NY Times Leaks Intelligence-gathering Techniques
By dpayton Posted in User Blogs — Comments (71) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
promoted from Diaries
The NY Times has a report today about a Bush order to have the NSA do wiretaps on international calls without getting an initial warrant. I'm generally of the opinion that government power tends to expand over time just from a natural tendency, never mind all the new programs people keep trying to push into federal government. Therefore, an expansion like this gives me cause for concern.
Let's take a look at the specifics mentioned in the article, though. Knee-jerk reactions, from both sides, are not useful.
Read on.
Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
So just a few months after 9/11, when most of America was waiting for the other shoe to drop, President Bush got ahead of the curve and got proactive in hopes of preventing another attack. Now it's 4 years later and we've had nothing. The other shoe hasn't dropped. As we'll see, some of the credit for that goes to this decision.
The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.
I'm no Constitutional scholar, (and I doubt the "officials" are themselves) but I'm also not sure whether or not we're really taking about a Constitutional issue here. Since the calls were to or from international destinations, there might be an out here.
According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters. Some of the questions about the agency's new powers led the administration to temporarily suspend the operation last year and impose more restrictions, the officials said.
So the administration has, in fact, been modifying it's operations in light of these questions. And all in secret, mind you. These changes were made not so that they look better on the evening news, but because, apparently, of the legitimacy of the issues. This speaks well, I think, of an honest attempt to stay within the law, yet push things enough to keep our enemies at bay.
Back in 2002, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) issued a statement that accused the Bush administration of not doing enough to prevent 9/11 and that they just sat on pre-9/11 intelligence in a "conspiracy of silence". This outrage ultimately brought about the highly-touted "9/11 Commission", which we now know was flawed with partisanship and unwilling to look at some hard facts ("Able Danger" among them). As I said back then,
[D]o you really think Ms. McKinney would have smiled with joy if we had done some serious racial profiling at airports and emptied all tall office buildings in order to prevent bin Laden's guided missiles from taking lives? Given the vague nature of what was known, and even if the exact dates, targets and MO were known, those types of measures would've been required to prevent the attacks. Cynthia doesn't like profiling now, and she wouldn't have approved of it then, but she sure does know how to may hay out of hindsight.
Scott Ott, at the news satire site ScrappleFace, uses his wonderful sense of humor to put it in perspective.
"I want to apologize for allowing the NSA to do these wiretaps after 9/11," the president said. "I'm sorry that I violated the privacy of some of these folks after terrorists launched attacks from our soil that killed 3,000 people, destroyed two skyscrapers and four jumbo jets, and punched a gaping hole in our military headquarters."
"My biggest regret," the president added, "is that the NSA didn't secretly tap these lines before 9/11. I hope my fellow Americans can forgive me."
I expect we'll hear Democrats coming out of the woodwork decrying this in the strongest of terms. Although, I'd bet that such pronouncements against Bush would have come anyway if another terrorism incident had taken place after 9/11, so you gotta take that for what it's worth. The President decided to do what it would take and was sensitive to and acted on questions of legality. I'd say that speaks well for him and how this operation was handled.
Back at the article, there have been positive results.
The Bush administration views the operation as necessary so that the agency can move quickly to monitor communications that may disclose threats to this country, the officials said. Defenders of the program say it has been a critical tool in helping disrupt terrorist plots and prevent attacks inside the United States.
It's very easy to criticize something from a position of comfort and safety.
Administration officials are confident that existing safeguards are sufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, the officials say. In some cases, they said, the Justice Department eventually seeks warrants if it wants to expand the eavesdropping to include communications confined within the United States. The officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that deals with national security issues.
This is where I think things get interesting. Listen to the outrage from Democrats on this, and listen closely for their mentioning that in some cases where wholly domestic wiretaps were required, they did get warrants. Listen for their leaders to acknowledge that, yes, they were briefed on it, and sent multiple memos expression their specific concerns over legalities. Listen very closely. I'm not entirely sure we're going to get anything like that from them. Hold not thy breath.
The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.
