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 ...
Neither supports this, sink - but probable cause is the standard for a subpeona or a warrant. I agree warrants are not always needed - but those are typically in hot pursuit or emergency situations, which this is not.
And the Supreme Court does not support your understanding.
The Supreme Court also does not support my views on states deciding abortion. Guess I shouldn't want Roe v. Wade overturned then, either.
Isn't this called the Patriot Act?
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.
It sure sounds like a lot of subpeonas. How many tiers? A subpeona for every phone number on the list and every phone number for everyone on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th tier? I don't expect you to have all the answers, just want to point out how complicated it can get. Any these are just phone numbers. And they are looking for patterns not individuals as a first pass. When it comes to individuals, the subpeona process works better I would think.
In other words, you can come up with a quick method to provide the needed data that has due process.
Well the quick method is to run things through a judge but what I think you are suggesting is many, many, many judges or one judge who looks at lots of phone numbers. Anyway, in doing what they are doing and informing Congress I think they are doing "the quick method" out of necessity.
Probably support a gun registry too (assuming there already isn't one).
And that has provisions for probable cause. I have a couple of objections with minor aspects of the Patriot Act - I'm not one of the knee-jerkers with that. But I do have a problem with the government obtaining data like they did here that normally requires a subpeona.
No, one subpeona for all calls tied directly to the phone number in question and for the next level of calls from those numbers.
Like I said, I am willing to bend probable cause in wartime. But not ignore it entirely.
Guess I'm not that familiar. What was the probably cause for Moussaoui? I thought he'd just violated his visa. Of course I know there's a dispbute about how many "rights" illegals are entitled to (I couldn't even type that without snickering).
by putting the word "initially" in there, the MSM is telling us they are still confident they & the Dem's can convince a solid majority of Americans that Bush is an evil, spying, dictator-wannabe.
"Have you calmed down enough to realize that there is no threat to liberty by collecting a bunch of phone numbers?"
Are you ready to be honest and say that they are not collecting phone numbers but calling records, or do you not see the difference?
So I would assume that that would apply to ANY service; Banking, Credit Card, Cable, Internet, TV, Public facilities (including roadways etc. Any time personal information is divulged to a second party it becomes public property or when private belongings enter public property they are no longer private. Sound about right?
IMO, if they have someone in custody for a valid reason, that is probable cause. But that is my opinion.
"Why are they tracking YOU AND ME?
IMHO, this is a tactic old leftist/communist regimes would have been proud of."
They aren't tracking you and me. They're looking at patterns of phone dialing. And no, the things I spoke of that happened during WWII did not use or require warrants. When you're searched at an airport, no warrant is involved. When the gov. requires you to submit a census form, no warrant is involved. When the police search your car based on reasonable suspicion, no warrant is involved. The Constitution does not require warrants for all intrusions into people's privacy, so long as such intrusions are deemed "reasonable" by the courts.
As far as I'm concerned, W's actions are moderate, highly reasonable, and appropriate. And no, the Communists would not be proud, mainly for that very reason.
How about Driving Under the Influence? Can I pull all your phone records, credit records, medical records to see who you have called, done business with and what drugs you are taking? Can I then go to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier or do I need to find a judge who would say, "what's the probable cause"> just because dirboy sounds dirty or looks dirty or has pals outside the country? It gets complicated quickly.
Here's the thing...the letter-reading did not stop. This is the modern version of it, being supported on the basis of what a democratic president did sixty years ago and what Clinton did just a few years ago. What sort of basis will the next president need to search every home in the US, because government already invaded our lives during this president's term? What happens when Hillary, God Forbid, trumps up some cause far less noble than the War on Terror in order to take away even more rights? What sort of nation are we defending when we give up traditional American freedoms and values?
You're partially right, though. I don't know for certain that Bin Laden isn't living in America. I do, however, have faith in my leaders, however misguided the NSA intrusions are, that they're competent enough not to allow Bin Laden to hide in our own country. If you genuinely suspect otherwise, how can you defend anything the this White House authorizes--ever?
And yes, I'm willing to help. I don't know you, but maybe you're on the front lines, serving our country in Iraq or elsewhere. If so, God Bless you. Or, perhaps, you defend our country by contributing to the patriotic discussion on this board. As do I. And in my case, defense of the country must include defense of its traditional values and freedoms. God help us if we allow their erosion before a power hungry democrat takes power and does away with the rest of them.
Could it be there might be a Fifth Column?
Yep. When you voluntarily enter private information into a public property or venue or a property owned by a third party, that private information is no longer private.
However, there are two points to be made:
The Left--and its Political and Propaganda Machines--have reinvented the problem of domestic spying in yet one more attempt to spew forth anti-Republican propaganda--though they ran interference for the Democrat President--in typical Leftist mendacity and hypocrisy; and
9/11 has never been repeated thanks to President Bush and his surveillance program, and, considering this, the good of it outweighs the bad.
Frankly, I'm not particularly worried about domestic spying under a Republican administration, but I am seriously concerned about what would happen under a Democrat administration. This is my most gut-wrenching concern. The possibilities for abuse are legion--and the Democrats would definitely abuse it. The mendacity and hypocrisy of the Left--an example of which has just been given--not to mention other dangers of an empowered Left--are enough to give any honest citizen cause for apprehension.
OK. Call 'em whatever you want.
That happened to me when I was a collage student. The officer only need to say the words "I smell pot". I knew he didn't, he knew he didn't, but those words gave him reasonable cause to search my car and belongings. His fishing expedition was quite unsuccessful and legally violated the Constitution.
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