Bush Authorized NSA To Spy Inside US

[Stinger]

Okay, but that doesn't make it okay.

It doesn't have to make it OK it was ALREADY OK! It is perfectly OK and you should be glad he is doing it and if the Democrats were in office they'd be doing it to. This is the most outrageous game of smoke and mirrors the left is playing and it is dangerous to our security. You can't see that?

Here is what the Deputy Attorney General at the Justice Department said about it.

>>"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, and that the president may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the attorney general.

"It is important to understand," explained the official, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."


Furthermore, said the deputy AG, the requirements for sending wiretapping requests to a special court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (known as FISA) were not objectionable, provided that the provision "does not restrict the president's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security."<<

And FISA and the courts have agreed.

This is really fun for me to watch Bush get so upset at people's disgust over this issue.

It's FUN???? It's FUN to watch the NYT and several Democrat Senators perpetrate this sham on the public? It's FUN to see our ability to track terrorist and find out what they are planning to do to us go up in smoke?

Did you all see him going nuts at his press conference yesterday?

Over the idiotic questions the press was asking, I'd don't blame him.

He's confidence that what he did was legal, and his defensiveness, were laughable.

Why when he is absolutely correct?

Arrogance and defensiveness don't mix well.....

Since there wasn't one tone of defensiveness your point is moot. But watching Sen. Ried first try to deny he was briefed and then try to shrug it off was much more telling.

When Nixon was president, he did wiretapping without a warrant. The case went to the Supreme Court and it voted unanimously that what Nixon did was unconstitutional. I know, I know--that was prior to 9-11.

And it was a purely domestic issue and had nothing to do with our enemies. I have every reason to believe he was doing exactly what the current administration is doing and it was legal then.

*sarcasm* I am so sick and tired of Bush invoking September 11th as his excuse that he can do anything. I hope that Bush's surveillance goes to the Supreme Court. I really do.

Since he is not doing that. But I will tell you what I am sick of and that is the left trying to make sure we are defeated so that they can gain back the power they lost.

 

[Stinger]

Let's not cherry-pick those bits that support your argument and leave out the rest. The section of the EOs you're quoting from is worded as follows:

Both of these presidents required that their Attorney General act within the confines of the FISA law, a very clear difference from what is being done now, which not only violates the FISA law, but circumvents the court process altogether.

If they choose but FISA cannot restrict the Presidents authority.

From the Deputy AG

"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, and that the president may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the attorney general.

"It is important to understand," explained the official, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."


Furthermore, said the deputy AG, the requirements for sending wiretapping requests to a special court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (known as FISA) were not objectionable, provided that the provision "does not restrict the president's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security."

And as the WSJ stated yesterday

"The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis], held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." And further that "we take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power.""

 

[Stinger]

Well, I have a few problems with this. Firstly, the law is already tough enough and provides for everything the president needed to gather intel to prevent terrorist plotting. He chose instead to ignore the law and procede with his own program with absolutely no judicial oversight. What it appears to amount to, as I said before, is that he didn't want to be limited to whom or what organizations he could spy on within the US. Given the "rubber stamp" nature of the FISA court and how easy it is to obtain a warrant therefrom, that would indicate to me that he was spying on people he shouldn't have been spying on.

The president is grasping at very weak legal straws,

Just where do you get this stuff? He is on VERY strong legal grounds as every administration before him which did the same thing was. He not only did NOT ignore the law he went to great lenghts to keep the proper people informed and to make sure they WERE within the law.

 

[Caine]

Just where do you get this stuff? He is on VERY strong legal grounds as every administration before him which did the same thing was. He not only did NOT ignore the law he went to great lenghts to keep the proper people informed and to make sure they WERE within the law.

Do you know what your talking about or are you talking out of your bum.
Do some research, don't depend on "OpinionJournal" the title is obvious that its someone's opinion. If it is so clearly within his legal rights, the Senate would not have discussed the issue yesterday in the manner they did.