Yup, the Times held onto this urgent report for a year to make sure they got it right. And wouldn't you know, they released it on the very day the the Patriot Act renewal was scheduled to come for a vote in the Senate. Just coincidence, I'm sure. And it's just as much a coincidence that the author of the Times piece, James Risen, has a book coming out in a few weeks entitled "STATE OF WAR: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration". Pure accident of fate.
Later on, the piece goes into the idea that this may, in fact, have been legal based on a Congressional resolution.
Mr. Bush's executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the N.S.A. operation.
If it's possible that this operation is legal, especially during wartime, then the leak of it ought to outrage those who got upset over the Plame kerfuffle. I''m sure it will outrage them, though I'm equally sure that outrage will be mostly misplaced.
What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, the officials said.
But now we've given the terrorists new information--that anything seized in the war could be used immediately--and now they'll change their precautions. One less opportunity to prevent the loss of life of potentially thousands.
Do the ends justify the means? No, but it appears that the Bush administration believed this was legal and even took steps to ensure that it was when questions were raised. Does it concern me when government acts in this manner? Yes, because as I noted, the tendency of government power is to expand. Those who continue to push to give the federal government more power and take it from the states should take note. However, one of the legitimate, enumerated powers of the federal government is to preserve and defend this nation. We are at war and it's good to keep that in mind before thoughtlessly dismissing this as some sort of power grab by an evil Republican President.
What we have here is yet another intelligence leak. Liberal blogs are already on the attack, but listen to how someone posting on the front page at the Daily Kos handles it.
No doubt we will see in coming weeks hair-splitting legal and constitutional debate over the precise wording of presidential orders, evocations of executive privilege and withholding of information in the name of national security, and mind-numbingly dull citations from dozens of obscure court cases. The administration will attempt to complicate, bluster, lie and attack its way out of answering for its spying on American citizens in the hopes that the electorate will give up on understanding the issue and will continue to sleep.
Essentially, SusanG is saying, "Never mind the legalities", which then, ironically, becomes here launching point for assuming it's unconstitutional, and get up in arms about it. The big picture and the salient points are eluding them.
(As an aside, further irony can be extracted from the fact that Democrats, in the case of Roe v Wade, consider precedent from court cases to be high holy words, but when there's a Republican in their sights, they're nothing but "dull citations".)
If we want to tackle precedent, John Hinderaker at Power Line notes this:
Under the Plame precedent, this case is a no-brainer. The intelligence officials who leaked to the Times should be identified, criminally prosecuted, and sent to prison.
Let's see how many Democrats come out for that. The "leak" of the name of a CIA employee who drove to and from Langley for more than 5 years (not exactly covert) is an outrage, but the leak of information that will help terrorists is no big deal and indeed should be encouraged. They've already made up their minds; blaming Bush is all that matters.
is not the law. Good bumpersticker, I'll grant you but just not factually accurate.
There are multiple exceptions in the Title 18 section that is being flung around the internet to a warrant being required to wiretap.
I've gotta give 'em credit. They saw the resolution on the "torture" issue coming and they quickly teed up the next issue to ensure that the main focus of any GWOT discussion can continue to be on what a horrible fascist state the USA is. Now watch for the daily drumbeat of "our-government-is-spying-on-us" hysteria. Andrew Sullivan kiniption pending imminently?
... citizens should require a warrant.
Only if you plan on taking the information into a court of law ...
This was an illegal order no matter how I look at it. It is a violation of everything we are supposed to be protecting. Conservatives and Liberals alike prefer the right to due process and neither side should tolerate that. I am sorry but the idea that Bush did this is unbelieveable. Rights are not subject to an executive fiat (spelling?) but the rule of law. Without laws, what are we?
I would like to be more eloquent and go on further but I am at work currently and time does not allow. Feel free to attack where you see fit.
other than your conflating your desires with legality?
It clearly isn't illegal.
Only if you plan on taking the information into a court of law ...
I say: the government should always tap all communications of all American citizens without a warrant at all times. If it needs to be acted upon in court, then get a warrant.
There. Does that bother anyone around here?
It's all shades of gray. Some people hate the little intrusions, and other people are ok with them.
