Posted on 05/12/2006 6:27:29 AM PDT by ziggy_dlo
A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it. A slightly larger majority--66 percent--said they would not be bothered if NSA collected records of personal calls they had made, the poll found. Underlying those views is the belief that the need to investigate terrorism outweighs privacy concerns. According to the poll, 65 percent of those interviewed said it was more important to investigate potential terrorist threats "even if it intrudes on privacy." Three in 10--31 percent--said it was more important for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats. Half--51 percent--approved of the way President Bush was handling privacy matters. Since then, the agency began collecting call records on tens of millions of personal and business telephone calls made in the United States. Word of the program sparked immediate criticism on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and Republicans criticized the effort as a threat to privacy and called for congressional inquiries to learn more about the operation. In the survey, big majorities of Republicans and political independents said they found the program to be acceptable while Democrats were split. President Bush made an unscheduled appearance yesterday before White House reporters to defend his administration's efforts to investigate terrorism and criticize public disclosure of secret intelligence operations.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
"And now I see that Hayden doesn't even realize that the words probable cause are in the 4th Amendment. "
You're misrepresenting what he said. What he actually said was right on the money. "Probable cause," as even some court rulings have indicated, refers only to the issuing of warrants. No warrants are needed, for example, to search you at an airport or to require you to mail in your census form.
I am misrepresenting nothing. You have to have probable cause to get a warrant or a subpeona. In this case, the NSA got data that normally requires a subpeona and probable cause. Ergo, his actions are consistent with my interpretation of his position.
Yes, you can know that about yourself. How do you know that about me, or anyone on this site or others? You don't and neither does the Gov't.
How do we stop more government invasions into our lives if we give in to them just because we know government already invades our lives?
We might consider winning this war. The letter-reading done by FDR stopped when the war ended, did it not? Or we can just appease terrorist and give up some of our rights slowly in PC ways. After all, no one really needs to see cartoons of the prophet (bless his holy blah blah) especially since so many are offended. We must understand their culture. Maybe it should be a hate crime to print his picture. /sarc. - Just another "right" given up. Some will give up rights "not to make them mad". I will give up some rights to defeat them.
But can you imagine where we'd be if the resources spent on compiling records on millions of average Americans actually were devoted to finding bin Laden? He's the ONE person we know who isn't calling the U.S. on his cell. He's the ONE person we know who isn't calling the U.S. on his cell.
Nope it isn't just about one guy...that's the Democrat strategy du jour. It's about a terrorist network that hides in many countries and uses technology to stay in contact with each other. How do you know he's not calling this country? How do you know he's not living in this country? If not him others? And of course the more we make a big deal about this, the more blind we become to their tactics, techniques and procedures.
How do you think those charged with defending the nation can "connect the dots" better? Are you willing to help?
Sorry to intrude. I don't know if you guys saw this
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODgxN2VkMzA3MTFjNWFmNzZjNzZiODVlYzI3YTdiZTc=
Forgive me if it is old info for you guys.
Ha ha ha...the Dems just lost a big talking point.
Supreme Court decides phone records belong to phone company.
What bothers me more is all the co-marketing crap they put in with the bill.
I don't know enough about WW2 to tell give you an answer...but if the surveillance was done with warrants, then, yes, I support it, or if it was done on non-citizens living in the US, then yes, I support it. And, of course, if it was done outside our borders, then, yes, I support it. None of that strikes me as un-American or as Big Goverment invasiveness. Compiling records and screening millions of phone calls of ordinary American citizens do. Why are they tracking YOU AND ME?
IMHO, this is a tactic old leftist/communist regimes would have been proud of.
A search unsupported by probable cause can be constitutional, we have said, “when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable.”
So, is it "impracticable" for the government to get calling data in this case by subpeona instead of getting all calling records from Verizon?
No. I can think of many ways that an expedited process can be set up to quickly provide calling data upon showing any level of probable cause. I would even be willing to set the probable cause bar very low in wartime. But getting the entire calling database is bereft of probable cause.
Except for the fact that Verizon has a privacy policy, and it states that calling information will be provided to government upon presentation of a subpeona. And there was no subpeona here.
Gawd, you call this a defense?
I could think of a lot of ways. And they don't require getting an entire telecom's worth of calling data. In fact, I would suggest the government needs to work with less data, not more - develop a process to figure out what data really matters and filter out the rest.
How does this help them "connect the dots" or find patterns among the calls? And if you object, can't you go to another telephone company? Do you also think your credit records are protected by the 4th amendment? Maybe they are, just wondered what you think? People frequently think they have more rights than are actually in the Constitution...like that right to privacy which of course turned into that right to have an abortion as an example.
ECHELON has been spying on U.S. citizens since the Clinton Administration and perhaps before then.
The Left--and its Propaganda Machine (the "Mainstream Newsmedia") and its Political Machine (the Democrat Party)--have never stopped trying to find something "with traction" to advance its agenda, to use to seize power, to avenge the "stolen election of 2000", etc., et al., ad nauseum, blah blah blah blah.
The American people are fed up with the anti-American, psychotic, malevolent Left, its Propaganda Machine and its Political Machine.
The Spirit of America is the Spirit of Flight 93--NOT "the spirit of Woodstock" or "the spirit of the Manson Family" or "the spirit of Jim Jones and Guiana Koolade" (as the Left would have you believe).
This is the response of the American people to the anti-American Left:
You have a phone number gathered by other means or a name with a corresponding phone number. Get a subpeona. Get all the people that person has called. Heck, allow a second tier to in turn get all the people called by those he called in order to "conect the dots". Set up an expedited process - mandate that telecoms have a dedicated liason to provide this data - I imagine they already have a group that answers subpeona requests from law enforcement already.
In other words, you can come up with a quick method to provide the needed data that has due process.
You know... I'm in the 66%. If they want to count or keep track of the number of times I call my wife, friends from church, and to check on my mom.... I guess let em' count. I don't care.
And that's a good thing to you?
Do you think when they had Moussaoui in custody they had a right to look at his computer? Would that violated his rights?
The American public has it right, with nearly 2/3 seeing no problem with collecting a bunch of phone numbers so that some subset of them might yield a pattern involving terrorist activity.
And the Supreme Court does not support your understanding. So on with your tilting at windmills.
Probable cause. No problem.
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