Eavesdropping, Spying, Surveillance ........ Doing What is Right (President Bush is Right)

Free Republic ^ | 12/19/05 | self

[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.

[borntodiefree]

I didn't, but maybe you should review the Bill of Rights. If you don't agree with them, then feel free to let the whole world know that you disagree with our form of government and resind your citizenship. Well?

I know what my liberties are (I don't even need a constitution, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or anyone else to tell me what they are) so who are you, or Bush, or anyone else to try and take them away?

Bush is a servant, not a master. If you or anyone else want to be a slave...go for it.

[borntodiefree]

Now we almost agree, lets have the government do what they are supposed to do and lock down and secure the borders. Then as soon as an enemy gets close, blow the bastard to bits.

If government spent 10% of the money on things they were supposed to be doing instead of spending so much on things their not supposed to be doing, we would all be much better off, completely exercising our freedoms, and significantly more secure.

Where we would have to probrably part ways, is that "terrorists" and "enemies" come and go ... especially over the last 9 decades and political and financial desires of a few people. Remember, not to long ago Sadam Huessein and Osama were the US's buddies.

So some guy, who lives in Kentucky, who leant his Uncle Ally Baba who is part of the Taliban, $5000 dollars to buy some camels back when the US and the Taliban were friends should not be afraid of trying to get his money back or be afraid the give Uncle Ally Baba $500 more dollars to pay for a field in Afganistan.

[lizma]

GET A FREAKING WARRANT !!!

Oh yes. By all means let treat this as criminal justice problem. The last administration did that and see how well it worked.

How many more of these do you want to see before your light bulb goes off and you realize we are at war? 2 more, 3 more but if they blow you up we will never know.

The courts have already said the VI doesn't apply to the to enemy combatants. The ACLU and Barb Boxer has been following this closely since and congress has reviewed it every 45 days it's inception and they have yet to find that any American's civil liberties have been violated.

Al Qaeda is plotting the deaths of millions and you're just sitting there in your underwear. Way to go!

[borntodiefree]

Again with the cowerdess and cry baby syndrome. Please Big Daddy help me!!

How about doing it the right way. Hmm lets see, go back to when everyone on an aircraft could carry a gun (there was never a hijacking on an aircraft until after they stopped allowing firearms on airplanes.)

At a minimum, have the pilots, ship captains, crew, etc armed to the teeth.

Put the military on the border.

Stop interfering with the internal governments of other nations (which was a mantra of the fouding fathers by the way)

The courts are the same ones that supported the Dread Scott Decision, support murdering babies in the womb, support the clearly unconstitutional Trading with the Enemy and War Powers Act among just a few. Yeah, they are not the final authority, the people are...including and especially the minority who believe that if you operate outside the constitution you are a criminal. By the way the founding fathers were a minority, not a majority.

By the way, I am sitting here next to my shotgun on my farm with my AR15 in the other room more than willing to protect my rights and protect yours from the "terrorists" or anyone else violating our God given rights.

[zook]

Looks like all the kook-based, isolationist, brain pablum pseudo-libertarians haven't been driven from this site yet. Too bad.

As Lincoln said, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. And as the FISA law reads today, Bush didn't come close to violating it.

[Ron in Acreage]

The reason the media and democrats are so upset over this, is because all those caught plotting against us are registered democrats.

[borntodiefree]

Nice one, resort to name calling for the people who have principles. Who said isolationist? Totally free market and exporting our freedoms through commerce is the way to go...not exporting "freedom" via war. You'll find nothing I have said out of line with the word of God nor that of the predominant founding fathers.

Who cares about FISA? The treaty must fall in line with the constitution or it is of non-effect. Oh wait, that is just me being a kook because I believe in the rule of law as established by the Constitution. Does that make you a communist and or socialist....hmmmm maybe, but that would be name calling.

[borntodiefree]

It isn't just Demoncrats...most of their stance sucks, and they are just pissed they couldn't get away with it. I'm also little "l" libertarian, but to much crap mixed in with them too. Maybe a "Paul Revere or Thomas Paine" party....Now that's the ticket.

[zook]

The names all fit. I've dealt with a lot of your type here lately. Y'all have no rational argument at all and I've decided it's better to ridicule the lot of you than to further debate you.

[borntodiefree]

So I understand fundamental liberty and law and understand how it has been usurped through fraud and fear. I can PROVE any stance I take and am NOT AFRAID of dealing with yours of my liberty.

You on the other hand believe you "deserve" something from the government beyond the powers that they are restricted to within the contract of the constitution. I have given realistic and constitutionally based solutions to the problems.

Now who is the moron?

[zook]

Hey, am I hearing banjo music? Like the theme from Deliverance?

You prove nothing other than your First Chair on the Fringe status.

[lizma]

Isn't that the same line Hitler used after the Reichtag Fire?

My in-laws are from Germany and I hear a lot about how the German's felt before and during the war, the Reichtag fire seemed to have little to do with it.

The economic depression put upon them was secondary to the Treaty of Versailles. It had a lot to do with it.

They chose big governmental control of their industry as a way to get them out of a bad economic situation and when they realized that they made the wrong choice, government was to big to fight. (And Europe appeased them until they were to big too big to fight,)

Bottom line, from what I've seen, all this "spying" has a second branch of the government, congress, overseeing it anf they have yet to see a violation.

I'm all for Bush doing this but I' m also for another branch looking over his shoulder. From what I can tell this maybe the first time a president has let this happen. Can you think of any other president that has allowed this kind of oversight?