I've been around the government long enough to not be worried by that boogeyman.
So long as the information isn't improperly used or disclosed they can listen to all my conversations.
They should propose a national ID card. That'll really drive the black-helicopter 1984 types crazy.
"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said there would be hearings early next year and that they would have "a very, very high priority."
It seems like people are going to be looking into it, no matter how clearly legal it is. So I guess we'll be finding out.
Right after this CHRISTMAS break. ;-)
So long as the information isn't improperly used or disclosed they can listen to all my conversations.
Let me cut to the chase: is there a level of government evesdropping (with the above assurances) on your private activities that you are uncomfortable with?
Four years after 9/11 and "The other shoe" has yet to drop.
I suppose luck or good fortune,maybe lefties are responsible for the fact that several terrorist orginizations operating in the US were rolled up in the past four years.
No,it was the Bush Administration that took the gloves off.
They got phone numbers during terror arrests and they listened in to calls coming from those numbers.
The Adminisrtation did what it felt it had to in the prosecution of the war on terror.
Good for them,even better for us.
If they want to listen in to my phone calls,it's fine with me. I'm not plotting terror attacks.
All they'll hear is my wife telling me what's going on at her hotel and that the chicken is defrosted in the microwave.
You see,I happen to know that there are people already in this country who would do us harm.
About three or four years before 9/11/01 I was still living in NYC and working in Jersey.
One afternoon as I was driving past Newark Airport,A car swerved across three lanes of traffic to get to the breakdown area directly adjacent to the runway. I had slowed down when I saw them swerve so as I was passing, about for or five "Middle Eastern" types piled out of the car and one of them began videotaping towards the airport.
At the time I thought it was strange.
As I watched the towers collapse on 9/11 it was that incident on the jersey tpk that popped into my head.
I want our government doing all it can to uncover and crush the hand that means to drop "the other shoe".
Never Forget.
to know your rather irrational support for all things in support of the GWOT. not everyone agrees with you, however, and thats exactly why the executive branch shouldn't be the one in charge of making these decisions.
the patriot act action in the senate today was mostly just politics as usual, but i'll take most any roadblock at this point to slow this train down.
"improper use" is exactly the point! the two things you have to look out for in any government, especially bureaucratic ones (ie all of them), are
- incompetence
- malice
where's the rest of the libertarian contingent when you need them?
but several things are clear to me:
- information, obtained from a wiretap or any other kind of information, may be admitted to trial, and thus become 'evidence' only if it was obtained "legally" i.e. with a warrant (note carefully the tense "obtained" legally);
- a warrant must be issued before the information is obtained;
- information obtained without a warrant may not be admitted and thus it never becomes 'evidence';
- evidence is used to support the charges at trial;
If you have no plan to charge and try anyone then there is no need for 'evidence' and thus this 'stuff' remains just information. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies gather information, without warrants, all the time. It never becomes 'evidence' but may lead to some action that will require a warrant and thus become 'evidence.'
Further, the names, phone numbers, etc., that were targetted were not picked at random from the local telephone directory. They were on the computer of one or more terrorists picked up in places like Pakistan. The 'reasonable man' among us might be forgiven for concluding that the parties knew each other and thus there is a reasonable chance that the "target" may also be involved in terrorism in some way.
And another irritating little matter; how do we know which 'end' of the international converations were picked up, the domestic end or the foreign end?
you'll need the National ID in order to get into the Halliburton re-education camps.
"enemy combatant"
i think "how do we know?" is the operative question.
I'm honestly lost. Why wouldn't they just get the warrants? Does it take too long? Can't it be done in secret?
And why not turn this monitoring over to the FBI? Aren't they supposed to deal with these sorts of things? Why the NSA?
And, since a lot are chiming in, no thank you to having my phone and email tapped. Yes, I'm not a terrorist, but no, I don't trust the government of this era, nor the one to come.
We limit the power of these people because they can get out of control when given too much latitude; even ordinary nice people can give in to evil. We have all heard about it, and I'm pretty sure we have all seen it.
Try looking at it this way: "Mr. Bush's executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the N.S.A. operation."
