Wiretapping and National Security

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by KCConservative:
Is he in jail? Has he been impeached? Have any of these looney left predictions come true? Face it, your 2000 and 2004 desperate politcal jealousy is losing it's steam. In fact, I think I'll write my legislators and urge them to begin spying on you.

These aren't just looney left predictions! These are MY looney left predictions. And if you want to get people to spy on me, their going to get really bored, really fast.

 

[KCConservative]

These aren't just looney left predictions! These are MY looney left predictions. And if you want to get people to spy on me, their going to get really bored, really fast.

Thanks for making my point. The government isn't interested in spying on you or me because tey'll get bored. They'll find nothing. But spying on terrorists....now there's an idea.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by KCConservative
Thanks for making my point. The government isn't interested in spying on you or me because tey'll get bored. They'll find nothing. But spying on terrorists....now there's an idea.

What's a terrorist?

 

[KCConservative]

What's a terrorist?

The one's that were wiretapped...that is until the NYT commited treason.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by KCConservative
The one's that were wiretapped...that is until the NYT commited treason.

No comment.

 

[KCConservative]

No comment.

I understand.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by KCConservative
I understand.

 

[oldreliable67]

while at the same time claiming that he couldn't seek amending the law because Congress would say no.

We've got too many threads on this topic! I can't find the post in which I enumerated the comments from 4 or 5 officials, including the AG, all containing a reference to or words to the effect "it was decided to not seek new legislation because doing so would necessarily have revealed too much about the new technology involved".

I'll try and gather them up from the primary sources once again.

 

[oldreliable67]

Here are a couple of the comments to which I earlier referred:

The notion that disclosing the surveillance would somehow tip off potential terrorists is laughable, too; Al Qaeda types know they're being monitored...That's all assuming, of course, that the wiretaps in this case are the same as in any other. But maybe they're not. Maybe there's something different about this surveillance.

...former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who was briefed on the eavesdropping program, told the Washington Post:

"I came out of the room with the full sense that we were dealing with a change in technology but not policy," Graham said, with new opportunities to intercept overseas calls that passed through U.S. switches.

Or what New York Times editor Bill Keller had to say about the paper's year-long delay in breaking the story:

"In the course of subsequent reporting we satisfied ourselves that we could write about this program -- withholding a number of technical details -- in a way that would not expose any intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the public record."

[so the NYT sat on this story for a year in part because they were concerned that they wouldn't be able to report it without revealing some "crucial technical details" of how the program works - OR67]

So maybe the NSA wiretaps were using a new kind of capability; one that terror suspects might not have know about; one that might have even made the FISA court uncomfortable, somehow.

Source.

Here are more of the relevant quotes...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, telling reporters why Bush didn't simply ask Congress to pass a law making the program clearly legal: "We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be - that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program."

President Bush, answering questions at Monday's press conference: "We use FISA still....But FISA is for long-term monitoring....There is a difference between detecting so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to know the distinction between the two....We used the [FISA] process to monitor. But also....we've got to be able to detect and prevent."

Senator Jay Rockefeller, in a letter to Dick Cheney after being briefed on the program in 2003: "As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter's TIA project sprung to mind, exacerbating my concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance."

Source.

Even if you discount Bush and the AG's comments as being self-serving, there are still suggestions pointing to a fear of revealing a new technology as a motivating factor in not seeking new legislation.

Trying to visualize the shape of a new technology, if it exists, might take, one writer at the cite given above wrote:

"It is entirely possible that the NSA technology at issue here is some kind of high-volume, automated voice recognition and pattern matching system. Now, I don't at all believe that all international calls are or could be monitored with such a system, or anything like that. Rather, the NSA could very easily narrow down the amount of phone traffic that they'd have to a relatively small fraction of international calls with some smart filtering. First, they'd only monitor calls where one end of the connection is in a country of interest. Then, they'd only need the ability to do a roving random sample of a few seconds from each call in that already greatly narrowed pool of calls. As Zimmermann describes above, you monitor a few seconds of some fraction of the calls looking for "hits," and then you move on to another fraction. If a particular call generates a hit, then you zero in on it for further real-time analysis and possible human interception. All the calls can be recorded, cached, and further examined later for items that may have been overlooked in the real-time analysis.

