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WASHINGTON — A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans’ private communications may be involved, according to a person with knowledge of the opinion.

Prosecutors seek to release Blago's calls December 29, 2008 BY NATASHA KORECKI AND DAVE MCKINNEY, Staff Reporters Federal authorities had more wiretaps than previously disclosed in the investigation of Gov. Blagojevich -- including the cellular telephone of a member the governor's inner circle. A new government filing in federal court indicates that in November, authorities tapped the cell phone of "Lobbyist 1." The Sun-Times has identified lobbyist 1 as Lon Monk, the governor's first-term chief of staff. Monk later became a fund-raiser and state lobbyist. The revelation that investigators captured more on secret recordings than previously disclosed, came as federal...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A lawyer for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich told state lawmakers Thursday that the federal wiretaps at the heart of the pay-to-play allegations against his client were illegally obtained, and therefore should be kept out of any impeachment proceedings. The wiretaps are crucial to the federal charges filed against Blagojevich last week. Prosecutors say they caught the Democratic governor discussing efforts to auction off Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat and pressure a hospital executive for campaign donations. Genson told the impeachment committee that it shouldn't consider any material from the wiretaps, saying the evidence was "illegally obtained."

Wiretap Constraints Make US Mumbai Attack More Likely Maybe its because I am a New York who was on the island of Manhattan on 9/11 Watching both building collapse from my tv at my office at MTV networks.The stunned look of people trying to make contact with the outside world, just to tell a loved one loved we were ok. I remember driving over the 59th street bridge looking at the abyss that was once the world trade centers. . I remember being able to taste the air. That evening people started quietly streaming into my synagogue for evening services....

By the end of President Obama's first term, there won't be any more copper landlines left in the country. One of the challenges facing the Federal Communications Commission and the new administration is how to deal with the fallout from the end of this venerable technology. It's gonna get ugly for some people – people who can't afford to do without communication – unless we're proactive about this problem. Here's what's happening, as you probably know. Young people don't bother with landlines (unless they live beyond cell coverage); they just use their mobile phones or Skype for voice communication. The...

A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the "exclusive" means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president's constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law....

There is a considerable demand for a feature on cell phones that would record conversations. Given today's technology and cheap memory, it would be very easy. Moreover, It would be legal in the approximately 37 states and the Federal government that allow recording of conversations when a person involved in the conversation approves of it. It would be an excellent tool for recording conversations with "customer service" who record us all the time, and for any official or contractual conversations where matters of law might be involved. Manufacturers of cell phones seem to have gone to considerable lengths to insure...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Friday that could shield phone companies from billions of dollars in lawsuits for their participation in the warrantless surveillance program begun by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks. The White House-backed, compromise measure -- which triggered a firestorm of opposition from civil liberties groups -- would also overhaul U.S. spy powers and replace a temporary surveillance law that expired in February. Democrats faced election-year pressure to pass the bill, fearing failure to do so would let Republicans paint them as weak on security and...

House approves spy bill protecting phone firms Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:52pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Friday that could shield phone companies that participated in President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance program begun after the September 11 attacks from billions of dollars in privacy lawsuits.

US lawmakers pass wiretaps bill Telephone companies were facing as many as 40 lawsuits US lawmakers have passed a bill to shield telephone companies who helped in the White House's controversial warrantless wiretaps programme. The bill also grants the US government the power to continue with its warrantless surveillance scheme. The Bush administration faced criticism when details emerged of its programme to monitor the phone calls of foreign targets in the US without warrants. President Bush said the scheme was needed to prevent attacks on the US. Telephone companies were facing as many as 40 lawsuits for their involvement...

A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain believes that President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team. In a letter posted online by National Review this week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain believed that the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required court oversight of surveillance. Mr. McCain...

FBI wiretaps have "given us the most powerful and persuasive source of all for seeing how utterly selfless Martin Luther King was," as a civil rights leader, according to a leading civil rights scholar. "You see him being intensely self-critical. King really and truly believed that he was there to be of service to others. This was not a man with any egomaniacal joy of being a famous person, or being a leader," said Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar David Garrow in a recent interview with CNN. Hoping to prove the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was under the influence of Communists,...

The federal criminal investigation that has led to Eliot Spitzer's resignation as governor of New York illustrates the great dangers all Americans face from vague and open-ended sex and money-transaction statutes. Federal law, if read broadly, criminalizes virtually all sexual encounters for which something of value has been given. Federal money-laundering statutes criminalize many entirely legitimate and conventional banking transactions. Congress enacted these laws to give federal prosecutors wide discretion in deciding which "bad guys" to go after. Generally, wise and intelligent prosecutors use their discretion properly -- to target organized crime, terrorism, financial predation, exploitation of children and the...

This is the latest canard making the rounds — I heard a radio talk-show guy say it this morning, and one of the endless stream of former federal prosecutors suggested it on MSNBC last night (I had switched channels following Jeffrey Toobin's botched explanation of the money-laundering offense known as "structuring" — the cash transaction amount that triggers the reporting requirement is $10K, not, as Toobin stated, $5K.) Currency transaction reporting requirements were enacted in the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, and money laundering was made a crime in overhaul of the federal narcotics laws that took place in 1986....

WASHINGTON (AP) — Locked in a standoff with the White House, House Democrats on Tuesday maintained their refusal to shield from civil lawsuits telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on their customers without a secret court's permission.But they offered the companies an olive branch: the chance to use classified government documents to defend themselves in court.House Democratic leaders unveiled a bill that they hoped would bridge the gap between the electronic surveillance bill passed by the Senate last month and a rival version the House approved last fall.The House bill also would create a bipartisan commission, modeled after the...

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee hinted Sunday that a battle over an expired eavesdropping law might be moving toward a conclusion that gave phone companies the retroactive legal protections long sought by President Bush. The chairman, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, said in an interview on CNN that the committee had been talking to the companies “because if we’re going to give them blanket immunity, we want to know and understand what it is we’re giving immunity for.”Mr. Reyes did not specify what provisions a House bill might contain. But his use of the words...

President Bush, demanding "flexibility" in the pursuit of suspected terrorists, insisted Wednesday he would not sign a new domestic spying bill if it unduly limits the administration's authority to eavesdrop without warrants. The president is demanding corporate immunity from lawsuits against telecommunications companies that have aided the National Security Agency in a controversial warrantless wiretapping program, as well as authority to secretly monitor suspect communications that pass through the United States. But congressional leaders, insisting on court oversight of the administration's surveillance, are not willing to give the president the latitude he is seeking. And they are reluctant to release...

Like many in this country who were angered when Congress rushed to rubber-stamp a bill giving President Bush even more power to spy on Americans, we took some hope from the vow by Congressional Democrats to rewrite the new law after summer vacation. The chance of undoing the damage is slim, unless the White House stops stonewalling and gives lawmakers and the public the information they need to understand this vital issue.

For three days, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down. "This is the issue," said the plain-spoken retired vice admiral and Vietnam veteran, "that makes my blood pressure rise." snip...

CAMP DAVID, Md. - President Bush on Sunday signed into law an expansion of the government's power to eavesdrop on foreign terror suspects without the need for warrants. The law, approved by the Senate and the House just before Congress adjourned for its summer break, was deemed a priority by Bush and his chief intelligence officials. Bush signed the bill into law on Sunday afternoon at his retreat at Camp David, Md. "When our intelligence professionals have the legal tools to gather information about the intentions of our enemies, America is safer," Bush said. "And when these same legal tools...