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To: kesg

Well, I agree there is a danger that a higher court could strike down the NSA program, although not on the grounds cited by this hack. The language the press is quoting is just ridiculous. But it is precisely the kind of rhetoric we would hear next year in impeachment proceedings if the "judge's" buddies, Nancy the Whip, et al, are given a majority.


58 posted on 08/23/2006 12:31:00 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: colorado tanker
Well, I agree there is a danger that a higher court could strike down the NSA program, although not on the grounds cited by this hack.

Anything is possible, but I have a very hard time seeing how. This would require the Supreme Court (no other court could do it) to overrule many of its own precedents by ruling that the Fourth Amendment ALWAYS requires a warrant, no matter what. That is not going to happen. For example, it would have to overrule decisions that allow the police to set up warrantless, suspicionless checkpoints on the highway for illegal aliens or drunk drivers. More generally, there are many well-recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement. Gathering foreign intelligence is simply one of them.

And again, according to the FISA court itself, FISA was intended to amplify the President's pre-existing constitutional powers to gather foreign intelligence -- not limit those powers. If the President had the the inherent constitutional power to use warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance before FISA, he had that power (and more) after FISA. And only the ACLU, leftists, libertarians, and other nutcases and Kool-aid drinkers dispute that this inherent Constitutional power exists under the President's Article II powers to conduct foreign policy and function as commander in chief.

60 posted on 08/23/2006 12:59:06 PM PDT by kesg
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