In a recent press conference, Deputy Director for National Intelligence Michael Hayden said the following (via Defensetech):

"And here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger. It's a subtly softer trigger. And the intrusion into privacy -- the intrusion into privacy is significantly less. It's only international calls. The period of time in which we do this is, in most cases, far less than that which would be gained by getting a court order."

This sounds pretty much like what I've described above. And yes, this kind of real-time voice recognition, crude semantic parsing and pattern matching is doable with today's technology, especially when you have a budget like the NSA.

The "softer trigger" here is a phrase that's on a watch list, or a call with an abnormally high volume of a certain type of vocabulary. The "agility" bit is a reference to the technology's ability to move from call to call, taking small slices. That's also probably what's behind the claim that the technology is less intrusive than a traditional wiretap, because the time slices are very short."

On one or the other of the related threads, I posted NSA patents and a description of DARPA funded work dating to 1999 whose products, if implemented, would facilitate exactly the kind of surveillance being described.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by oldreliable67:
Here are more of the relevant quotes...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, telling reporters why Bush didn't simply ask Congress to pass a law making the program clearly legal: "We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be - that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program."

President Bush, answering questions at Monday's press conference: "We use FISA still....But FISA is for long-term monitoring....There is a difference between detecting so we can prevent, and monitoring. And it's important to know the distinction between the two....We used the [FISA] process to monitor. But also....we've got to be able to detect and prevent."

Senator Jay Rockefeller, in a letter to Dick Cheney after being briefed on the program in 2003: "As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter's TIA project sprung to mind, exacerbating my concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance."

Source.

Even if you discount Bush and the AG's comments as being self-serving, there are still suggestions pointing to a fear of revealing a new technology as a motivating factor in not seeking new legislation.

Trying to visualize the shape of a new technology, if it exists, might take, one writer at the cite given above wrote:

"It is entirely possible that the NSA technology at issue here is some kind of high-volume, automated voice recognition and pattern matching system. Now, I don't at all believe that all international calls are or could be monitored with such a system, or anything like that. Rather, the NSA could very easily narrow down the amount of phone traffic that they'd have to a relatively small fraction of international calls with some smart filtering. First, they'd only monitor calls where one end of the connection is in a country of interest. Then, they'd only need the ability to do a roving random sample of a few seconds from each call in that already greatly narrowed pool of calls. As Zimmermann describes above, you monitor a few seconds of some fraction of the calls looking for "hits," and then you move on to another fraction. If a particular call generates a hit, then you zero in on it for further real-time analysis and possible human interception. All the calls can be recorded, cached, and further examined later for items that may have been overlooked in the real-time analysis.

In a recent press conference, Deputy Director for National Intelligence Michael Hayden said the following (via Defensetech):

"And here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger. It's a subtly softer trigger. And the intrusion into privacy -- the intrusion into privacy is significantly less. It's only international calls. The period of time in which we do this is, in most cases, far less than that which would be gained by getting a court order."

This sounds pretty much like what I've described above. And yes, this kind of real-time voice recognition, crude semantic parsing and pattern matching is doable with today's technology, especially when you have a budget like the NSA.

The "softer trigger" here is a phrase that's on a watch list, or a call with an abnormally high volume of a certain type of vocabulary. The "agility" bit is a reference to the technology's ability to move from call to call, taking small slices. That's also probably what's behind the claim that the technology is less intrusive than a traditional wiretap, because the time slices are very short."

On one or the other of the related threads, I posted NSA patents and a description of DARPA funded work dating to 1999 whose products, if implemented, would facilitate exactly the kind of surveillance being described.

