Posted on 11/19/2002 5:54:56 AM PST by KLT
Burning the Constitution
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Secret court OKs government spying on Americans
By REUTERS
Nov 19, 2002, 07:32
In a victory for the Bush administration, a secretive appeals court Monday ruled the U.S. government has the right to use expanded powers to wiretap terrorism suspects under a law adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The ruling was a blow to civil libertarians who say the expanded powers, which allow greater leeway in conducting electronic surveillance and in using information obtained from the wiretaps and searches, jeopardize constitutional rights.
In a 56-page ruling overturning a May opinion by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the three-judge appeals court panel said the Patriot Act gave the government the right to expanded powers.
Sweeping anti-terror legislation, called the USA Patriot Act and signed into law in October last year after the hijacked plane attacks, makes it easier for investigators andprosecutors to share information obtained by surveillance and searches.
In the May ruling, the seven judges that comprise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court unanimously told the government it had gone too far in interpreting the law to allow broad information sharing.
The Justice Department appealed, saying the order limited the kind of coordination needed to protect national security.
Attorney General John Ashcroft hailed Monday's ruling and said he was immediately implementing new regulations and working to expedite the surveillance process.
"The court of review's action revolutionizes our ability to investigate terrorists and prosecute terrorist acts," he said. "This decision does allow law enforcement officials to learn from intelligence officials and vice versa."
FOURTH AMENDMENT ISSUES
Civil liberties groups, which had urged the appeals court -- comprised of three appeals court judges named by Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- to uphold the court's order, slammed the ruling.
"We are deeply disappointed with the decision, which suggests that this special court exists only to rubber-stamp government applications for intrusive surveillance warrants," said Ann Beeson of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The groups had argued that broader government surveillance powers would violate the Fourth Amendment which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
But the appeals court said the procedures as required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act were reasonable.
"We think the procedures and government showings required under FISA, if they do not meet the minimum Fourth Amendment warrant standards, certainly come close," the judges wrote in their ruling, which was partially declassified and published.
"We, therefore, believe firmly ... that FISA as amended is constitutional because the surveillances it authorizes are reasonable."
Ashcroft said the government would uphold the Constitution. "We have no desire whatever to, in any way, erode or undermine the constitutional liberties here," he said.
The appeal is the first since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court and appeals court were created in 1978 to authorize wiretap requests in foreign intelligence investigations. Under the procedures, all hearings and decisions of the courts are conducted in secret.
The appeal hearing was not public, and only the Justice Department's top appellate lawyer, Theodore Olson, presented arguments.
Although the court allowed "friend of the court" briefs to be filed by civil liberties groups and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, since the Justice Department was the only party the ruling can likely not be appealed.
"This is a major Constitutional decision that will affect every American's privacy rights, yet there is no way anyone but the government can automatically appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court," Beeson said.
© Copyright 2002 by Capitol Hill Blue
The only problem is every damn Senator voted for it, without reading the thing. It's an obscenity which highlights the despicable state of government in modern America.
Hey Texican, ask yerself this question: If this is merely anti-terrorist searching-and-seizing, hence "reasonable" in time of war, are provisions made explicitly in the law to keep from using the fruits of such searches for prosecution of non-terrorist related crimes? If the goverment's new powers are not explicitly restrained to terrorism, then they WILL be used for other means.
Are you a terrorist? No. But perhaps you are an illegal homophobe, religious zealot, gun hoarder or sales tax cheat?
If they will remember the original ideas of Founding Fathers. Where will they learn them?
That my friend, is the 64 Thousand Dollar question.
---Osama bin Laden October 2001 tape
Speaking of the FBI files Clinton purloined, where were all the ACLU (and arch-Libertarian Conservative wannabe) lawsuits over that caper? I don't even remember St. Patrick Buchanan symbolically self-immolating over that (probably because he secretly wished he'd thought of the idea back in the Nixon Whitehouse).
That's an interesting posit, but I wonder if it's strictly true. In the dark ages, siege engines catapulted plague ridden corpses into fortified cities in an effort to infect the defenders. Obviously, the history of biological warfare predates Mr. Franklin, and as an educated man, either he or his military compatriots such as Washington would've at the very least, "had some concept of WMD." Maybe not nuclear weapons, but certainly I would be interested in researching his thoughts on the subject of civilian oppression during wartime.
Exactly. That's why I have no hope that Bush will apoint Judges to the Supreme Court that would contradict the legislation he has been asking for and signing. Gone are the checks.
In the twentieth century, thousands of times more people were imprisoned, tortured, and murdered by their own governments than by any foreign or invading forces.
The same excuse is always used by those governments that, by design or by default, tyrannize its people, the excuse of some threat to the country, which is mostly a threat to the government.
The wise will be much more afaid of their own government than any other threat. Who, after all, has the most WMD, and more of every other kind of weapon? Who else can track and know everything there is to know about every citizen? Who else can declare an "emergency" and force any large number of people they choose to give up their property, their homes, their dignity, even their lives? Its not the terrorists.
Hank
You hit the nail on the head kj.....if they are going to eavesdrop on law abiding citizens....not just those purported to be in terrorist cells here....we have a big problem...it's not that I have anything to hide...it's just my life is none of their D*mn business...Get my drift..
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