Bush was denied wiretaps, bypassed them (FISA Court denied them in unprecedented numbers)

UPI ^ | Dec. 27, 2005 | UPI

[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.

[Dog]

I suspect we are seeing a pushback..

[AmishDude]

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark that the judge mostly responsible is no longer on the FISA court. And he might be afraid that we might just find out.

[weegee]

Where was the outrage from the Left when Hillary Clinton was found in illegal possession of 500 FBI files?

[ContemptofCourt]

It's more like it's going to take a nuclear attack on a US city, before some people realize that the danger IS REAL. and us darned Americans finally conceed that Big Goverment is here to protect us and we should willing trade our rights for that protection.

Sorry, count me out.

[Dog]

What is amazing is the media thinks this is going to hurt Bush....but it won't....it just reenforces the notion he is protecting the people at all costs.

This is a win-win for Bush..

[goresalooza]

Thank goodness for America that FISA is not in charge of our national security, President Bush IS.

[Stultis]

VERY INTERESTING!

Late 2002 the DC Circuit slaps down FISA for rejecting the Executive's interpretation of its authority; then the vast majority of these substantial modifications or rejections of FISA warrants occur in '03 and '04. 'Spouse FISA could be willfully obstructing/undermining the higher court's ruling with this behavior?

[Pragmatic_View]

The main purpose of the Federal Government IS to protect us

Also, please see post 30, the excellent info posted by Howlin:


Appeals panel rejects secret court's limits on terrorist wiretaps

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1547700/posts?page=30#30

[Mo1]

Puts a new spin on things.

You got that right!

[Dog]

Bingo.

[goresalooza]

"This is an unintended consequence of that law, and if Congress had any backbone and some other appropriate body parts, they would change the law to make it easy to catch terrorists, instead of handcuffing our President and intelligence agencies, making it virtually impossible for them, to find out about imminent attacks, once the terrorists are already in place, in the US. How idiotic is that?!"

The rat agenda INCLUDES handcuffing any attempts to fight terror. They will stop at nothing to let Al quada and other terror groups come after us. The rats should never again be allowed to govern.

[Dog]

'Spouse FISA could be willfully obstructing/undermining the higher court's ruling with this behavior?

You would need to know who the FISA Judges were who signed off on most the the '03 and '04 warrants..

[demkicker]

The dems and their media cohorts have really gone off the deep end. There actions would be down right hilarious if only they weren't such traitorous power pimps.

[USNBandit]

The Seattle-Intelligencer article sited James Bamford for all these conclusions.

Bamford, 59, a Vietnam-era Navy veteran, likens the Bush administration's domestic surveillance without court approval to Nixon-era abuses of intelligence agencies.

I love how they throw the Vietname-era vet thing in there. Kerry was a Vietnam vet and he still can't see the truth.

[B4Ranch]

Somehow I ended up listening to MEET THE PRESS Minute on dec. 25th. Here is some of the text.


Transcript for December 25
Tom Brokaw & Ted Koppel


MR. KOPPEL: We do a great job, Tim, of patting ourselves on the backs, not just the media but the great American democracy, for how much we believe in the process of disclosure, of public debate, of fully vetting the issues and deciding them through our elected representatives. In point of fact, often as not, we don't do that. Often as not the decision is made that you, the public, simply are not mature enough or sophisticated enough to understand everything that's at stake here. What scares the heck out of me is that there will be another terrorist attack in this country. And after the next terrorist attack, if it's anything like 9/11, there won't be any debate about whether the government should have the right to eavesdrop. The appropriate time to have this discussion, this debate, in Congress, in the media, is now.

MR. BROKAW: Right.

MR. KOPPEL: Because after the next event, it'll be Katy, bar the door. Why didn't you do more? And the fact of the matter is, in saying we need the debate, I'm not prejudging what the outcome would be. Quite frankly, I think the outcome may well be that the American public, through its elected representatives, will say, "You know something? We feel the president needs that right. He has to have the right to be able to order the wiretapping of terrorist suspects."

MR. RUSSERT: Let's have the debate.

MR. KOPPEL: But let's have the debate. Let's argue these issues out before it's too late.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10531436/

Talk about a shocker. I agree with both of them. Let's get this figured out before the Dims get in office!
"But let's have the debate. Let's argue these issues out before it's too late."

[AmishDude]

Note also that the rejection rate changed abruptly in 2003. From 2001-2002, Bush only got 6 modifications/rejections. Still higher than the previous 2, but reasonable. Then, sometime in 2003, the rejections came fast and furious. Why? I'm thinking politics might have a little bit to do with it. And I'm betting Robertson was in the thick of it and that the "modifications" were just an attempt by the rest of the panel to keep Robertson from going postal.

[Dog]

Add the FISA court judges to the mix now..

[Peach]

I didn't know they could modify the warrants and don't know how it is they can do it.

And this:

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.

So FISA rejected more applications during the Bush administration than in the previous 4 administrations (24 years).

And in view of 9/11, this tells me EVERYTHING I need to know about the court.

[Howlin]

Works for me.

SOBs.

[AmishDude]

I know that Rehnquist posted them to the FISA court, but I wonder what his criteria is supposed to be. There may be very strict guidelines and, to be fair to Rehnquist, it wasn't until 2003 that you could even detect a whiff of politics in its decisions.