Gonzales could not get an ammendment because what they were doing is illegal. And the good your proposing it would do is taking into account that this particular Administration is honest and above board, which couldn't be the furthest thing from the truth.

 

[aquapub]

There is a lot of BS being perpetuated about this topic, and a lot of phony smearing going on (color me shocked) against our unusually straightforward commander-in-chief.

-Article 2 of the Constitution is vague, but if I were to guess, based on the language used, at whether or not it was intended that a president should have the kind of power to track and monitor specifically and only calls from foreign terror cells to this country and vice versa, I would definitely have to guess, yes. My position on the intent of the founding fathers on this is even FURTHER strengthened by the fact that the Constitution has NOT ONE mention or even insinuation of any right to privacy-which is supposedly the "right" that Bush is violating. (With the mind-boggling, hallucinatory way Democrats constantly and egregiously misinterpret the Constitution, I cannot take their crocodile tears for the Constitution on this matter seriously).

-Liberals are spinning this as an issue of President Bush needlessly disregarding the law when getting a FISA court warrant can be easily done. But what they are not mentioning is that you must have "probable cause." You must have some compelling evidence that there is an eminent threat. And they often do not know whether there is an eminent threat until they listen to these calls. Contrary to the way FISA works, President Bush, most other Republicans, and some Democrats believe that someone getting a phone call from a terrorist IS the probable cause. THAT is what this is about.
Al Gore is full of crap.

-Liberals are also portraying themselves as victims of patriotism-witch hunts every time a Republican says they have a, "pre-9/11 mindset," but it is factually true and demonstrable. Democrats ARE trying to restrict the Patriot Act. Democrats ARE trying to make necessary warrantless wiretapping of terrorist communications off-limits. They ARE trying to get things back the way they were before 9/11. They ARE still trying to treat terrorism as a criminal matter instead of a military one, which is EXACTLY how things were done pre-9/11. 9/11 Could have been prevented had these people not got their way on national security (AND if Clinton hadn't been allowed to turn Bin Laden into an international hero by retreating from him in Somalia/been allowed to let Bin Laden attack us for nearly a decade with impunity.)

-Liberals are claiming that President Bush was brazenly, knowingly breaking the law and trying to get away with it. If so, then why was he reporting it to Congress regularly. More interestingly, why did the Democrats he routinely briefed on this program only get so "concerned" once the story was leaked. Give me a break.

-Liberals make unending irresponsible portrayals of Bush as unapologetically trampling on civil liberties, but there has been not one single case reported of this narrowly applied surveillance of terrorist communications being abused. NOT ONE.

-Wait a minute. Why am I even bothering to try and spell all this out? When DEMOCRATS used and defended warrantless wiretapping, THEY put it best:

Clinton Administration Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick:

"(T)he 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."

(Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence, U.S. House Of Representatives, Testimony, 7/14/94)

 

[Conflict]

Clinton Administration Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick:

"(T)he 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."

(Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence, U.S. House Of Representatives, Testimony, 7/14/94)

This quote is ill-intended as this is only the testimony of one. It is more than clear that there exists this thing called FISA, which so many Bush supporters so conveniantly forget...

FISA is not testimony... it is an act that was passed to oversee the potential detriment of exploitation of presidential powers.

Let me again remind you, FISA allows for the spontaneous monitoring of possible saboteurs. All that is required is that a paper be filed within 72 hours so that such motives can be followed upon and verified by a judicial body in terms of adjudication.

There is no reason not to go through FISA, unless Bush has something to hide.

If Bush has something to hide... well then the American people need to know about it.

If you don't like the rule of law here in America... then take BUsh, the PNAC, and all of it's cronies and establish a base somewhere in the tundra. The American people grow tired of your lies and misrepresentation.

 

[ProudAmerican]

This quote is ill-intended as this is only the testimony of one. It is more than clear that there exists this thing called FISA, which so many Bush supporters so conveniantly forget...

no, the quote was intended for a president with a (D) by his name.

now that the president has an (R) by his name, it doesnt count.

or was FISA not in existence when Bill Clinton was president?