Do your research, don't talk out of your bum.

 

[oldreliable67]

He is on VERY strong legal grounds as every administration before him which did the same thing was.

Here is precedent all the way back to Carter. This Executive Order was issued by Carter on May 23, 1979. In part, it reads,

By the authority vested in me as President by Sections 102 and
104 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C.
1802 and 1804), in order to provide as set forth in that Act (this
chapter) for the authorization of electronic surveillance for
foreign intelligence purposes, it is hereby ordered as follows:

1-101. Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General
is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign
intelligence information without a court order, [emphasis added]but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.

Source.

According all published reports, the AG has made the necessary certifications and the program has been reviewed regularly with key members of Congress.

Clearly, there is precedent for the surveillance operation. Precedent is of course, a very big thing in legal circles. A court test of the adequacy of the precedents can be expected and since the program is now in public view, is probably a good thing. Hopefully, it will provide a definitive conclusion.

 

[Stinger]

Do you know what your talking about or are you talking out of your bum.
Do some research, don't depend on "OpinionJournal" the title is obvious that its someone's opinion. If it is so clearly within his legal rights, the Senate would not have discussed the issue yesterday in the manner they did.

Do your research, don't talk out of your bum.

My friend you should heed your own advice, I HAVE done my research and the article I cited gave the specific court case. And here from the Deputy Attorney General on the matter

"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, and that the president may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the attorney general.

"It is important to understand," explained the official, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."


Furthermore, said the deputy AG, the requirements for sending wiretapping requests to a special court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (known as FISA) were not objectionable, provided that the provision "does not restrict the president's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security."


And as far as the Senate Democrats discussing it, that hardly proves your case since most proved yesterday they are either lying through their teeth or they are clueless to the law.

 

[cnredd]

Does anyone remember Aldrich Ames?

Reportedly, the Clinton administration had not always been enthusiastic about expanding the court's powers. Like its predecessors, it operated under the assumption that the executive already had inherent authority to exempt itself from Fourth Amendment constraints and could order warrantless searches to protect national security. Nonetheless, the government avoided allowing this inherent authority to be tested in the courts.

Then along came Aldrich Ames. The spy case proved a convenient vehicle on which to hitch expansion of state power. It also offered a glimpse at the state-of-the-art domestic counterintelligence techniques that might well be turned on an activist group near you. Following months of electronic and physical surveillance which included a break-in of Ames' car and searches through his office and family trash FBI agents were finally turned loose in the early morning hours of October 9, 1993. They didn't `pick' locks like in the movies; they made their own keys. Among other agents in the FBI, the consensus was unanimous: The tech agents were geniuses.

Thanks to a warrant authorized by Attorney General Janet Reno, a team of agents from the sprawling National Security Division had permission to enter the Ames home in Arlington, Va. There was only one minor problem. The attorney general of the United States does not have the authority to order a warrantless physical search of a citizen's home, argued Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University National Law Center. The Aldrich Ames search in my view was obviously and egregiously unconstitutional.

Other civil liberties lawyers agree with this evaluation, and the Justice Department itself was concerned enough about the question to refer to this problem when it negotiated a deal with Ames in order to avoid trial. While Ames was sentenced to life in prison, his wife Rosario received five years. We didn't get to the point of litigation, I regret to say, said Ames' lawyer Plato Cacheris. The problem was that Ames very much wanted to see that his wife was treated a little more softly than he was being treated.

Now eager to put a stamp of judicial impartiality on the hazy executive branch doctrine of inherent authority, the Justice Department immediately got behind the bill to expand the FISA court's power. Soon after Ames pleaded guilty last year to spying, administration officials began arguing that adherence to traditional Fourth Amendment protections for American citizens would unduly frustrate counterintelligence efforts against spies operating in the U.S.