Even the NYT had to admit that the President acted within the context of powers given him by Congress. Ergo, he did nothing illegal. Nothing.
just a guess, but if they are exchanging love notes with Osama and Company it probably isn't about Colorada real estate investment opportunities.
The act of evesdropping does not bother me. It bothers me even less when I don't know it is going on. It is only what they do with that information that could cause me concern.
First they didn't get a warrant because:
a) they didn't need to;
b) unlike the previous administration, this one does not see international Islamic terrorism as comparable to knocking over the local Seven-11.
Second they didn't turn it over to the FBI because:
a) refer to (b) above.
I don't want my phone tapped either, but since I'm not calling 1-800-ALQUEDA so they probably aren't going to waste much computer resource tapping me, or presumably you.
If that were alleged here I would be with you on this. It isn't so I'm not.
The GWOT is a pretty big deal to me. If we were talking about catching drug dealers or arresting prostitutes I wouldn't be so accomodating.
You have a burden of proof you have to meet to obtain a warrant. Secret warrants are available but even those have red tape associated with them. You don't really want to try to get a warrant, be denied by the judge, then do it anyway. It is much easier to not even try..
Hello? Yeah Hi! Uhm, I just wanted to mention something about that phone conversation you might have heard last night. You know, the one around 10:30 pm? Yeah, that one. Well I truly want to apologize for saying "Merry Christmas". What's that? Yes I did mean "Happy Winterfest". Ha-Ha ... yeah I was just being funny. Please check the tapes of my previous phone conversations and I think you'll see that I've never used that term before. I'll wait ...
Hello? ... okay good. What's that? Er, you mean LAST MONDAY NIGHT? Well, I can explain. I mis-dialed that 1-900 number. I was dialing "Miss Geena's Message Center" and I, heh-heh, accidently dialed "Miss Geena's Massage Center". Boy, you can imagine my red-face. What? Well, yes it did take me 20 minutes to know that I made a mista ... oh my, it was 30 minutes? Well, I thought that Miss Geena might have just had a little too much of the Christmas, I mean Holiday, cheer and was just, you know, being nice. .... yes, I guess that I did give her my credit card number.
Uh, look, I'm sorry. Guess I got caught. But hey, did you tape the whole 30 minutes? You did? Great? Got a few minutes? Mind playing it back for me right now? ...hello? ...hello?
It's more a practical question than a theoretical one.
Just to make sure I'm reading you right: you are comfortable with unlimited government evesdropping on your private activities (again, with the aforementioned assurances.)
So...install the taps and cameras in your house, then?
I couldn't find anything that seems to cover anything besides the use of force.
I'm not a lawyer, and that might be showing, sorry :-)
Anyone out there who is a lawyer chiming in on this yet? I just don't see the use of force covering wiretaps, but maybe the law sees differently?
Thanks!
I see no slippery slope here. If I had been arguing that listening to international calls of suspected terrorists without a warrant would lead to wiretaps on all Americans, that might be a slippery slope.
But I put forward the hypothetical to illuminate another point, namely, how much government evesdropping people are comfortable with.
I never said or even implied that the news from today would lead to that hypothetical.
I may be missing something key, but I read the Joint Resolution and I don't see wiretaps in that law. I even went as far as to read the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Still, nothing about wiretaps. Both mention the use of force, and that would be stretching things a bit in my mind. Also, is the NSA part of the military? That might make things different.
Sorry, not trying to confuse things, just trying to see each position more clearly. Thanks!
I thought this issue was about FISA not your local police. Counterintelligence and criminal prosecution are two different creatures.
"Also, is the NSA part of the military?"
It is an agency of the Department of Defense.
in practice and in theory.
290,000,000 Americans, who knows how many businesses, cell phones, blackberries, pagers, wireless devices, cable modems.
The idea that the government is going to spend any time at all intruding on your privacy unless you've been discussing ammonium nitrate, fuel oil, and Ryder trucks on your cell phone is just ridiculous.
So come on over, bug away. Just be prepared to have your nose bleed from boredom. I don't have phone or email conversations that would offend my mother much less interest the DoJ.