The American people grow tired of your lies and misrepresentation.

yes they do.....like the lie that the president is listening to the average americans phone calls, rather than the ones talking to Al Queda members.

 

[oldreliable67]

let me again remind you, FISA allows for the spontaneous monitoring of possible saboteurs.

No, it doesn't. In fact, that lack of spontaneity was one of the principal reasons leading to the Presidential authorization of the NSA surveillance program that has everyone so bothered. General Hayden answered questions about this aspect of NSA surveillance in an appearance at the National Press Club yesterday...

QUESTION: General Hayden, the FISA law says that the NSA can do intercepts as long as you go to the court within 72 hours to get a warrant.
I understood you to say that you are aggressively using FISA but selectively doing so. Why are you not able to go to FISA as the law requires in all cases? And if the law is outdated, why haven't you asked Congress to update it?

GEN. HAYDEN: Lots of questions contained there. Let me try them one at a time. First of all, I need to get a statement of fact out here, all right? NSA cannot -- under the FISA statute, NSA cannot put someone on coverage and go ahead and play for 72 hours while it gets a note saying it was okay. All right? The attorney general is the one who approves emergency FISA coverage, and the attorney general's standard for approving FISA coverage is a body of evidence equal to that which he would present to the court. So it's not like you can throw it on for 72 hours.

In the instances where this program applies, FISA does not give us the operational effect that the authorities that the president has given us give us. Look. I can't -- and I understand it's going to be an incomplete answer, and I can't give you all the fine print as to why, but let me just kind of reverse the answer just a bit. If FISA worked just as well, why wouldn't I use FISA? To save typing? No. There is an operational impact here, and I have two paths in front of me, both of them lawful, one FISA, one the presidential -- the president's authorization. And we go down this path because our operational judgment is it is much more effective. So we do it for that reason. I think I've got -- I think I've covered all the ones you raised.

AG Gonzales was at Georgetown Univ here in DC today. On this same topic, he explained...

Some have pointed to the provision in FISA that allows for so-called “emergency authorizations” of surveillance for 72 hours without a court order. There’s a serious misconception about these emergency authorizations. People should know that we do not approve emergency authorizations without knowing that we will receive court approval within 72 hours. FISA requires the Attorney General to determine IN ADVANCE that a FISA application for that particular intercept will be fully supported and will be approved by the court before an emergency authorization may be granted. That review process can take precious time.

Thus, to initiate surveillance under a FISA emergency authorization, it is not enough to rely on the best judgment of our intelligence officers alone. Those intelligence officers would have to get the sign-off of lawyers at the NSA that all provisions of FISA have been satisfied, then lawyers in the Department of Justice would have to be similarly satisfied, and finally as Attorney General, I would have to be satisfied that the search meets the requirements of FISA. And we would have to be prepared to follow up with a full FISA application within the 72 hours. [emphasis added]

A typical FISA application involves a substantial process in its own right: The work of several lawyers; the preparation of a legal brief and supporting declarations; the approval of a Cabinet-level officer; a certification from the National Security Adviser, the Director of the FBI, or another designated Senate-confirmed officer; and, finally, of course, the approval of an Article III judge.

Source for both quotes.

So you can't just initiate a listening op then start the paperwork. All the paperwork - and there is a lot of it - has to be done before the op can start.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

No, it doesn't. In fact, that lack of spontaneity was one of the principal reasons leading to the Presidential authorization of the NSA surveillance program that has everyone so bothered. General Hayden answered questions about this aspect of NSA surveillance in an appearance at the National Press Club yesterday...



AG Gonzales was at Georgetown Univ here in DC today. On this same topic, he explained...



Source for both quotes.

So you can't just initiate a listening op then start the paperwork. All the paperwork - and there is a lot of it - has to be done before the op can start.

