DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: hnumpah on January 17, 2007, 03:42:06 PM
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Secret court to govern wiretapping plan
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department, easing a Bush administration policy, said Wednesday it has decided to give an independent body authority to monitor the government's controversial domestic spying program.
In a letter to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said this authority has been given to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and that it already has approved one request for monitoring the communications of a person believed to be linked to al-Qaida or an associated terror group.
The court orders approving collection of international communications — whether it originates in the United States or abroad — was issued Jan. 10, according to the two-page letter to Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
"As a result of these orders, any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," Gonzales wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
"Accordingly, under these circumstances, the President has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires," the attorney general wrote.
The Bush administration secretly launched the surveillance program in 2001 to monitor international phone calls and e-mails to or from the United States involving people suspected by the government of having terrorist links.
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DIHD.....DIHD't :-\
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Stopping the illegal spying on US citizens is good. It doesn't make it all OK now, like it never happened, so the damned if you do, damned if you don't thing does not apply. That would be like a thief saying, But I stopped stealing after you caught me, so it would be unfair if you pressed charges now.
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Almost forgot, I was going to post this link to a law blog on this subject.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/01/terrorist-surveillance-program-never.html
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Stopping the illegal spying on US citizens is good. It doesn't make it all OK now, like it never happened, so the damned if you do, damned if you don't thing does not apply. That would be like a thief saying, But I stopped stealing after you caught me, so it would be unfair if you pressed charges now.
Only if what Bush was doing was ruled unconstitutional or illegal. Currently, that remains a NO, so the DIHD...DIHD't still is fully applicable
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Could we get a list of all the persons we know to have been harmed by the President's authorization of foreign call to US wiretaps?
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Plane,
We don't have to have a list of anyone who was harmed. It doesn't rest upon us to prove we were harmed. That isn't how our justice system works. We know he spied on us without recourse to FISA courts, and that is "extralegal" and he was pretty proud of it at the time, I remember. "I'm gonna keep on doing it," I believe he said, "to protect the American people.'
He forgets he did not take an oath to protect the American people. He swore an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States. I have heard that he refers to it as "just a piece of paper."
It simply rests upon us to bring him to justice, eventually.
He evidently saw that day coming with the election of Democrats and decided to take his hand out of the cookie jar. It doesn't make his actions right.
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I have heard that he refers to it as "just a piece of paper."
Source
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I have heard that he refers to it as "just a piece of paper."
Source
Probably somewhere on MoveOn.org's web site, or perhaps it was in a Ted Rall cartoon :-\
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Defiant Bush defends wiretapping powers
Julian Borger and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday December 20, 2005
The Guardian
George Bush claimed yesterday that he had the constitutional authority to order phone taps on US citizens without court approval, but denied he was seeking "unchecked power".
The president went on the offensive in a battle with Congress over the balance of power, arguing that bold executive action was needed to keep Americans safe. He scolded the Senate for failing to renew anti-terrorist legislation, the "patriot act", and fiercely defended his authorisation of a secret eavesdropping programme after the September 11 attacks.
Article continues
"As president and commander in chief, I have the constitutional responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country. Article 2 of the constitution gives me that responsibility and the authority necessary to fulfil it," he said.
He angrily rejected a suggestion that he was seeking "unchecked power".
"To say unchecked power basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject," he told a White House press conference.
But Democrats in Congress alleged that the White House had used the September 11 attacks as a pretext for a stealthy accumulation of extraordinary powers. Senator Russ Feingold declared: "The president has stated a doctrine that he can just make up the law and create whatever other powers he wants on his own."
The clash came after Congress scored successes in its bid to rein in some executive powers commandeered by Mr Bush and the vice president, Dick Cheney, who were convinced the presidency had become too weak to lead the "war on terror". Congress demanded regular briefings on the progress of the war in Iraq; it overcame intense White House resistance to impose new controls on the treatment of detainees; and a bipartisan group of senators last week blocked the renewal of the patriot act on the grounds that the powers it gave the FBI violated civil liberties.
Yesterday, Mr Bush portrayed the Senate block on the anti-terrorism law as "playing politics" with national security. He said: "It is inexcusable to say to the American people ... we're going to be tough on terror but take away the very tools necessary to help fight these people." He was also unapologetic over the secret wiretapping programme, targeting foreign calls and emails made or received in the US, and said the leak of its existence to the New York Times was "shameful" as it made terrorists aware of the methods being used against them.
