Posted on 08/17/2006 9:49:00 AM PDT by neverdem
Associated Press
Government's warrantless spying found to violate free speech, privacy rights
DETROIT -- A federal judge ruled today that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly taping conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.
The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
As a matter of fact, the only Cray 'supercomputer,' I've seen was on display in the lobby of a building on an Air Force base here; not plugged in of course. I believe it was a Cray YMP-2. State of the art circa 1989 or so.
PS To all of the other posters here who are knee-jerking themselves over this; what exactly about the word warrantless do you not understand? Get a warrant (FISA allows 72 hour retroactive monitoring-warrants) or have congress change the law. It ain't rocket science folks.
Thanks Chuck. Sorry about the feet, but I'm glad you knew where I was headed there.
I hear ya.
Thanks Steve. Your post and another have expressed views that were certainly not my understanding of the FISA court. In addition, the FISA court also turns down requests for monitoring. In light of that, how can you say that the NSA can have instant access? If a warrant is turned down, they've already screwed the pooch by your explanation.
That doesn't work when you're talking about data mining. What the NSA does is scan every single call. The filters for this program then yanks out all those to or from certain telephone numbers, and in which certain trigger words or phrases appear. It is a constant filtering process of billions of calls each day. How can you possibly get a warrant for each instance of filtering?
Now once they've pulled those suspicious calls and listened to them, they may then decide to put a direct tap on the phone in the U.S. on which that conversation occured. At that point, they have to comply with the 72 hour warrant requirement. But expecting them to do that for the data mining portion of the program reveals a lack of understanding of what that program is.
Are you suggesting this for data mining, too? If so, how would FISA work? Thanks.
Smells like impeachment set up to me.
Fine. Then let's advocate congress to craft a law saying that the NSA is allowed to do this datamining; if it is so compellingly effective (it may very well be); but it does need to be monitored by some oversight to prevent abuse. Republicans will not be in control of the executive branch forever you know?
"Smells like impeachment set up to me."
For the judge? or do you mean a democrat set up for after the next election?
BIG Jimmie (the weasel) Carter appointee!
Would you expect anything less out of the ---hole Carter?
A democrat set up during and after the next election.
Steve, this hasn't taken place in a vacuum. Congress has been in the loop from the beginning. For your concerns to be warranted, you'd have to believe that Bush, the Justice Department of the United States, the National Security Administration of the United States and a number of Congressional leaders from both parties were conspiring to break the law.
On the other hand, you might be comfortable with the American Civil Liberties Union opinion. I am not.
We'll see how this plays out.
Yes, and that's why they put impeachment procedures into our constitution. But fortunately, I don't think Hillary is electable in a national presidential election.
yeah, so why did the administration seek to secure a warrant from FISA 18,000 times? Because it was the law?
Do you really think that we have courts to authorize wiretapping an apartment in Germany?
Of course not, our "intellegence" operatives do that 24/7 /365 - as needed. The problem is the UNWARRENTED taps on domestic sources.
Big difference, and the court, IMHO ruled correctly. You can "feel" any way you wish about it, but the courts have spoken..........................for now
It comes from your self-inflicted ignorance of the Constitution.
The Founders argued over whether to give the power to wage war to the congress, where it had been under the Articles of Confederation, or the president.
They gave it to the president instead.
He has constitutional power to "repel sudden attacks", such as terrorist attacks.
No law can take that away from him.
If you wish to do something so foolish- to "even" the powers of the Branches LOL!- then amend the Constitution.
That's something that could be given surprisingly great weight by the court.
I would say a person doesn't, I'm sure our Founders didn't expect international communications to be protected.
But the "expectation of privacy" standard is a judicial invention of 1967 and has to be looked at from a legal instead of a constitutional perspective.
I am furious about this. How dare these judges undermine our security for political gain.
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