The problem is, that is an argument for changing FISA law, but it does not mean that the President has the authority to disregard it. If FISA law needs to be changed, then the President should lobby congress to change the law. There are a lot of laws in this country that are inadequate. However, just the same, you cant just choose to ignore them.

 

[oldreliable67]

The problem is, that is an argument for changing FISA law, but it does not mean that the President has the authority to disregard it.

No, the President is clearly not "disregarding" FISA. FISA is still being used, as the number of applications and approvals show. My understanding thus far, is: the Presidential authorization to NSA provides an alternative to FISA in certain, well-defined instances and situations: (1) an immediate operational intel opportunity, (2) at least one caller outside the US, (3) reason to believe that at least one caller is associated with a terrorist organization. Absent condition one - an immediate operational intel opportunity that would be lost without the ability to mount an op quickly - the same situation would be routed to FISA.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, FISA may well be amended. But heretofore, the administration's consultations with Congress appear to have strongly suggested that pursuing new legislation would have risked a level of disclosure of progam details that would have seriously damaged its usefulness.

 

[Conflict]

no, the quote was intended for a president with a (D) by his name.

now that the president has an (R) by his name, it doesnt count.

or was FISA not in existence when Bill Clinton was president?



yes they do.....like the lie that the president is listening to the average americans phone calls, rather than the ones talking to Al Queda members.

Funny, with out a third party or arbiter we don't really know what has transpired do we? But you are clearly not an advocate of revelation. You favor hiding. THat's fine. Such days are numbered my friend. Look at my post history. Realize that I don't speak for any particular party affiliation. Realize that I have a track record of valuable insight.

Spare me your retroactive partisan diatribe. I deal with the here and now. Not with the would have, could have, should have. Do not regress. It looks bad on you.

 

[Conflict]

No, the President is clearly not "disregarding" FISA. FISA is still being used, as the number of applications and approvals show. My understanding thus far, is: the Presidential authorization to NSA provides an alternative to FISA in certain, well-defined instances and situations: (1) an immediate operational intel opportunity, (2) at least one caller outside the US, (3) reason to believe that at least one caller is associated with a terrorist organization. Absent condition one - an immediate operational intel opportunity that would be lost without the ability to mount an op quickly - the same situation would be routed to FISA.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, FISA may well be amended. But heretofore, the administration's consultations with Congress appear to have strongly suggested that pursuing new legislation would have risked a level of disclosure of progam details that would have seriously damaged its usefulness.

Unfortunately the best that fox news could find was a professor from an extension school.. UMKC... one that has previously been employed by Ashcroft. LOL.

FUnny... Harvard, Princeton, GWU, and as we saw today... Georgetown Law opposes the idea of unrefined presidential powers. You are fighting a losing battle here. Save face.

 

[Loxd4]

I heard it take about 30 seconds for the government to get any kind warrant. So what the big deal about get a warrant?

 

[cnredd]

I heard it take about 30 seconds for the government to get any kind warrant. So what the big deal about get a warrant?

The difference between "probable cause" and "possible cause"...

I don't know specifics(I don't work for the NSA), but I'll throw out some extremes...

The computer spits out two conversations with the word "bomb"...

The first conversation is from Pakistan to the US...It contains the phrase, "...and then, Allah be praised, the bomb will detonate and the Empire State Building will crumble at 3PM on Friday January 27th!"...

Do you give a warrant for this?..."probable cause"...warrant granted...Now the NSA can gain access to the original caller's phone records and begin going over ALL previous conversations...even the ones that DIDN'T have keywords like "bomb" in there, and see if the people they are spying on are indeed a terroristic threat...pretty much sounds like it, doesn't it?...probable cause...

The second conversation...From France to the US...It contains the phrase..."I have a friend of mine...Really religious...He's always saying he should drop a couple bombs on the State capitol when he visits his reletives next month"...

Do you give a warrant for this?..."possible cause"...Is there enough there to warrant a warrant?...Could be...Maybe not...Let's say the warrant is NOT granted...

