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you are extending that to people outside of the USA, who may have never set foot on the soil of the USA.
Possibly we don't disagree.
I'm not sure where this assumption came from, it is not so. The Constitution is an agreement by the people between the States as to what authority the Federal Government has. Technically, it doesn't apply to D.C. or any other possession with the exception of certain amendments that state it's provisions apply to possessions.
It doesn't apply to anyone outside the 50 states.
A case could be made that it applies to legal aliens while inside the states, but it would take specific reading of the wording of each provision to see if it applied to people under the jurisdiction of, or citizens of.
I could care less how much we bug, tap, invade privacy of, or otherwise monitor those outside our country. Actually that is wise and prudent.
I probably should qualify "i could care less" a bit. There are some boundaries that would make us look very bad to our friends and could create a diplomatic nightmare - on those I would advise caution, but unless it violates a duly ratified treaty that we have with the nation, it certainly does not violate our Constitution. You could even make a case that if a citizen places a call, email,etc. to a location outside our Country, that the Constitutionally emphasized "right" to privacy would be void. That could be a valid discussion.

I will simply repeat a previous post with regard to warrants.

Actually we don't disagree. Only when the "probable cause" is because the government wants to look. If we stretch "probable cause" to mean just because I want to, then we have handed the terrorist the victory by eliminating our government.
Probable cause - no warrant necessary: White guy, wearing Jeans and green shirt just robbed bank. Police see white guy wearing green shirt and call for him to stop. He runs into house.
Not probable cause - warrant necessary: White guy, wearing Jeans and green shirt just robbed bank. Police stake out department store that sells green shirts. Guy buys green shirt and goes home. At 2:00 am police break down front door to look for money.

The Constitution is very clear, there is virtually no wiggle room. The government can't just go poking around to see what they can find.

I understand that there are some who believe that the end justifies the means, but as I've pointed out before, the KGB actually caught some bad guys, but that doesn't mean I want my government to operate that way.

When there are no rules, then there are NO rules. "We the people" have set the rules that we want our government to operate by in our Constitution.
I've beat this horse to death and I understand that as long as it is a Republican who does it, a lot of folks around here don't care. I do.

Again, Very Cordially,
GE

Thank you for posting # 168.

I am seeing a little more on this discussion.

First of all, I am under the impression that the phone and e-mail intercepts are brought about by information obtained by arrests and searches of Al Queda operations in other counties. We know the e-mail addresses and phone numbers and monitor them based on that. In that case we are talking probable cause is already established. A warrant may assist, but this is a war situation, not a crime and even in crime, a warrant is not necessarily required.

If there is evidence that there are intercepts that are not based on Al Queada searches and arrests, that would not involve the war, and would need to be looked at in a completely different manner.

Also, the intercepts are only when the communication involves within the US and outside the US. I have no problem with any of this.

There are other circumstances that I would look at in a completely different manner. Just not here.

Warrants aren't needed for efforts to obtain information used in war- they are only relevent in obtaining evidence for use in court.

The wiretapping at issue here isn't to garner information for use in courts. It's used to garner information for use on the battlefield. Warrants do not apply on a battlefield.

I know the press has made an effort to make it sound like we're wiretapping people inside the US in order to get around their legal defense- hence the press's grossly inaccurate terminology "domestic spying," and the implication that warrantless wiretapped info is going to be used to unfairly convict some schmuck. But the wiretapping the press has been whining about is eavesdropping on overseas conversations where one end of the line is on foreign soil and can be tapped by just about anyone and any country without any warrants precisly because there is no way for one country to enforce privacy laws outside its own shores when calls get transmitted through other countries. It seems stupid for us to require an elected, term-limited government to obtain the permission of a small cadre of nonelected judges with lifetime appointments just to get the privilege of listening into international calls that the rest of the planet already has free access to.