Re: Holy Moly! Bush PERSONALLY Authorized Spying


"Derf" <derf@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:86cdq1hu1si42tio93krgikvvbj0t9jp94@xxxxxxxxxx
> On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 23:50:58 -0800, "Barbara Lake"
> <bglake@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>>>Considering that Congress did not know about this, would you still say
>>>>there is oversight?
>>>
>>> What makes you think that Congress didn't know about it?
>>
>>What has been in the news today? The anger on both sides of the aisle at
>>Bush's admission he had been doing this.
>
> Mr. Bush explicitly said Congress had been informed.

Mr. Bush explicity said that Congressional *leaders* were informed about the
intercepts. Also, specific members of Justice, vetted the process. The
process has been re-authorized every 90 days. In addition, according to the
President, the process was monitored continuously to assure compliance with
exisiting law.

As the story has been released so far, it appears that what has happened,
there was a "probably cause" trigger, in that everyone that was monitored,
has some connection to either a terrorist group or individual. The trigger
was extremely tenuous. A number on a captured cell phone captured from a
terrorist (or terrorist suspect). Please note, that at this point, there
are no "intercepts".

This concept of warrantless searches is not new.

"The next year, Justice Department lawyers disclosed their thinking on the
issue of warrantless wiretaps in national security cases in a little-noticed
brief in an unrelated court case. In that 2002 brief, the government said
that "the Constitution vests in the President inherent authority to conduct
warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign
powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that
constitutional authority."

Administration officials were also encouraged by a November 2002 appeals
court decision in an unrelated matter. The decision by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which sided with the
administration in dismantling a bureaucratic "wall" limiting cooperation
between prosecutors and intelligence officers, cited "the president's
inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign
intelligence surveillance."

But the same court suggested that national security interests should not be
grounds "to jettison the Fourth Amendment requirements" protecting the
rights of Americans against undue searches. The dividing line, the court
acknowledged, "is a very difficult one to administer.""

http://sensibleelection.com/entry.php/2631

>
>>>>Considering that the president signed orders allowing NSA to
>>>>eavesdrop without court order or warrant, would you still say there is
>>>>recourse to the courts?
>>
>>> Has somebody been denied the right to sue for a cease-and-desist
>>> order, or for any perceived violation of his/her rights?
>>
>>How would they know? Do you think just because the NSA eavesdropped on
>>them
>>without their knowledge that their privacy was not violated?

There is no "right to privacy" mentioned in the Consitution nor any of the
writings of the framers of the Consitution. Roe vs Wade was actually
decided as a privacy matter. (Hence, the arguement from some, that the
decision was wrong and more properly decided in the legislative bodies.)

A "right to privacy" was simply a concept that did not exist in the 18th
Century. This, and another concept, ownership of personal information*, are
two modern questions, both of which deserve intense scrutiny and quite
possibly, specific legislation, if not Constitutional amendments.

*This poster believes that most of the noise from this particular episode is
just that, noise. This poster also believes that interconnected databases,
are MUCH more invasive of any concept of privacy and the most insidious
threat to personal liberty in the modern world. (Outlaw the use of Social
Security numbers by anyone except the Social Security Administration.)

>
> And? The question is whether the wiretapping was legal and
> Constitutional, not if someone's privacy was violated.
>
>>>>Don't you see what's happening here?
>>>
>>> What I see is the NSA trying to prevent a repeat of 9-11. As per
>>> usual, Bush is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. For the
>>> life of me I don't see why *anybody* would want to be president of
>>> this country...
>>
>>You know, Al, the protections written into the Constitution by way of the
>>Bill of Rights are protections for all of us. Where searches are
>>concerned,
>>the term "probable cause" is the trigger.

Who knows. "They" may decide that the President needed warrents. In which
case, everyone will say, "What do you know," and they'll create some
mechanism to get them.
>
> Until the Supremes say so, the 4th amendment doesn't apply to
> international communications.

NSA has monitored ALL international communications since the 80's (anyway).
It's called Echelon.
http://www.echelonwatch.org/

The Supreme Court has always maintained that their jurisdiction stops at the
border.
>
> --
> regards, Fred
>
> The only people who don't get it now are Zarqawi, and the
> spokespersons for the Democratic Party.
>
> Mark Steyn


.

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