Posted on 12/19/2005 6:30:23 PM PST by beyond the sea
Found this little piece moments ago. Seems to apply to all the absurd hubbub over what G.W. has very properly done.
.....
From:
http://www.slate.com/id/117041/
(snip) --
In time, Congress grew concerned about the FBI's power, and after Prohibition's repeal it outlawed all non-consensual wiretapping (but not bugging) as part of the 1934 Communications Act. In 1939, the Supreme Court upheld that law, ruling that since taps were illegal, evidence obtained from using them was inadmissible in court.
Even so, executive officials kept using wiretaps. In particular, Franklin Roosevelt sought to carve out a large exception to the statutory ban. In 1940, he wrote his attorney general, Robert Jackson, that while he accepted the court rulings that upheld the 1934 law, he didn't think those prohibitions applied to "grave matters involving the defense of the nation"—an increasingly high priority as world war loomed. On the contrary, Roosevelt ordered Jackson to proceed with the secret use of "listening devices" (taps or bugs) to monitor "persons suspected of subversive activities … including suspected spies."
Concerned about a German "fifth column" in the United States, Roosevelt specified that his order applied to espionage by foreign agents. But when Harry Truman succeeded FDR in 1945, America's enemies list was changing fast. The next year, as the Iron Curtain fell and the Red Scare flared, Truman's attorney general, Tom Clark, expanded FDR's national security order to permit the surveillance of "domestic subversives." Clark and Truman endorsed wiretapping whenever matters of "domestic security" were at stake, allowing taps to be placed on someone simply because he held radical views.
Presser was excellent. Wish he'd deliver more like that.
But isn't if you are merely "suspected" of such communication? That means your rights are not secure at all.
Then you clearly don't understand the purpose of liberties. Particularly FROM government. The reason this should not be occuring is that if you previously wanted to Tar-and-Feather Clinton, Reagon, or Washington or any other politician, you should be free to express that without repricussions from the government. If you express this and are being tapped arbitrarily, you can likely expect repricutions. The Constitution was not going to be ratified without the Bill Of Rights for a reason. Your now acting as Al Qaeda by saying forget the law, the ends justify the means....
No, there was plenty of evidence. Evidently our spooks uncovered some mobile and satellite phone numbers of the top AQ bad guys and the NSA started monitoring those phones. Calls were being placed from those phones to phones in the US. It's SOP for AQ to switch phones between calls, so the possiblility existed that the NSA would miss the next call to the US telephone UNLESS they monitored the US telephone. They were afraid that they would miss a phone call in the time it took to get a warrant.
LOL .......... and "stuck on stupid".
Comparisons are odious/foolish.
Tell you what, while you and many of the others here are cowering from these terrorists, feel free to give up your liberties, but please quit trying to give up the liberties of those who think you deserve neither liberty or security for giving up your birthright of freedom.
I wouldn't say Dumber than Dirt, but I would say he's an ideologue when it comes to "civil rights". It may be no surprise that he's got tons (Gigs) of illegally downloaded music, movies and software.
As a prologue to my story: I quickly changed the subject when he gave me his answer. The looks he got from those sitting around him...well, let's just say "if looks could kill".
Right ......
LOL.
A statement of conclusion with no basis on fact. Sound's like "I'm right, your wrong..because I say so."
It's an emergency..... we now need to violate the guidelines under which we are COMMANDED to abide by via the constitution. The Constitution is not a guideline, it is an instruction manual. At my job, if I don't do as I am told, I am punished. If I tell my boss I am not going to do my job anymore and do what he specifically told me not to, I get fired...if not go to jail.
Snarky straw-man fallacy.
You cannot tell me what MY LIBERTIES are, that is what the Democrats try to do.
Just avoid making comparisons. They are generally worthless and, at the least, an unneeded distraction to intelligent discourse.
These threads always bring out droves of "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" types of people. Generally speaking, I like President Bush and voted for him twice, but squeezing the Fourth Amendment gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.
I get angry about this topic the same way I do about National I.D. cards and so-called License/Registration/Insurance police roadblocks. They're all simple methods to determine how much control the sheeple will tolerate.
~ Blue Jays ~
If we had a leader that would do such things he wouldn't ask our permission first.
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