Posted on 07/13/2006 9:22:29 AM PDT by Jay777
The ACLU and liberals can now rejoice!!!
Announced by Arlen Specter, reported by CNN and Fox. Hasn’t hit the wires yet but I should have a link soon. Specter called the negotiations with the White House “torturous.”
After giving Geneva rights to the terrorists, the administration are really taking it in the pants this week. My initial reaction is a bit of shock and some disappointment.
(Excerpt) Read more at stoptheaclu.com ...
I think with the spineless people in charge of this "war" on terror, I may just have to learn to speak Farsi and start reading the Koran and become a muslim. I may then complain to the ACLU if MY phone is tapped or MY email is read.
The CIA is also a hotbed of dimwitted careerists who go back to the Carter Administration, with a liberal (no pun intended) sprinkling of hold-overs from the Clinton regime, which used every resource of the federal government for partisan purposes.
what a mess.
the war on terror is heating up, look at what's going on in the mideast now - and we are fighting it by turning more power over to judges to determine how it will be fought.
This is a misleading title. More phony "redmeat" genneration for the nonthinking class.
The legislation would authorize the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's most high-profile monitoring operations
Reviewing the constitutionality of the program and having the FISA court approve each and every wiretap are two very different things. If the FISA court says the "program" is constitutional, then Bush has brilliantly shut the mouths of the critics.
Specter and sphincter are synonymous.
no, that will not work. because the president doesn't take a message to the people expressing outrage over these attempts.
americans don't want geneva protections for terrorists, and americans support the foreign intelligence wiretaps. the president could easily take a message to the people on these two issue - but he doesn't, he doesn't want to fight the apparatus of the left (the courts, the RINOs in the senate) that are defeating him on these issues.
so if a terror attack does occur, he won't be able to back and say "I told you so" - because he isn't telling anyone anything up front, he's just giving in to this.
OK, and when FISA refuses to grant blanket constitutional authority for them - then what? then where are we? try and think a couple of moves ahead.
They won't grant a blanket Constitutional Authority but they will rule as they've ruled before that the President has the Constitutional Authority to conduct foreign surveillance and then the critics will still yell that this isn't one of them.
Bush isn't going to stop doing what is necessary...he is just pacifying the baby politicians that have their feelings hurt.
By doing THAT, he IS doing his constitutionally mandated job...keeping our country safe.
To hell with the Congress and their lust for power and attention.
You're exactly right and this "agreement" gives the President the option to have FISA review it. He'll probably send FISA a couple of border line test cases to see how they're leaning on that day and then if it looks favorable he'll let them see the whole program.
I have a feeling that another reason Bush is doing this..is because of that lousy decision by the SCOTUS last week...
He is probably afraid that Specter and gang would send his program to the SCOTUS, hoping for an equally BAD decision that would go their way, instead of the President's.
Since their say is non-binding, they do the program anyway. This is simple, why make it harder just to scare yourself.
you seem awfully confident of that - in an environemnt where a court just granted geneva protection to terrorists, ignoring article 4 of the geneva agreement.
the bottom line - the court will do whatever it damn well pleases, and whatever political biases it has - will be reflected in the decision rendered. And if it does, and it rules against the administration - WHAT HAPPENS THEN? Do we shut the program down, does the president defy it (he won't)? Do we have the votes in the Senate to authorize it (we don't, just listen to Specter)?
baloney, if this week is any indication - the adminsitration will not defy that ruling, they will comply with it.
Aw, how'd you guess?
You're right there too and in at least the FISA court they have already ruled that the President has these war time powers.
I thought the court already approved it.
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