This is just some civil liberties weenie's wet dream.
I think I should have known that, sorry to be so dumb. Thanks.
"I think I should have known that, sorry to be so dumb. Thanks."
Hard to tell the players without a score card...
"terrorist association"
All you have to do to not be an enemy combatant is don't go to al-Qaeda training camps or fight with al-Qaeda against US or allied forces.
If you are worried about your ability to avoid these two activities you are probably an enemy combatant. If not, then rest easy.
Really. Look at his "Scots verdict" in the Clinton trial if you have doubts.
you read those two documents. Why wouldn't you read the wiretap statute? It says pretty unambiguously that the Attorney General or any number of other agencies can wiretap without a warrant. Calls made overseas are specifically fair game.
The NSA is part of the Defense Department.
I haven't seen any evidence that wiretapping without following FISA laws is legal. I read and read (see my other comments here) until I was full of legal-stuffing, and I still don't see it. I was hoping a lawyer or three might jump in and show my my bad ways (I think I have a record for not understanding the fine points of law here ;-)
The responses here, so far, are about criminal laws, not counterintelligence laws. I tend to agree with the thoughts about the criminal laws, but I don't think they apply.
The idea that the government is going to spend any time at all intruding on your privacy unless you've been discussing ammonium nitrate, fuel oil, and Ryder trucks on your cell phone is just ridiculous.
...I've discussed all those things on my cell phone!
So come on over, bug away.
Well, you guys surprise me. This is honestly not the minimal-government conservative response I expected.
to consider why anyone would really care if you are convinced? Seriously. The president has a legal finding from DoJ and has signed and Executive Order. Don't you think it's just a little self-absorbed to think people are going to try to convince you when it really doesn't matter.
because we can all trust human beings with an agenda running fallible technology to execute secret wiretaps to gather classified information to detain people indefinitely without a trial. because that WMD intelligence and those no-fly lists have all worked out so flawlessly in the past.
as i said above, you might think this is not a problem, but some of us do, and trusting the executive branch to both execute this policy and monitor itself is not a solution.
learn something everyday.
Unlike the ACLU, I don't see a G-man under every bed or behind every tree.
The fact is that the government doesn't have the resources to come after you unless you are involved in something that gets their attention. Like running guns, explosives, aliens.
This isn't a big v little government question. Its a question of realism v slobbering paranoia.
are paranoids, some are tools, and there might even be a well-intention sane person in the group, arguably.
Personally, I don't think putting the conversations of Mohammed Atta and his cohorts off limits to a potential interception just because those calls originated in the US makes a whit of sense.
- trusting the executive branch to both execute this policy and monitor itself is not a solution.
The truth is, you don't have a solution. No one does. There are no infallible superhumans available for this project. However, not doing the project is derelict, and puts the lives of innocent people at risk, as we have seen in New York, Washington, Madrid, Bali, London, Beslan, etc.
If wishes were captures, we'd have had these guys in jail before they acted. But we don't know how to do that. So we are going to muddle through, just like always, mistakes and all.
First Rule of Statutory Interpretation:
(1) If the plain meaning of the statute is clear, use the plain meaning. And then stop. Really.
Amendment IV: "...and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, adn the persons or things to be searched."
Look, there are times for balancing like O'Connor when competing interests are involved, and there are times for Scalia rules. I agree with him in Hamdi v. U.S., if we're going to eviscerate civil liberties, you dang well need to do it out in the open. Things are either unconstitutional or they aren't, there's no sorta unconstitutional category. This amendment covers citizens, and while I'm sure there are bad citizens out there, you need to get them through proper process. If we don't want warrants anymore, fine, put amendment XXVIII out there to repeal the 4th and convince 3/4 of the states it should go. Otherwise, obey the Constitution. You know, that thing you took an oath to preserve.
it's been addressed elsewhere.
This is not a constitutinal issue and if you refer to Title 18 USC and apply your own rule your knickers will un-knot in a hurry.
that there a a very large number of folks on the left that do not see it that way; to them it's all just law enforcement, just a gigantic carjacking ring.