[sgtyork]

There was a very thorough answer on National Review today.

http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512191334.asp


December 19, 2005, 1:34 p.m.
Why Bush Approved the Wiretaps
Not long ago, both parties agreed the FISA court was a problem.



In the days since the revelation that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to bypass, in certain cases of suspected al Qaeda activity, the special court set up to provide warrants for national-security wiretaps, the question has come up repeatedly: Why did he do it?




At his news conference this morning, the president explained that he believed the U.S. government had to "be able to act fast" to intercept the "international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda." "Al Qaeda was not a conventional enemy," Bush said. "This new threat required us to think and act differently."

But there's more to the story than that. In 2002, when the president made his decision, there was widespread, bipartisan frustration with the slowness and inefficiency of the bureaucracy involved in seeking warrants from the special intelligence court, known as the FISA court. Even later, after the provisions of the Patriot Act had had time to take effect, there were still problems with the FISA court — problems examined by members of the September 11 Commission — and questions about whether the court can deal effectively with the fastest-changing cases in the war on terror.

People familiar with the process say the problem is not so much with the court itself as with the process required to bring a case before the court. "It takes days, sometimes weeks, to get the application for FISA together," says one source. "It's not so much that the court doesn't grant them quickly, it's that it takes a long time to get to the court. Even after the Patriot Act, it's still a very cumbersome process. It is not built for speed, it is not built to be efficient. It is built with an eye to keeping [investigators] in check." And even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things.

Lawmakers of both parties recognized the problem in the months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. They pointed to the case of Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who ran up against a number roadblocks in her effort to secure a FISA warrant in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the al Qaeda operative who had taken flight training in preparation for the hijackings. Investigators wanted to study the contents of Moussaoui's laptop computer, but the FBI bureaucracy involved in applying for a FISA warrant was stifling, and there were real questions about whether investigators could meet the FISA court's probable-cause standard for granting a warrant. FBI agents became so frustrated that they considered flying Moussaoui to France, where his computer could be examined. But then the attacks came, and it was too late.

Rowley wrote up her concerns in a famous 13-page memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, and then elaborated on them in testimony to Congress. "Rowley depicted the legal mechanism for security warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, as burdensome and restrictive, a virtual roadblock to effective law enforcement," Legal Times reported in September 2002.

The Patriot Act included some provisions, supported by lawmakers of both parties, to make securing such warrants easier. But it did not fix the problem. In April 2004, when members of the September 11 Commission briefed the press on some of their preliminary findings, they reported that significant problems remained.

[borntodiefree]

Your are right, just the original checks and balances. Even a judicial warrant saying all calls from known or suspected Al Queda (sp) to and from the US. No problem, all I asked for was checks and balances.

Has another president had this type of oversight...who cares. Just because the wrong thing is done over and over doesn't make it right or the law. It is right and proper for the checks and balances. If we missed it before, lets clean it up before it gets worse.

[zook]

These knuckleheads who try to draw some connection between current government eavesdropping and Nazi Germany have no rational answer for the following: Why is it that despite all the widely accepted limits on "privacy" and "liberty" during WWII, Americans are freer today than they were back then?

In other words, all the "slippery slope" talk is nonsense.

[borntodiefree]

I doubt your hearing the music, and just to clear up any misconceptions, within a week, your probrably sending some data packets through a router, switch, or server that I have set up or supported based on the fact I have worked at or for every Big 5 company, four of the Fortune 5 companies, the 3 of the top 5 banks in the US, and every major carrier in the US and a few overseas, without touching the smaller banks, healthcare, and bioengineering companies performing advanced data communications setup. I won't bore you with the details. I say this as it makes me nothing except to display that I would not be only lined up with the hicks (which are usually smarter than most "city folk")

I however can not take first chair, that would belong to such names as Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson. However, I am flattered that you put me in such good company. Unfortunatly, you seem to have no ties to such great minds from our history.

[borntodiefree]

Who says it was accepted. I believe that SCOTUS found many of the issues unconstitutional. The bastards should have been shot, hung, drawn and courtered, take your pick.

As another old sound byte...Just because someone lengthens your chain does not mean you are free.

[lizma]

How about doing it the right way.

I agree totally with you points, excellent points BUT we have foreigners in this country that would love to blow up my children and yours. I have a problem with that. I bet you do too.

They are not citizens and they don't get the privileges we have. Especially when they want to destroy us. Why should they?

I live in DC. I'm at one of the ground zeroes. I don't want my kids to die for PC.

[lizma]

Has another president had this type of oversight, who cares

I do.

The bottom line, I think this is one of the first president in a long time that really thinks about checks and balances.

[borntodiefree]

I do agree that they are here. Another wonderful example of the government NOT doing what they were supposed to do.

However, I believe you are in error, it is a truth and not an easy one, but our Constitutinal rights are just written versions of Basic Priciples of Liberty beyond America. Everyone has these basic rights and they (unlike the powers would like us to believe) are not priveledges.

Why do they want to destroy us? If we are trading in pure commerce, they wouldn't give 2 pence for what we do(Reference the Treaty of Tripoli). We keep fudging with their governments and were supprised when they counter attack. NO, IM NOT SUPPORTING THESE BASTARDS!!! However, if you keep putting a match to a powder keg, sooner or later it is going to blow up in your face. Remember, we trained and supported these people for a long time. It was another screw up by the gooberment.

Because the government screwed up significantly on what they were supposed to do...secure the borders and stay out of the governmental affairs of other countries... and they still refuse to fix these problems, why in the world would I trust them with something else like my liberties.