Now the NSA can't even find out what state the guy's even gonna be in next month...No phone records...no previous conversations...no future wiretapping...zilch...

Now here's the problem...

For years, the FISA courts, with VERY RARE exceptions, always approved the warrants...why?...because they all fell under the guise of the first converation..."probable cause"...They've always been pretty cut and dry...

But after 911, the President, the Dept. of Justice, the Attorney General, and the head of NSA agreed the standard should be dropped much lower to include conversations like the second one..."possible cause"...

But these would never fly with the FISA courts, and there would be mulitudes of warrants denied...The courts would just say, "Now your nit-picking"...

From the Attorney General himself...

Thus, to initiate surveillance under a FISA emergency authorization, it is not enough to rely on the best judgment of our intelligence officers alone. Those intelligence officers would have to get the sign-off of lawyers at the NSA that all provisions of FISA have been satisfied, then lawyers in the Department of Justice would have to be similarly satisfied, and finally as Attorney General, I would have to be satisfied that the search meets the requirements of FISA. And we would have to be prepared to follow up with a full FISA application within the 72 hours.

A typical FISA application involves a substantial process in its own right: The work of several lawyers; the preparation of a legal brief and supporting declarations; the approval of a Cabinet-level officer; a certification from the National Security Adviser, the Director of the FBI, or another designated Senate-confirmed officer; and, finally, of course, the approval of an Article III judge.

So someone asked, "Why don't we have Congess change FISA so "possible cause" will be included and give the NSA more freedom to pick and choose these conversations?"

Well here's the answer...From the Atty General himself...

That question was asked earlier. We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program.

So there's your answer...If you want to keep this whole thing on the down-low, you want every member of Congress to know about it?...AND make the amendment public?!?!?...As stated, it would be "jeopardizing the existance of the program."...

So someone came up with the bright idea to ask the question, "Does the President have the authority to bypass this?"

The DoJ, The Atty. Gen., and the head of NSA(along with some lawyers, I assume) all said "Yes...The President DOES have the authority to bypass FISA."

So the Prez said "Engage!" and the warrantless wiretaps began...

Now I ask those who have children or people under their protection...

How much risk are you willing to put them in? 90%?(like the first conversation) or 10%?(second coversation)...Would you believe that 10% is STILL too high to put them at risk? Would you let your kids cross the highway if you knew there was ONLY a 10% chance of getting struck?

I'd find it pretty doubtful anyone here would say, "Oh...It's JUST 10%...go right ahead!"...

That's the position that "possible cause" has put the President in...he believes that "probable cause" is WAY too high when it comes to National Security...and the way FISA is written, the courts wouldn't let him lower the bar...and if he tried to change how it's written, the whole damn thing goes public...

The "checks and balances" everyone screams about means that the Government should be "transparent"...not "naked"...

Imagine if the public knew EVERY LITTLE THING that the Government knows or does?...Secret programs?...Covert military operations?...Hell!...Why not just shout to the world all of the Security codes for nuclear detonation?!?!...:roll:

Now...

Can you imagine if a State capitol was "bombed" by the person referenced in that second conversation?...The President says, "We WANTED to monitor the phone records and conversations of that guy, but with the way FISA's written, we weren't allowed...

Will YOU find that an acceptable answer?...AFTER hundreds or thousands of people are dead?

Didn't think so...

 

[Binary_Digit]

Can you imagine if a State capitol was "bombed" by the person referenced in that second conversation?...The President says, "We WANTED to monitor the phone records and conversations of that guy, but with the way FISA's written, we weren't allowed...

Will YOU find that an acceptable answer?...AFTER hundreds or thousands of people are dead?

Didn't think so...

No, personally I wouldn't find that acceptable. But if that happened, my question to the President would be "why didn't you work with Congress to amend the FISA standards?" not "why didn't you circumvent the outdated process instead of following it?"

