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Posted on 06/23/2007 8:03:06 PM PDT by TheTruthAintPretty
A federal judge who used to authorize wiretaps in terrorist and espionage cases criticized President Bush's decision to order warrantless surveillance after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Royce Lamberth, a district court judge in Washington, said Saturday it was proper for executive branch agencies to conduct such surveillance. "But what we have found in the history of our country is that you can't trust the executive," he said at the American Library Association's convention.
"We have to understand you can fight the war (on terrorism) and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war," said Lamberth, who was appointed by President Reagan.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
you’re wasting your time, unfortunately. Most of the people who still defend Bush here trust in the Man in Office—not in the institutions. they’re totally willing to surrender all oversight and constitutional checks on Bush just because he’s Bush and they trust him. The constitutional checks apply to people they don’t trust, but not to the ones they do—because the people they trust are keeping them safe. It’s tautological.
It’s also dangerous and stupid.
Article Two, Section Two, First Paragraph
Delusional - Article Two, Section 2, First Paragraph gives the President the power to pardon the “evildoers,” not to wiretap them.
Moreover, regarding “unreasonable searches and seizures,” Amendment IV guarantees that right to “the people,” not simply the citizenry. So, much as I despise Islamofascists, one can make a legitimate argument that Amendment IV on its face also appears to protect enemy aliens on American soil.
What is with the pantywaists in this country (and on this site) who esteem their freedoms so lightly, who think those turkeys are some kind of supermen, that they must surrender their liberties - and ours! - in order to defeat them? I commend to such people these words of Samuel Adams: “May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
This is proof that you know nothing about the constitution and are mentally unsuitable to trust.
The constitution provides for the common defense, not for the defense of enemies.
Your argument reinforces the call for a review of all illegal immigrants on the basis that they are here. Deporting non-citizens (illegal aliens) would be wrong because they deserve all the rights and privileges of the constitution just because they are on US soil.
Yes, just shut up and accept the attacks as a way of life. After all, our principles are intact even though our citizens are getting killed.
I do not presume to be an authority on the Constitution - my expertise is foreign affairs - but I’m hardly ignorant about it. Ask yourself: the Founders were intelligent men so why did they write “the people” if “citizens” would suffice? They must have had a reason. So a plain English reading of the document now makes one “mentally unsuitable?” Laughable.
One purpose of the Constitution is indeed to “provide for the commen defence” but aren’t you forgetting something? It also exists to “secure the blessings of liberty” and, not to mince words, this country loses its raison d’etre to the extent that it fails to accomplish that purpose. In other words, my loyalty is to the Constitution, not the flag. The flag is merely a symbol - the Constitution is the real thing.
Regarding illegal aliens - so you’re saying that lawbreaking is a constitutional right? I’m not. Establishing the conditions of entry and citizenship is a clear federal responsibility; one penalty of illegal entry into the country is deportation. I support that. I do not support, and neither should anyone else, a stance whereby aliens, for instance, have no freedom of religion, are subject to cruel and unusual punishment, or lack the due process guarantees of Amendments IV-VIII.
So you would toss our “principles” out the window simply because “our citizens are being killed?” Good God, man, wake up. Some in government would like nothing better than to reduce us to serfdom or slavery in order to “protect” us; freedom is sooooo dangerous! You’re ok with that?
I would sooner put up with daily terrorist bombings than accept authoritarianism as “a way of life” because freedom is indeed worth dying for. And lest you think this to be merely an idle comment, be aware that I have spent alot of time in Israel where bombs have indeed often gone off on a daily basis - so this is hardly an uninformed judgment on my part.
Excellent post. My feelings exactly.
Brilliant post.
If anybody now doubts that our President cares nothing of for freedoms as evidenced by his myopic stance on immigration and this insane warrantless surveilance policy, let them speak now.
He demands to see the destruction of these United States and as a conservative, I demand to see him (and his kind) removed from office with extreme predjudice.
An unfortunate consequence of his removal is his creation of his successor....let us PRAY it isn’t that MONSTER Hitlery.
Now, you're in charge of protecting the American people from IslamoFacist terrorists. You capture the cell-phone of an Al Qaida suspect. There are 50 phone numbers in it. Do you start tracking calls to the overseas phone numbers in it? You cannot get a FISA warrant to do it because the presence of the phone number if insufficient probable cause. It could simply be a travel agent or relative. Do you have someone prepare 50 inch-thick piles of paper hoping the warrants will be granted?
These are real world problems. Calling it "domestic spying" is simply spouting propagada on behalf of our enemies. That's what NBC continually does even thought he Admiral who ran the program pointed out every call monitored had an overseas terminus.
It also makes him Commander in Chief during times of war.
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States..."
One of the things that Commanders do in wartime is try to listen in on communications between enemy combatants to try to determine their strategy and stop them. It's called Signals Intelligence.
