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Bush was denied wiretaps, bypassed them (FISA Court denied them in unprecedented numbers)
UPI ^ | Dec. 27, 2005 | UPI

Posted on 12/27/2005 10:47:23 AM PST by Pragmatic_View

WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate.

A review of Justice Department reports to Congress by Hearst newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined.

The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.

But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.


TOPICS: Extended News; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: abovethelaw; alqaeda; fisa; gwot; heroic; homelandsecurity; nsa; patriotleak; spying; terrorattack; terrorism; wiretap; wiretaps; wot
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To: oceanview
Scalia apparently wants Padilla to receive a civilian trial.

So does the administration.

Appeals Court Refuses to Transfer Padilla
Posted on 12/21/2005 5:06:48 PM EST by AntiGuv

the train is going to come off the rails here pretty soon given where the judiciary wants to exert (or create) its authority in these matters.

The issue involves defining the parameters of "these matters." The Courts are also a creature of the Constitution, and to divorce them entirely from the process government uses to assert control over the governed will mark the end of the Republic.

There is give and take going on, and that is a good thing. Congress recently cut off some civilian court access that SCOTUS provided to Gitmo detainees -- it was a hoot to see FReepers lambasting Senator Graham for doing so. Remember this one -> Senate plan could gain captives federal appeals ;-)

561 posted on 12/29/2005 11:39:58 AM PST by Cboldt
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To: Cboldt

well yes, because they know they will lose the enemy combatant designation case in the SCOTUS - so they tried to short circuit a decision on that by taking him into civilian court on other charges.

Padilla will not be charged as the dirty bomber now - expecially in light of this NSA stuff and the revelations about the AQ leadership being held in the CIA foreign prisons. no way the government marches into open court with evidence from those sources. they will try him on these civilian charges (I don't even know what they are) and hopefully get a conviction, I guess if they do, he can be credited with his time served as a combatant against his sentence. If he's acquitted, I guess he files a civil suit against the US government, and the taxpayers pay to have the FBI follow him around for the rest of his life.


562 posted on 12/29/2005 11:47:46 AM PST by oceanview
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To: sinkspur
Uh, the court demands a warrant and probable cause for arrest. This is the first I've heard that any kind of paperwork is demanded for surveillance.

So it's perfectly constitutional for the government to arbitrarily tap anybody's phone it wants to, like was done in the Soviet Union and under Saddam Hussein's regime?

563 posted on 12/29/2005 1:05:01 PM PST by inquest (If you favor any legal status for illegal aliens, then do not claim to be in favor of secure borders)
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To: inquest
So it's perfectly constitutional for the government to arbitrarily tap anybody's phone it wants to, like was done in the Soviet Union and under Saddam Hussein's regime?

Of course not. That's a strawman.

564 posted on 12/29/2005 4:47:08 PM PST by sinkspur (Trust, but vilify.)
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To: sinkspur
That's a strawman.

It follows directly from your attempt to remove surveillance from the requirements that apply to searches and seizures under the 4th amendment.

Is surveillance not a type of search? If it is, then the same paperwork requirements apply to them as apply to arrests, since the 4th amendment covers searches and seizures equally.

565 posted on 12/29/2005 4:57:12 PM PST by inquest (If you favor any legal status for illegal aliens, then do not claim to be in favor of secure borders)
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To: inquest
It follows directly from your attempt to remove surveillance from the requirements that apply to searches and seizures under the 4th amendment.

The fourth amendment does not outlaw all searches without a warrant; it outlaws all unreasonable searches and seizures.

The reasonableness standard generally requires that searches conducted in the course of ordinary criminal law enforcement require a warrant. However, the Supreme Court has long recognized that special circumstances, outside of criminal law enforcement, can justify a departure from the warrant requirement. Foreign intelligence collection, especially in the midst of an armed conflict in which the adversary has already launched catastrophic attacks within the United States, fits squarely within the special circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.

566 posted on 12/29/2005 5:26:16 PM PST by sinkspur (Trust, but vilify.)
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To: sinkspur
Foreign intelligence collection, especially in the midst of an armed conflict in which the adversary has already launched catastrophic attacks within the United States, fits squarely within the special circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.