I also believe it is an extremely huge copout for the AG to say they would not have been able to amend FISA, so they didn't even try. I bet they probably wouldn't be able to get Congressional approval to hold summary executions either, does that mean they should bypass that law too? Hell no!

If the terrorist threat is so high that the President needs special powers not otherwise allowed by law, that is what maritime law is for. The breakdown of law and order within our government is worse than any terrorist attack, because America can never be conquered by terrorists, we can only be conquered from within. The government should not be allowed to circumvent the law under any circumstances, whether it's to protect the nation or to hide a marital affair.

Assuming the law was broken. We shall see! :2razz:

 

[oldreliable67]

Unfortunately the best that fox news could find was a professor from an extension school.. UMKC... one that has previously been employed by Ashcroft. LOL.

FUnny... Harvard, Princeton, GWU, and as we saw today... Georgetown Law opposes the idea of unrefined presidential powers. You are fighting a losing battle here. Save face.

No. Jeez, now I have to go and find the post in one of the other now multitudinous other threads on this topic where I posted some of the pro- legal opinions. Interestingly, some were from contemporaries at those same law schools that you mentioned.

Here are a few of the opinions from non-conservative legal scholars, including John Schmidt, Asst AG under Clinton and Charles Fried of Harvard Law; I don't think either of these could be called conservative though Fried was Solicitor General under Reagan.

> John Schmidt, Asst AG under Clinton…

“President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...commentary-hed

> Charles Fried, teaches Constitutional law at Harvard…

“We should ask ourselves what concrete harm is done by such a program. Is a person's privacy truly violated if his international communications are subject to this kind of impersonal, computerized screening? If it is not, at what stage of further focus do real, rather than abstract and hysterical concerns arise? And to what extent is the hew and cry about this program a symptom of a generalized distrust of all government, or of just this administration?

The resolution of this dilemma to allow both the use of an important tool of national security and respect for the rule of law needs ingenuity, discretion, and a good faith search for sensible solutions. So far I have heard only alarmist and hyperbolic pronouncements calculated neither to illuminate nor resolve this problem.”

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...llance?mode=PF

> Cass Sunstein, Univ of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog…

“The authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) says, "the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

This authorization clearly supported the war in Afghanistan. It also clearly justifies the use of force against Al Qaeda. In the Hamdi case, the Supreme Court added that the AUMF authorizes the detention of enemy combatants -- notwithstanding 18 USC 4001(a), which requires an Act of Congress to support executive detention. In the Court's view, the AUMF stands as the relevant Act of Congress, authorizing detention. It is therefore reasonable to say that the AUMF, by authorizing the use of "all necessary and appropriate force," also authorizes surveillance of those associated with Al Qaeda or any other organizations that "planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks" of September 11.

The reason is that surveillance, including wiretapping, is reasonably believed to be an incident of the use of force. It standardly occurs during war. If the President's wiretapping has been limited to those reasonably believed to be associated with Al Qaeda and its affiliates -- as indeed he has said -- then the Attorney General's argument is entirely plausible. (The AUMF would not permit wiretapping of those without any connection to nations, organizations, and persons associated with the September 11 attacks.)”
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/facul...ential_wi.html

> Duke Law Journal…

["when the surveillance occurs outside of the United States, FISA is not applicable, and there is no requirement of prior judicial authorization. In these cases, Executive Order 12,333 is the primary source of regulation”

http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dlj...dlj50p1467.htm

Thats enough for a sample.

 

[ProudAmerican]

You favor hiding

what I favor is this president being able to do the exact same thing a president with a (D) beside his name did.

what I favor is not having a double standard.

 

[Loxd4]

The difference between "probable cause" and "possible cause"...

I don't know specifics(I don't work for the NSA), but I'll throw out some extremes...

The computer spits out two conversations with the word "bomb"...

The first conversation is from Pakistan to the US...It contains the phrase, "...and then, Allah be praised, the bomb will detonate and the Empire State Building will crumble at 3PM on Friday January 27th!"...