I'm sorry if I have disturbed you enough to attack me about my curiosity and my being critical.
I'm trying to gather what I can read on this issue so I can make a critical view on it; however, I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for not caring and not responding.
Thanks for pointing out the DoJ findings and the EO, that is something I wasn't giving proper weight.
there are large numbers of Democrats and their fellow travelers in the press, the ACLU and the rest of the Socialist Workers Party who insist in handling terrorism as if it were all some global conspiracy to pass bad checks.
The fact is that the government doesn't have the resources to come after you unless you are involved in something that gets their attention. Like running guns, explosives, aliens.
Well, I was going to post here a list of things I'd done this year that made me look like a terrorist (I'm not a terrorist, for the record), but I was too paranoid to actually go through with it once I read it in its entirety. One of you guys might report me. ;-)
and you're still posting here and not rotting at Club Gitmo then I'd say you're making a great case that you're in the grip of an unreasoning paroxysm paranoia over this.
simply enough. The fact is, we all have some things that we would not want revealed, for a variety of reasons. You can grant intelligence agencies broad power to gather information and, at the same time, severely restrict the ability to use or disclose the information. You could allow the intelligence community to intercept communications based on mere suspicion. Evidence gathered without benefit of a warrant would only be useful in prosecuting past, present or future homicides or attempted homicides. Everything else would be subject to a brutal exclusionary rule.
You could place Draconian penalties for the release of embarrassing information. Intentionally outing a pot smoker or a crossdresser would result in a minimum mandatory jail sentence and a minimum 5 million dollar fine payable to the offended party. If it was done negligently, a minimum 3 million dollar fine payable to the offended party. The government would also waive sovereign immunity and provide for fee shifts. Trial lawyers would salivate profusely. This would probably codify the existing practice anyway.
Nobody at the NSA cares if you are cheating on your wife or buying an ounce of weed. They have information overload as it is. Remember when the Russians shot down the airliner near Korea in the late 80's ? Flight 007 I believe. All the transmissions between the Russian fighters, and some of the flash traffic in Moscow, had been intercepted. It took the intelligence community a week to locate and assemble the data. Bear in mind that probably half our assets at that time were focused on the Soviet Union. At present, the need for translators and analysts is still critical. How long do you think a spook is going to spend listening to you place a bet on a Laker game?
I think such a stautory scheme would survive Supreme Court review. The traditonal question is whether the target of the investigation has an expectation of privacy that society is willing to accept. I submit that the planning of mass murders or even individual assassinations would not fall into that category.
the story "broke" the day after the Iraqui elections. Toss in the total absence of any NY Times editorial comment and you should get the picture. They're probably still gagging but determined to destroy the man who was elected despite not having their blessing. If Senate leaders knew about this and a watchdog Court was aware of it and being in a state of war I would think that saving lives would justify listening in to even Uncle Looie when he's ordering some fertilizer. Better alive then dying a noble death with cell phone glued, or burnt, to ear.
since they could have broken this story a year ago before the elections. get some perspective
if there hadn't been a book contract to contend with.
Read the applicable law. Your statement is simplistic. My reading thus far is that these were calls originating from or made to international locations. Monitoring these is expressly permitted.
posted on another site.
note that the President has the power to authorize without a court order for foreign intelligence.
Update 3: The the opening paragraph of FISA [TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 36 > SUBCHAPTER I > § 1802] states:
(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that--
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at--
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
According to the definitions in 1801:
(i) "United States person" means a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence (as defined in section 1101 (a)(20) of title 8), an unincorporated association a substantial number of members of which are citizens of the United States or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or a corporation which is incorporated in the United States, but does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section.
but we can't even figure our how to find and prosecute the people who leak things like this intercept program; how are we ever going to be able to nail some guy who spills the beans on Joe Smith's pot smoking?
ignore timing. I won't try to enter the minds of the Times crew and the original post did say that they continued to work on the story. Sometimes it is said that reporters work on a story in order to publish it, or so I've heard. Anyway, if you have some insight on the workings of the liberal mind ,pass it on. It may be funnier than my first post.
we demand lower taxes, which means less gov't revenue, which means Big Brother has a limited budget, and has to pick the most likely targets for surveillance. So long as the intelligence fishermen can afford only poles and not nets, we should be o.k. ;)
so we can saw it off behind them.
