mesue said:Are you guys that afraid to put your name on a petition?
Yes and no, if I do, the govt. will probably start spying upon me, if they haven't already:lol: But also I doubt a petition will get the govt. to do anything, since when have they ever listened to anyone but bureaucrats and their party-line? But I would sure like the program ended. Also I fo think it is illegal, or should be.mesue said:Are you guys that afraid to put your name on a petition?
mesue said:The surveillance is being done illegally, .
If not, it should be.Stinger said:No it's not.
Stinger said:No it's not.
Comrade Brian said:And no for any righties, who respond saying we are in time of need, we are not, most historians say that in this era is not a challenging one, these "terrorists" aren't really a threat.
mesue said:Yes it is illegal, a law in the 70's made it illegal for any government agency to do domestic spying on US citizens without a warrant, but if it was neccessary all they had to do was go through the FISA court to get a warrant this court is very secretive so that would allow the government to go about its business without the person being surveilled knowing anything about it.
Stinger said:Yes we are and any historian who says otherwise is an idiot.
Comrade Brian said:I have yet to see how these "terrorists" are a major threat.
Especially when most are being fought and killed in other countries,
and actually fuels them,
as because many see the US as an imperialist invader that kills their people,
Stinger said:No it's not and FISA did not usurp the constitutional authority of the President. The court cases and even the FISA ruling itself has been posted here over and over. Congress CANNOT leglislate away Presidential authority.
"The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But no Administration then or since has ever conceded that that Act trumped a President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it. FISA established a process by which certain wiretaps in the context of the Cold War could be approved, not a limit on what wiretaps could ever be allowed.
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.""
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007703
In my opinion according to what I am reading it is illegal.
mesue said:Also Stinger you might want to take a look at this, it basically is talking about your argument, the same one of course used by the Bush Administration. It would seem there has been some research done by Congress and they are saying this argument is weak and that Bush has overstepped his power.
mesue said:As I have already said you and I will not be able to agree on this. You might want to write to these people (analysts that work for the congress) about this ruling since the investigative team that works for Congress must have not found it, or did not consider it important enough to take into consideration. They are saying Bush's case for having the right to order wiretaps without a warrant on US citizens is based on a weak legal argument and conflicts with existing laws.
So no matter what side you are on concerning this issue one must ask why did they not just do it this way?
The thing is we live in a country that has laws and while I understand that sometimes these laws need to be updated due to technology or to embrace the progress of time the fundamental right set forth by these laws must be maintained and obviously the FISA court did take into consideration that a case could arise in which a US citizen receiving calls from foreign nations might become part of a case that would be neccessary to proceed with surveillance; and as such a case might exist the FISA court provided for it by creating the 72 hr lapse before a warrant was obtained this is why the 72 hr. leeway was provided by the court.
As I said before you and I will have to agree to disagree until this is all ironed out by the legal folks. If Bush wins this one, our rights will just continue to disintegrate until eventually we live in a country where the citizens rights are non existant.
JMO And it is really not going to matter then who is right or who is wrong, who is a conservative or liberal, democrat or republican, there will be one rule which is do as you are told with no legal recourse. Anyway that is the way I see things evolving if they continue on as they have.
mesue said:The surveillance is being done illegally, the law has been in place since the 70's that you can't spy on Amerocans without going through a special court for a court order that special court was setup to protect our rights but also to maintain secrecy, Bush broke those laws, it is as simple as that and yes we all have a right to know how many Americans that were illegally surveilled.
FreeThinker said:The program has been in place for a few years now, and democrats like Kennedy were briefed. If they had a problem with it they could have brought it up when they first heard about it.
The fact that it is being brought to the public eye now years after demcrats knew about it reeks of partisan politics.
And no, Bush will not be impeached for this. He will carry out the rest of his presidency honorably, without the stain of sex and finance scandals that plagued that joke of a president Clinton.
mesue said:Where am I getting this stuff? I am assuming you mean about Bush ordering wiretaps on US citizens without a warrant. Notice the words domestic surveillance.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-wh/2006/jan/02/010200633.html
The New York Times disclosed last month that the NSA had been conducting the domestic surveillance since 2002. The Justice Department on Friday opened an investigation into who told reporters about the program
mesue said:Apparently you are not aware that this came to the reporter through whistle blowers that were involved working in the program, none of them being politicians.
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