Your statement at #564 came across as a bit more categorical than that, which is why I had the reaction that I did.

567 posted on 12/29/2005 5:59:52 PM PST by inquest (If you favor any legal status for illegal aliens, then do not claim to be in favor of secure borders)
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To: garbanzo
Let me make this a bit more concrete

Nice try, but you have a few ingredients missing in your 'concrete'.

There were no nukes in hands of the enemy then, there were no jets to be hijacked and flown into cities, there was no well funded radical islam, there were no computers, no cell phones, no internet, no electronic banking system, no satellites, on and on and on.

The world, and thus the threat, has changed my friend. Wake up and smell the coffee.

568 posted on 12/29/2005 8:52:26 PM PST by NewLand (Posting against liberalism since the 20th century!)
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To: NewLand
There were no nukes in hands of the enemy then, there were no jets to be hijacked and flown into cities, there was no well funded radical islam, there were no computers, no cell phones, no internet, no electronic banking system, no satellites, on and on and on.

So this means we should just abandon democracy and let a dictator rule? There have always been threats - Washington DC was burned down during the War of 1812. The Confederacy made a good try at doing it again during the Civil War. We lived under the threat of nuclear anihilation during the Cold War - all without demolishing the Constitution.

569 posted on 12/29/2005 9:45:09 PM PST by garbanzo (Government is not the answer to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: Dolphy
In the abstract sense I suppose a point is being made but it isn't very weighty given its disregard for proportionality and context, among other things.

It's a deep and not obvious question of moral philosophy - is violation of human rights a per se wrong, or is it wrong only in certain contexts? It's the same issue as the debate over torture - is it justified in some cases? Given the level of depth such a question requires, I don't think any progress could be made on it in a forum like this.

570 posted on 12/29/2005 9:48:31 PM PST by garbanzo (Government is not the answer to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: garbanzo
I'm mostly on your side in this, but I think there are reasonable questions being asked of you. Is the risk of listening in on an innocent conversation as serious as the risk of wrongly convicting someone for a crime? Morally and ethically, are they of the same magnitude? Please note that this is different from the question of whether government should be given carte blanche power to listen in on innocent conversations just in case it's able to come across information that prevents a nuclear attack. I agree that it should not.

True enough that a violation of the Constitution is a violation of the Constitution (and I'm inclined to think it was violated in this instance). But are all violations really the same from a moral perspective, regardless of the circumstances? I guess that's what this issue comes down to. My view is that they're not all the same.

571 posted on 12/30/2005 11:10:49 AM PST by inquest (If you favor any legal status for illegal aliens, then do not claim to be in favor of secure borders)
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To: inquest
But are all violations really the same from a moral perspective, regardless of the circumstances?

I kind of hint of that in the above post - it's really the old question of do the ends justify the means. If I'm avoiding the question, it's because it's a bit deeper than I think can (or really want to ) deal with in the context of this thread. I'm willing to agree to disagree on the question of end vs. means given I think that most people's opinions on that are based in visceral reactions and not really thought about rationally. Yes, you can say it's a minor violation of law done for good ends.

But there's the saying in Judaism about the Law which goes something like this. The first time you break the Law, it's a sin. The second time is a mistake. The third time is a commandment. While this particular incident might be be minor, I think we ought be careful about letting this particular camel's nose under the tent. While some might think that a surveillance state might not be such a bad thing - I'm just not ready to submit to Big Brother.

572 posted on 12/30/2005 12:46:44 PM PST by garbanzo (Government is not the answer to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: garbanzo
But there's the saying in Judaism about the Law which goes something like this. The first time you break the Law, it's a sin. The second time is a mistake. The third time is a commandment.

The way you capitalize "Law", it sounds as though you're referring to divine Law. The Constitution, as important as it is for maintaining freedom, is still just human law, and so it's really just a "means to an end" itself.

That said, I don't want to encourage violations of the Constitution, seeing as how important it is. I just want to keep things in a little perspective, that's all.

573 posted on 12/30/2005 2:35:02 PM PST by inquest (If you favor any legal status for illegal aliens, then do not claim to be in favor of secure borders)
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To: inquest
The way you capitalize "Law", it sounds as though you're referring to divine Law.

