Posted on 08/17/2006 9:06:43 AM PDT by sinkspur
A federal district judge in Detroit has ruled that the Bush administration's NSA surveillance of phone conversations is unconstitutional.
"Listening in on a terrorist's call is gathering information to prevent an attack, an entirely different thing."
So your position is that warrantless phone taps on US Citizens do not breach the 4th Amendment, however?
--R.
The ACLU had filed a similar suit in 9th, 5th, 3rd, and 1st circuits, and lost each one, appealed, and lost on appeal.
The 6th Circuit hadn't previously covered this. No doubt the appeals process will correct this.
Of course, now how does the Judge determine that these are legislative powers?
The executive did not argue that AUMF gave the president the right to ignore/violate FISA. That is a horrible and deliberate misrepresentation adopted by the left and this judge (but I repeat myself). Rather, the executive argues that AUMF satisfies FISA.
From Wikipedia:
The administration argues instead that the authority to perform warrantless domestic wiretapping was implicit in the authorization to use force in the AUMF. FISA provides that intentional surveillance without authority is a felony "except as authorized by statute." The argument, in this case, is that "all necessary force" includes "foreign surveillance", and that the AUMF is therefore a statute that otherwise authorizes the surveillance, satisfying FISA's conditions for not constituting a felony. (italics mine)
The executive does not get to violate the law because we are at war. This President has never claimed that it can violate the law because we are at war. The word "undisputedly" comes from the left's oft-repeated mischaracterization, not from the executive's failure to argue its case.
Is FISA unconstitutional? Has the executive even made that claim?
Repeatedly. See Legal Authorities Supporting the Activities of the National Security Agency Described by the President
Indeed, were FISA and Title III interpreted to impede the President’s ability to use the traditional tool of electronic surveillance to detect and prevent future attacks by a declared enemy that has already struck at the homeland and is engaged in ongoing operations against the United States, the constitutionality of FISA, as applied to that situation, would be called into very serious doubt. In fact, if this difficult constitutional question had to be addressed, FISA would be unconstitutional as applied to this narrow context.
Finally, although the Defendants have suggested the unconstitutionality of FISA...
If they think FISA is unconstitutional, they need to get the Judiciary to agree with them.
They tried. The judiciary (strangely) wouldn't even consider the question.
It's that whole checks and balances thing.
Funny... from where I sit I can't see anybody who's checking the courts.
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