Understood but, IMHO, not really relevant here. One, Congress has not declared war. Two, the commander-in-chief clause generally does not grant domestic law enforcement powers to the federal executive short of scenarios involving civil war, invasion, or insurrection; domestic law enforcement, constitutionally speaking, is a state matter.
Bottom line: wage war without quarter on terrorists abroad, by definition they are ineligible for Geneva Conventions protection. Domestically, however, different rules apply. If the authorities have probable cause that a crime has been committed or suspect a conspiracy is afoot, they can obtain a warrant per Amendment IV. Claiming constitutional authority to declare anyone, even American citizens on American soil, as enemy combatants subject to indefinite detention without trial, as the current administration has done, is risible.
Moreover, the government can always secure the border and largely prevent the entry of enemy combatants to begin with. Government claims that we are at “war” would have more credibility if officials seriously addressed the border issue - securing the perimeter is also sound military practice.
I tried to give some examples of why the warrantless wiretaps are reasonable exercises of the Commander in Chief’s power when waging war. Dilbert56 gives a more detailed example that is very accurate to what has actually happened.
Yet our “libertarians” for the most part, refuse to address what could happen if we didn’t act quickly, decisively, but tried to go through all hassles and paperwork. But Steverino62 does accept the consequences - he is willing to accept daily terrorist bombings if necessary. I AM NOT!
As to the Soviet or Nazi threat - TINS is ignorant of WWII. All Mail was subject to being opened, reviewed, AND CENSORED. (A Japanses spy on Bainbridge Island, WA, was captured after reviewing various letters and finding a pattern of sending coded phrases that gave ships movements in and out of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.) Of course, any direct connections to Europe (telegraph cable) was subject to monitoring. So what has happened in the past has certainly been more invasive than present.
During the 1990’s - Clinton authorized the TRUE domestic wiretapping program that far exceeded what Pres. Bush has done, and we here little about it. Clinton decided that the Oklahoma bombing was due to extreme right wing groups running amok, and he authorized and directed a wide sweeping wire tap program to gather data. Yet the Democrats refuse to critize that extensive and abusive program, while being overly critical of a program that is clearly focused on terrorism.
During wartime - there have been some tough calls - some bad, some good. Roosevelt ordered the detention of Japanese-Americans on the west coast. Roosevelt permitted the military tribunals and the executions of German spies who landed in the U.S. - and 1 of those spies was an American citizen. (No Constitutional protections for the spy.) Roosevelt (and Lincoln, during the Civil War) suspended the right of Habeas Corpus. The list is much longer than what Pres. Bush is even allged to have done - so yes, comparisons can be made.
Mike
Can you point out the words 'warrantless' or 'spying' in here because I don't see them.
There must be an invisible emanating penumbra in there somewhere..
L
Look, this walk down memory lane is very interesting but not very relevant to our present situation.
In all the cases you cite save Clinton’s the US was actually involved in declared wars (in the case of the Civil War, an “insurrection”). Since we are not presently so engaged, those examples are not particularly instructive. The problem here is the government attempt to impose domestic wartime-style surveillance in peacetime (defined here as the absence of a declaration of war so don’t even start about Iraq or Afghanistan or the GWOT). As for the more relevant Clinton example, I voraciously criticized his wiretap program for the same reason I now criticize Bush’s - because both fly in the face of Amendment IV.
We bring no honor to our country or ourselves when we cite expediency to ignore the plain wording of our founding document.
It’s a hard, cold fact: while many nations and groups in the world today threaten our national interests, only one government threatens our liberties - our own. Some here are clearly willing to trade liberty for a false sense of security; others in this country appear willing to surrender to the Islamofascists altogether. I do not consent to either course because both lead to the erosion or loss of liberty. It doesn’t take a prophet to figure that out!
I think you are confusing the President's war making powers under Article 2 with the President's law enforcement powers. Listening in on enemy communications has nothing to do with law enforcement. Signals intelligence is what we did when we broke the Japanese code and learned of their plans to invade Midway Island in World War II.
Think of it this way, if FDR was listening in on conversations between the German High Command and Nazi spies in the U.S., would he have had to have a warrant first? Of course not. The warrant requirement under the Fourth Amendment only applies to unreasonable searches and seizures, which has been interpreted to mean searches and seizures conducted as part of law enforcement. The courts have never considered Signals Intelligence to be an unreasonable search and seizure.
Please see response #36.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
OK. Then, where does it say in the Constitution that there are conditions on citizenship when the word 'people' is used everywhere?
So, it is a "principle" to allow citizens to communicate freely with declared enemies?
Nobody is losing the right to make the phone call to an enemy. Nobody is going to jail for making a phone call to an enemy. All we are doing is eavesdropping on that phone call and collecting intelligence. You oppose this?
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