Yeah, I was referring to the Law of Moses there but that wasn't the main point. It was that little violations of moral or ethical codes lead to bigger ones and because of that we should avoid little violations as much as bigger ones.

That said, I don't want to encourage violations of the Constitution, seeing as how important it is.

That is more or less my entire point. However, the "perspective" is important given the stakes. If we wink at things like this, it's only a matter of time before we wink at dictatorship.

574 posted on 12/30/2005 4:25:23 PM PST by garbanzo (Government is not the answer to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: garbanzo
Get a grip garbanzo. If you think we are under dictatorial rule, maybe you should spend a few years in Cuba or Sudan or North Korea. BTW, we are a republic, not a democracy. We elect representatives to act on our behalf. If we don't like what they do, we don't re-elect them. Like it or not, that is our form of government.

Regarding demolishing The Constitution, you have nothing but rhetoric to support your paranoia. The 4th Amendment says 'no unreasonable searches'. If an American citizen is speaking with a foreign agent outside our borders that has declared war on the USA, then we darn well BETTER be finding out what their plans are. The #1 duty of our government is to protect us, protect the nation, and defend The Constitution.

Defending The Constitution requires defending our nation first...no nation, no Constitutuion. What part of that do you not understand?

During the Cold War, their were plenty of people who thought we were subverting The Constitution. Remember Frank Church? Where did all that get us? A debilitated CIA and intelligence community, which indirectly led to the wall of Gorelick, which directly led to 9-11.

Thankfully, the majority of the American people understand what GWB and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice are doing and support it. If you want this to be a democracy, well guess what...you lose.

575 posted on 12/31/2005 8:59:56 AM PST by NewLand (Posting against liberalism since the 20th century!)
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To: NewLand
If you think we are under dictatorial rule, maybe you should spend a few years in Cuba or Sudan or North Korea.

I never said we were now under dictatorship. I am saying that when we undermine the Constitution by bypassing the courts and installing exclusive power in a single individual for indefinite periods, dictatorship is the ultimate result. I'll note that the National Socialists were popularly elected and proceeded to use emergency powers to establish their dictatorship.

576 posted on 12/31/2005 12:57:37 PM PST by garbanzo (Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks
This is just astounding.

After 8 years in the 90's of complacent, forward, and honest peoples work, (sarcasm) it's no wonder that some find the "day in the life" reporting these days to be astounding.

577 posted on 12/31/2005 1:05:01 PM PST by EGPWS
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To: NewLand
Thankfully, the majority of the American people understand what GWB and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice are doing and support it. If you want this to be a democracy, well guess what...you lose.

Well said, after all Anarchy is much more enticing a way of life until it becomes reality.

FYI, we in the USA are not a democracy, we are a Democratic Republic.

578 posted on 12/31/2005 1:09:50 PM PST by EGPWS
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To: Pragmatic_View

Don't understand why the Chief Justice loaded this court with anti-American blk robes/judges....


579 posted on 12/31/2005 1:12:32 PM PST by shield (The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instructions.Pr 1:7)
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To: garbanzo
I am saying that when we undermine the Constitution by bypassing the courts

The POTUS is not legally bound to obtain FISA approval. You are grasping for straws. I can understand if you just don't like what this administration is doing, and you merely disagree (that's fine!), but to say that they are establishing a dictatorship and to compare this administration and this country to 1933 Germany is, well, absurd. First of all, you stated;

I'll note that the National Socialists were popularly elected and proceeded to use emergency powers to establish their dictatorship.

Not exactly true. Hindenburg was re-elected. His government, with von Papen as Chancellor, implemented emergency powers. The Nazi's never were elected as a majority until after Hitler had made a coalition with the Nationalists, expelled the Commies, was appointed a cabinet post and then convinced von Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor.

If you read all the details, I believe you will see that these chain of events are so unlikely here that they are a poor comparison. Let's just agree that you disagree with the administration tactics, and you are a vocal minority...along with Teddy, Chuckie, Nancy, etc. :-)

Happy New Year!

580 posted on 01/01/2006 6:08:45 AM PST by NewLand (Posting against liberalism since the 20th century!)
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