Let THEM argue that we should not be using our wiretap authority agressively.
Let THEM insist that every single wiretap operation, for every single telephone number, requires a judge's approval. Let THEM make the case that such a cumbersome procedure will be efficient enough to enable the NSA and FBI to track terrorists efficiently enough to keep us safe.
Do you really think that the majority of average Americans--not the NYT/WaPo staff, but average Americans--will be upset if we don't have a warrant for every single wiretap? Or, will they be more concerned with staying safe? Will they be willing to risk having some international phone calls monitored without the cover of a subpoena, if that means we'll be safer from future 9/11s?
Let Senator Moonpie Feingold, the man who imperiled the Patriot Act, make that case. He'll convince 40% of the country that he's right, and a hero for doing what he's doing.
But, if 55% thinks he's being irresponsible, silly, and careless with our freedoms, then we win.
Keep it up, Senator Moonpie.
and you're still posting here and not rotting at Club Gitmo then I'd say you're making a great case that you're in the grip of an unreasoning paroxysm paranoia over this.
...if I thought all the terrorism suspects were at Gitmo.
I won't delve into the legalese of this issue, but it seems to me that the outrage is about lack of oversight - specifically from the judicial side (granting warrants.) The express purpose for warrants is to prevent government from searching citizens without cause - the judge granting the warrant provides oversight.
On the Constitutional side - it seems to me that Amendment IV doesn't apply to this case. There has - in fact - been no search of any person or place. As soon as those electrons travelled through the phone line out of your house, they were no longer covered by the 4th Amendment. I'm sure that someone out there will tell me that the "intent" of Amendment IV would certainly include phone taps, but I disagree. There were no phones when this Amendment was written. If Americans want a constitutional right not to have their phone tapped - then amend the Constitution. The Constitution was not meant to be "inferred" - it was meant to be amended. That is specifically why the amendment process is included in the Constitution.
So, for now, you do not have a Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. You have laws, passed by the Congress, regarding wiretapping to protect you - and it seems that none of those have been violated.
Back to my original point - there was perhaps no judicial oversight on this program (no warrants) but there has been extensive oversight. The program has been reviewed every 45 days since inception. A bipartisan group of Congressmen have been briefed on the matter 12 times since the program began. And, of course, you have the President of the United States who is supposed to have our trust. You either trust these people to provide oversight on the program or you do not. If you do not - the vote yourself another elected representative as soon as possible.
If the President - or those briefed members of Congress - felt that the program was overreaching or illegal, then they had (and have) a duty to speak out against it and demand that it be stopped. All of these people took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. If any of them felt this program was unconstitutional then they had the duty to speak up and failed.
Instead, all we have is the outrage of the NYT and the Liberals (plus a RINO or two - Specter.)
If I am Al Qaeda hanging out in a cyber cafe in Islamabad, I can get monitored when I e-mail my buds in the Philipines, Indonesia, Chechnya, Jordan, but not the US because the warrant requires tracking the e-mail addy, not the poster.
Leftists at heart are not acting in good faith, don't give a flip about the US, and hope to see innocent people die.
Afterall, schmucks on the left have been rationalizing PLO suicide bombings as 'legitimate' for decades.
The left obsession with making the world safe for tyrants like Fidel or Saddam or, earlier, Mao and Stalin, and now Al Qaeda and its supporters is disgusting.
If there was a way to unleash a painful and difiguring disease on promoters and defenders of terrorists and tyrants, aI would unleash it myself.
You should also check on Leon's posting about this, he does a great job explaining law and views:
the dkos reaction is, well, it might have a legal foothold, but the bush administration is doing it, so its wrong! bushlied!
your reaction seems to be, i mistrust governments expanding their power, but the bush administration says its probably ok! valierieplame!
sounds like knee-jerk reactions all around. here's a simpler one: wiretaps on american citizens should require a warrant.