to those days.
Clinton also authorized the NSA to wiretap and search the home of CIA spy Aldrich Ames.
He got a warrant for the wiretap, but the FISA Court had no mechanism -at all- for issuing a physical entry order. Not that I think the search was unreasonable - but using Ames as a parallel is an argument that can be turned against you.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1553690/posts?page=109#109
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1567288/posts?page=1043#1043
Jamie Gorelick, the 9/11 Commission member and former high-ranking Clinton Justice Department official, told the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1994, "The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes." That fascists Clinton Justice Department, asserting the President has the inherent Constitutional power to conduct warrantless wire taps!
Similar to above, but here you jump from physical entry to wiretap. The wiretap of Ames was done -with- a warrant. There was plenty of cause to get the wiretapping warrant.
Eavesdropping is less heavy-handed than firing missiles or holding terrorists in detention. Supreme Court found it was appropriate to detain an American citizen for fighting alongside al-Qaida. "How can it be that merely listening to al-Qaida phone calls into and out of the country in order to disrupt their plots is not?"
This is really a disjointed argument. It takes a military battlefield scenario and compares reasonable action used there with a completely unrelated situation with quite difference balancing of competing interests. I agree the argument makes a good sound bite, but it's logically twisted.
As for limiting eavesdropping to conversations involving terrorists, I'm confident that if that is in fact the case, the surveillance is eminently reasonable. If we know who the terrorists are (how else could we decide which conversations to listen to?), why don't we pick them up and deal some justice?
"We agree with the district court that the Executive Branch need not always obtain a warrant for foreign intelligence surveillance."--U.S. v. Truong
Just picking that one as an example, I think it captures a phrase that is at the center of the issue, "foreign intelligence." This is good and honest ground to debate from, and avoids trying to conform with "wartime v. peacetime," "authority granted by the AUMF," and all other traps involving grants of power from Congress.
The firmest ground for the administration is based on finding authority in "foreign intelligence" and the duty to "resist foreign invasion."