Physical searches to gather foreign intelligence depend on secrecy, argued Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. If the existence of these searches were known to the foreign power targets, they would alter their activities to render the information useless. Gorelick went on to explain that A [traditional] search can only be made when there's probable cause to believe a crime is involved, whereas a national-security search can be made at a substantially earlier stage. We often don't know what we're looking for when we go in, she observed.

http://mediafilter.org/caq/Caq53.court.html

This is, by no means, an attack on Clinton...

When it comes to stuff like this, I totally agreed with it then as I do now...

 

[Caine]

And as far as the Senate Democrats discussing it, that hardly proves your case since most proved yesterday they are either lying through their teeth or they are clueless to the law.

You, my friend, have no clue what your talking about.

Where did I say the Democrats were discussing it?

I was watching CSPAN2 here on my couch before I drifted off to sleep, but nobody had brought up the issue until a R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N brought the issue up, he was talking about past instances of other Presidents who wanted the power for warantless searches, etc, I fell off asleep after that.

 

[Stinger]

>>Does anyone remember Aldrich Ames?

Yes and it was perfectly alright then but now that it is Bush the Dem are trying to make a phoney issue out of it.

 

[Stinger]

You, my friend, have no clue what your talking about.

Where did I say the Democrats were discussing it?

I was watching CSPAN2 here on my couch before I drifted off to sleep, but nobody had brought up the issue until a R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N brought the issue up, he was talking about past instances of other Presidents who wanted the power for warantless searches, etc, I fell off asleep after that.

My friend YOU are clueless, perhaps if you had remained awake you would have heard him mention the executive orders of Clinton and Carter authorizing just such surveilence. And I note you failed to comment on the statement of the Deputy Attorney General which makes it perfectly clear this was legal and with proper authority.

 

[Stinger]

>>and since the program is now in public view, is probably a good thing.

Hopefully someone will be going to jail because this was leaked, THAT would be a good thing

 

[cnredd]

My friend YOU are clueless, perhaps if you had remained awake you would have heard him mention the executive orders of Clinton and Carter authorizing just such surveilence.

[Moderator mode]

Saying a group is "clueless" is demeaning, but not a direct attack...

Saying another member is "clueless" is...

Take it to the Basement...we don't want this stuff up in the public forums...

[/Moderator mode]

 

[Calm2Chaos]

Since this has been going on with the use of Echelon for well over a decade, why is it now such a big deal????

Was it as big a deal when Clinton did it?

 

[Stinger]

[Moderator mode]

Saying a group is "clueless" is demeaning, but not a direct attack...

Saying another member is "clueless" is...

Take it to the Basement...we don't want this stuff up in the public forums...

[/Moderator mode]

Well the originator was the one who claimed I didn't have a clue...................I will refrain but please enforce in kind.

 

[Caine]

Since this has been going on with the use of Echelon for well over a decade, why is it now such a big deal????

Was it as big a deal when Clinton did it?

Can you prove to me that Clinton spied inside the US without a system of checks and accountability in place?

 

[Caine]

My friend YOU are clueless, perhaps if you had remained awake you would have heard him mention the executive orders of Clinton and Carter authorizing just such surveilence. And I note you failed to comment on the statement of the Deputy Attorney General which makes it perfectly clear this was legal and with proper authority.

The Deputy Attorney General's statement means nothing, if Congress discovers differently.

If he were 100% legally allowed to do this, this would not be happening.......

Republicans said Congress must investigate whether Bush was within the law to allow the super-secret National Security Agency to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the United States with suspected ties to al-Qaida.

"I believe the Congress — as a coequal branch of government — must immediately and expeditiously review the use of this practice," said Sen. Olympia Snowe (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine.

Snowe joined three other members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel, in calling for a joint inquiry by the Senate judiciary and intelligence committees.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051221/ap_on_go_ot/domestic_spying_30

Of course..... The excuse will be that Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel are liberals.

 

[Calm2Chaos]

Can you prove to me that Clinton spied inside the US without a system of checks and accountability in place?

