Posted on 08/17/2006 9:06:43 AM PDT by sinkspur
A federal district judge in Detroit has ruled that the Bush administration's NSA surveillance of phone conversations is unconstitutional.
Foreign terrorists don't get the protection of either the 1st or the 4th amendments. You and this dopey judge do.
She will be overruled, likely by having her silly order stayed until the 6th Circuit can formally overrule her, within 24 hours.
Are you -- sinkspur -- in favor of this ruling, or opposed to it?
Why didn't the Govt attys argue that, then?
I find it amazing how some people, usually donks, want to give protections of our constition to people that are not citizens of the US. I do beleive our constition covers non-citizens.
Unfortunately surveillance NSA-style is very often of the take-no-prisoners type. They collect it all and then search for key words and phrases. You cannot get a warrant against a single target for this type of surveillance because you looking at the full database of all the calls. Assuming that they find something of interest they look a little closer. There could easily be hundreds of thousands of such events every month (I'm guessing). Look harder and cut these down to a few thousand. Look harder and get them down to a hundred or less and off you go to the FISA court to get your warrants. If you kill the program at the top you will kill it at the bottom.
Well the whole problem here is the assumption is completely wrong. The President did NOT circumvent any laws. That is just another one of those made up Leftist lies they scream over and over hoping no one will point out it a merely another LIE. The Presidents powers as Commander in Chief give him authority to "Repel Sudden Attack." To do that the Military must gater intelligence on enemy activity. \
By engaging in correspondence with enemy groups like Al Qeda the various US Citizens are in a state of Insurrection against the Legal US Authority as elected by WE the people. WE the people have the right to expect OUR elected Govt via the Executive Branch to protect us from those who mean us harm.
Nice the Hysteric Leftist have opinions, too bad for them their opinions are not facts. The FISA Court ruled on this all ready. THEIR opinion does matter. That they ruled against the knee jerk Bush haters means this "Circumventing the law" accusation is merely the deranged rantings of hysteric Know Nothings, not a serious legal opinion.
I would think that you and I have no idea what ECHELON does and does not harvest or monitor... it's all speculation, unless you happen to work with it, in which case I'd recommend silence, for your sake ;)
Here's the relevant quote from Tenet to Congress on April 12, 2000:
"I’m here today to discuss specific issues about and allegations regarding Signals Intelligence activities and the so-called Echelon Program of the National Security Agency…
There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the FBI scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of U.S. persons are involved, whether directly or indirectly. We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department."
Now, I suppose he could be lying to Congress. I mean, one never knows. That doesn't make it OK for Bush to do it though. For crying out loud, what the hell has happened to the Republican party? I'm a lifelong Republican myself. I even voted for Bush over Gore and Kerry. Honestly though, how can we all sit here and defend what this administration is doing to our civil liberties?
Man, I spelled constitution wrong twice in one post! Pathetic.
exactly. it's impossible to get a warrant for every piece of information "harvested".
I hope, for the sake of the women of the country, that the NSA is listening in on YOUR phone calls.
How do you know they did not?
Actually I can say with great confidence that the "war" against these groups is, in fact, being handled by law enforcement and international cooperation.
I am pleasantly suprised.
I hope, for the sake of the women of the country, that the NSA is listening in on YOUR phone calls.
Can they make sense of a lot of heavy breathing?
Nice you have opinions. Too bad for you your emotion based feelings are just that, feelings, not facts. The 3 Judge panel on the FISA court all ready ruled about your fraudlent assumption. Their opinon carrys legal weight while yours is just so much noise. They say YOUR opinon is just so much hysteric nonsense.
Then this ruling would not have affected those intercepts.
I read today's Opinion.
Yet it was okay with the donks and the constitutional attorneys here when Clinton initiated Echelon without warrants and of course, we were not at war fighting for our survival.
Honestly, I don't really know what the story is. It's likely that he formed those statements very carefully..."We do not TARGET their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant.." perhaps they're not "targeted" but it just "happens" I don't know.
My understanding of the Echelon system is, and anyone correct me if I'm wrong, is a world-wide network of "listening posts" that literally harvests most of the world's communication and scans through it looking for particular phone numbers, e-mail addresses, or specfic phrases that would send up a red flag. If this characterization is correct, then do you really think it's possible that they recieve a warrant for every e-mail, voice message, fax, or telephone conversation they receieve?
I recommend "Body of Secrets" by (I think it was) James Bamford (or something like that)...and for the record I don't think he's very big on Bush.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.