Outrage at the wiretaps focused on the bypassing by the White House of a secret court, established under the foreign intelligence surveillance act (Fisa), which normally approves such surveillance, even retroactively. Mr Bush said that while the court was used to authorise the monitoring of calls, the National Security Agency needed to act quickly to detect suspicious telephone and email conversations. Yesterday, General Michael Hayden, the deputy director of national intelligence, said the programme had detected and prevented attacks inside the US.
Gen Hayden told reporters: "Here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger. It's a subtly softer trigger."
Mr Bush said he had the power to order wiretaps not only from the constitution, which vests commander-in-chief responsibilities in the presidency, but also in Congress's vote in 2001 to authorise him to use force against the perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Democrats denied that vote gave the White House any such authority and some legal experts questioned the strength of his argument.
"This is certainly not at the strength you would want to see to justify such a disturbing incursion on civil liberties," said Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University in St Louis. "It is one thing to say that the authorisation of force amended all those statutes without saying so, and quite another thing to prove that."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1671093,00.html
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...snip...
And? This OPINION piece is trying to tell us what again, Lanya? And where does it quote Bush in claiming the Consitituion is just some "piece of paper"?
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That is a news story. A straight news story, no opinion piece.
The "it's just a g-d piece of paper" was something he reportedly said, no attribution. Capitol Hill Blue reported it, as did others, and I have no way to know if it was said or not.
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The "it's just a g-d piece of paper" was something he reportedly said, no attribution. Capitol Hill Blue reported it, as did others, and I have no way to know if it was said or not.
Then why not post the Capitol Hill Blue story.
And what is the difference between saying it is just a "piece of paper" and claiming it is a "living breathing document" that adapts to the times?
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Plane,
We don't have to have a list of anyone who was harmed. It doesn't rest upon us to prove we were harmed. That isn't how our justice system works. We know he spied on us without recourse to FISA courts, and that is "extralegal" and he was pretty proud of it at the time, I remember. "I'm gonna keep on doing it," I believe he said, "to protect the American people.'
He forgets he did not take an oath to protect the American people. He swore an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States. I have heard that he refers to it as "just a piece of paper."
It simply rests upon us to bring him to justice, eventually.
He evidently saw that day coming with the election of Democrats and decided to take his hand out of the cookie jar. It doesn't make his actions right.
"That isn't how our justice system works."
I thought it was , if no one is harmed then who has standing to complain?
You would really rather that he wasn't trying to protect the American people?
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We know he spied on us without recourse to FISA courts, and that is "extralegal"
The Supreme Court has already ruled that getting the call records - number called, time, and duration - does not require a warrant. I have seen no evidence that anything more than call records were compiled without a warrant.
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We don't have to have a list of anyone who was harmed. It doesn't rest upon us to prove we were harmed.
When was the last time you heard of a person being charged with a crime, when there wasn't a victim who filed a police report or a body?
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You would really rather that he wasn't trying to protect the American people?
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Er, well, no.
Juniorbush has not proven to be competent at anything else. Everything this clown touches turns to crap.
He did not manage to do anything about Social Security. His war is a total disaster. The economy is a shambles. There is no immigration policy. NOTHING HE TOUCHES WORKS.
HELLO? Anyone home?
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When was the last time you heard of a person being charged with a crime, when there wasn't a victim who filed a police report or a body?
We have arrests for prostitution, soliciting, and gambling all the time, not because some victim filed a police report, but in sting operations and general sweeps by the police. I can't nail the last time I heard of any of these down precisely, but it was probably in the last week or so.
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not because some victim filed a police report, but in sting operations and general sweeps by the police.
In those cases, the complainant was the police officer conducting the sting or sweep (or random traffic stop...), ie, "the victim."
Note that if the police officer fails to appear in court for arraignment or trial, the charges are dropped.
Of course, I consider most of those to be unconstitutional anyway... 8)
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Lanya:
I have heard that he refers to it as "just a piece of paper."
BT:
Source
Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
Capital Hill Blue/DOUG THOMPSON | December 9 2005
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,†Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.â€
“Mr. President,†one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.â€
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,†Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!â€
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.â€
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml
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I've talked to four people who said Doug Thompson was a paranoid delusional and made up the whole story.
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I've talked to four people who said Doug Thompson was a paranoid delusional and made up the whole story.
May be. But you asked for a source, so I gave you one. I don't call them up and try to psychoanalyze them.
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I don't call them up and try to psychoanalyze them
Seems most of Doug Thompsons work involves just that.