Think I gave you a link on another thread....Since what the President is doing is legal under the war powers act not sure what the exact problem is, least Thats what I was led to believe....

 

[Stace]

Think I gave you a link on another thread....Since what the President is doing is legal under the war powers act not sure what the exact problem is, least Thats what I was led to believe....

Except we're not officially at war....Congress never declared it.

 

[Caine]

Think I gave you a link on another thread....Since what the President is doing is legal under the war powers act not sure what the exact problem is, least Thats what I was led to believe....

Truth is, we are ALL jumping the gun on this discussion.
I admit even I could be wrong on some of this stuff, we don't know yet, yell THE SENATE doesn't even know yet, thats why they are calling for an inquiry to start next year. And of course, if you read my link above, when I say the senate, I don't mean just Democrats, but Bi-Partisan.

 

[Calm2Chaos]

Except we're not officially at war....Congress never declared it.

The iraqi war resolution puts us at war.. And we are defenitly at war

 

[Stace]

The iraqi war resolution puts us at war.. And we are defenitly at war

No....we are engaged in an "extended military conflict".....war was not declared by Congress. I'm pretty sure there's a difference, but please, let me know if there isn't.

 

[libertarian_knight]

Please note that -this- administration is using the same argument as the -prior- administration.

So:
Was Clinton wrong when he did it?
If so, where were the complaints from the people complaining now?
If these people did not complain then, how do they have standing to complain now?

I'd like to see the reactions then from all the democrats crying today.

If Clinton did all the things Bush is doing, Before Bush, why did we let Clinton leave? I mean, the reps should have changed the term limit and election timing amendment, and just made Clinton President for Eternity.

More PROOF reps are the same as Clinton. Clinton breaks the law, Bush does the same. Clinton engages in BS wars, Bush does the same. Clinton agreed with intelligence assessments, Bush does the same.

I thought you guys were supposed to be DIFFERENT.

New boss, same as the old boss.

Clinton shoudln't have been impeached for Perjury about a blowjob, he should have been impeached and removed from office, FOR THESE VERY VIOLATIONS. When Clinton did is, is was SOOO wrong, he should have been ousted from office. When Bush did it, it was sooo wrong, he should be oust4d from office. When Nixon did it, it was wrong enough, for him to leave office.

If the best defense for Bush, is Bill Clinton, you all SUCK.

 

[Stinger]

The Deputy Attorney General's statement means nothing, if Congress discovers differently.

You are dead wrong and I have also cited the court cases that apply. Congress is infringing on the Presidents power in this matter and the President does not, as some around here seem to think, work for the Congress.

QUOTE]

If he were 100% legally allowed to do this, this would not be happening.......[/QUOTE]

That is laughable. The fact is every president has excerted just such authority and it has never been the constitutional crisis the Democrats and the NYT are trying to create. Every court that has reviewed this has determined that it is legal and it is constitutional. It is aimed at our enemies and it is, or at least was because we have probably seriously damaged our intelligence capabilities do to the irresponsibile behavior of the left, a key to our defeating our enemies.

When will you people wake up?

 

[Stinger]

Truth is, we are ALL jumping the gun on this discussion.
I admit even I could be wrong on some of this stuff, we don't know yet, yell THE SENATE doesn't even know yet, thats why they are calling for an inquiry to start next year. And of course, if you read my link above, when I say the senate, I don't mean just Democrats, but Bi-Partisan.

Yes we do know and the evidence has been widely posted here and is all over the news if you bother to read it. It is legal and it is constitutional. The NYT and the Democrats are playing politics with this and that is DANGEROUS.

 

[Calm2Chaos]

No....we are engaged in an "extended military conflict".....war was not declared by Congress. I'm pretty sure there's a difference, but please, let me know if there isn't.

WAR..... The idea of a formal declaration of war is pretty damm outdated. When was the last time we "Declared war"..... Playing with symantics is all that is