Do you give a warrant for this?..."probable cause"...warrant granted...Now the NSA can gain access to the original caller's phone records and begin going over ALL previous conversations...even the ones that DIDN'T have keywords like "bomb" in there, and see if the people they are spying on are indeed a terroristic threat...pretty much sounds like it, doesn't it?...probable cause...

The second conversation...From France to the US...It contains the phrase..."I have a friend of mine...Really religious...He's always saying he should drop a couple bombs on the State capitol when he visits his reletives next month"...

Do you give a warrant for this?..."possible cause"...Is there enough there to warrant a warrant?...Could be...Maybe not...Let's say the warrant is NOT granted...

Now the NSA can't even find out what state the guy's even gonna be in next month...No phone records...no previous conversations...no future wiretapping...zilch...

Now here's the problem...

For years, the FISA courts, with VERY RARE exceptions, always approved the warrants...why?...because they all fell under the guise of the first converation..."probable cause"...They've always been pretty cut and dry...

But after 911, the President, the Dept. of Justice, the Attorney General, and the head of NSA agreed the standard should be dropped much lower to include conversations like the second one..."possible cause"...

But these would never fly with the FISA courts, and there would be mulitudes of warrants denied...The courts would just say, "Now your nit-picking"...

From the Attorney General himself...


So someone asked, "Why don't we have Congess change FISA so "possible cause" will be included and give the NSA more freedom to pick and choose these conversations?"

Well here's the answer...From the Atty General himself...



So there's your answer...If you want to keep this whole thing on the down-low, you want every member of Congress to know about it?...AND make the amendment public?!?!?...As stated, it would be "jeopardizing the existance of the program."...

So someone came up with the bright idea to ask the question, "Does the President have the authority to bypass this?"

The DoJ, The Atty. Gen., and the head of NSA(along with some lawyers, I assume) all said "Yes...The President DOES have the authority to bypass FISA."

So the Prez said "Engage!" and the warrantless wiretaps began...

Now I ask those who have children or people under their protection...

How much risk are you willing to put them in? 90%?(like the first conversation) or 10%?(second coversation)...Would you believe that 10% is STILL too high to put them at risk? Would you let your kids cross the highway if you knew there was ONLY a 10% chance of getting struck?

I'd find it pretty doubtful anyone here would say, "Oh...It's JUST 10%...go right ahead!"...

That's the position that "possible cause" has put the President in...he believes that "probable cause" is WAY too high when it comes to National Security...and the way FISA is written, the courts wouldn't let him lower the bar...and if he tried to change how it's written, the whole damn thing goes public...

The "checks and balances" everyone screams about means that the Government should be "transparent"...not "naked"...

Imagine if the public knew EVERY LITTLE THING that the Government knows or does?...Secret programs?...Covert military operations?...Hell!...Why not just shout to the world all of the Security codes for nuclear detonation?!?!...:roll:

Now...

Can you imagine if a State capitol was "bombed" by the person referenced in that second conversation?...The President says, "We WANTED to monitor the phone records and conversations of that guy, but with the way FISA's written, we weren't allowed...

Will YOU find that an acceptable answer?...AFTER hundreds or thousands of people are dead?

Didn't think so...

Can you prove that they record you phone calls if you say the word "bomb."

 

[cnredd]

No, personally I wouldn't find that acceptable. But...

This is the whole argument that washes away logic...

"No...But"

That should be a new phrase for those who live to complain...They don't agree, BUT they must throw in a caveat...

Do you believe the world would be better off with Saddam still in charge of Iraq?

"No...but..."

Do you believe liberating Iraq and Afghanistan was a bad idea?

"No...but..."

Do you think the UN did the right thing by letting Saddam break all of the resolutoins?

"No...but..."

Would you find it acceptable if the President announced that he wanted to protect the US citizens, but the partisans would prevent him from doing so?

"No...but..."

The "NoButs"...has a nice ring to it...