Domestic surveillance is one of those things which I am knee-jerk opposed to, but at the same time I recognize that some form of following the actions of the citizenry is probably necessary. This seems to be the big story of the day:
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.
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.
“This is really a sea change,” said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. “It’s almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches.”
What I do not understand is WHY they need to conduct this surveillance without a court order. Does that mean this surveillance is taking place randomly and haphazardly, without any reason? Does that mean that the rules for issuing a warrant are too stringent? Or are they making the case that the surveillance was time sensitive? Or what?
*** Update ***
Ok. I am not alone o nmy questions. The Instapundit wonders the same thing:
I can’t see any very compelling reason to bypass the courts here, especially given that warrants in these cases are almost always granted. Which makes me wonder what’s up.
Richard Bottoms
>What I do not understand is WHY they need to conduct this surveillance without a court order. Does that mean this surveillance is taking place randomly and haphazardly, without any reason?
Because the Bush administration is full of people who believe anything is permissible in fighting the ter-ists and dissent allies you with the enemy.
No, really.
Ozymandius
Because Bush felt like it? I mean, it’s not like we need more reasons.
Remember JC, father knows best.
Dave
The reason they did not get a court order is because they don’t believe they need one. They see the president as above the law…there are no limits to his power when fighting terrorism.
Jim Allen
Why do conservatives, of all people, stand up for this bastard and his henchmen?
OCSteve
I think monitored is the key word. More than likely computer based monitoring for specific key words. Hits on specific words would flag a call or an email for further scrutiny. I don’t have a problem with that.
This bothers me a lot more:
What – NSA types getting jealous because CYI leaks have been getting all the press? So here we have yet another intelligence agency, by far our most secretive, where the officials feel justified in leaking classified information when they don’t agree with policy. These damned officials don’t get paid to make policy – they get paid to implement it.
In general I don’t agree with special prosecutors – I’ll make an exception here. One should be appointed to go after these damned leaking “officials”.
Joe
Actually, the reason they don’t go with the court order is they do the collection en masse off of communication sattelites and then sift through the collected traffic after the fact. There’s more information here. They have pretty strict legal standards for collection against “US persons”, google USSID for more info.
OCSteve
Duh. CYI = CIA
Andrew
PowerGreenMalkins et al want an investigation… into who leaked this info to the press.
SF
Sorry Joe – the article is quite clear that this is not en masse sattelite communication sifting – it’s targetted eavesdropping on specific people: “officials familiar with it said the N.S.A. eavesdropped without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped”
norbizness
I wonder if we’ll get any outraged Fourth Amendment strict constructionists.
Pb
OCSteve,
If only more Americans had thought like you during the Nixon administration. Then he could have gotten some real grassroots support from outraged patriots yelling “Hey, those tapes were CLASSIFIED!”
Come to think of it, maybe Clinton should have classified a few more things too. I guess he really isn’t as smart as Bush!
simon
This should be the absolute height of misbehavior for real libertarians. Instead we get a classic Instapundit response. Something comes along that, based on his professed “ideals”, he knows he should be absolutely opposed to, but all of a sudden his perfesser mind gets all confused and stuff because he just can’t bring himself to criticize his master for committing illegal acts. He had a similar initial response to the Plame story – something like, “it’s all so confusing that just I can’t comment!”
Slide
Just read OCsteve’s post and one doesn’t know where to begin. Wow. How little regard we have for the constitution, for the Bill of Rights.
OC says:
You don’t have a problem with that? You dont’ have a problem with the government routinely “monitoring” YOUR communications and if a certain word pops up, they can just read the whole damn thing or tap your phone? You want your government, without warrant, without just cause, to be able to do that to any citizen of this county? My God. This is fucking unbelievable that some are so willing to give the goverment such enormous powers. And do tell me.. what WORDS should trigger such a warrantless intrusion into your privacy? Hmmmm? Please educate us all how a word search would justify such a violation of the law?
But our great patriot OC does have a problem with:
They don’t get paid to break the law. They don’t get paid to be accomplises in crime. They don’t get paid to violate the very constitutional oath they have taken. What if the “policy” of a President was to assassinate political oponents of his. And of course that was classified. Should they speak out? Oh, but of course you say this is different. 911 made EVERYTHING different right?
I don’t know OC’s politics but I’ll bet my bottom dollar he calls himself a conservative or at least allignes himself more closely with that side of the argument. I remember a day when conservatives wanted LESS government power. When they DISTRUSTED government. When they believed in individual freedom. My, my… we have come a long way.
I have been in law enforcement my entire life. The safeguards of the Fourth Amendment were often a roadblock to my work. I would have loved to unilaterially made the decision to search someone’s house without a warrant. But even I knew that I would not want to live in a country where I had the authority to do that. This is nothing more than the executive branch breaking into people’s houses for no reason they can articulate to the judiciary branch. God help us if we allow our government to do this to us.
(ps excuse the obvious spelling errors as I dashed this out in a hurry)
Perry Como
OCSteve is right. Where do these intelligence agents get off questioning our President in a time of war? The only person that can question the legality of what the President does is the President. And since the President has determined that having the NSA spy on Americans without judicial review is legal, then those analysts need to shut up and do their jobs.
Joe
No need to apologize SF, I’m just providing background. How do you suppose they find the numbers to target?
Confederate Yankee
Forgive me John, but I’m going to spam you with most of a comment I write on my blog on this subject:
Slide
Perry (DougJ) Como you need a bit more subtlety if you want to snare someone today. Are you losing your touch? All the press you have been receiving gone to your head? Come on.. you can do way better than that.
Darrell
Those officials leaking info about a classified program should be allowed to go public with classified info if they want. They are noble truth-tellers protecting us from fascist Bush policies.
John Cole
NP, Confederate. Post whatever you want.
Slide
Confederate Yankee… everything you wrote could have been written by a supporter of Stalin or Hitler. Repression is ALWAYS to save lives. To defend the mother/father land. Seig Heil commrad (to mix my allusions)
Darrell
I think statistically, leftists are about 100 times more likely to violate Godwin. It’s in their DNA. Because data mining for words like “kill the infidels” is the same as sending jews to the ovens. Everyone can see that
Slide
Strict Constructionists?
Or only when it’s convenient.
Don
Why do you hate the Constitution, Darrell?
The reason for avoiding the courts even when there’s clear and easy support for a warrant is simple – they don’t like oversight. Really, who does? We’d all love to go into work and do whatever we want however we see fit. Most of us probably think everything would still go just fine and we’d do what was needed even if nobody was checking up on us.
Unfortunately all evidence is that left to their own devices people with power will misbehave.
Perry Como
This is actually a very salient point. The Bill of Rights grants us rights and those same rights can be taken away by the government that granted them. Especially in a time of war.
Steve S
Look, for the last time. I WAS NOT STALKING JENNIFER LOPEZ!
I was simply engaged in surveillance to ensure she was not a terrorist.
Confederate Yankee
Actually Don, if you read the Associated Press version of the story, Congress and the courts knew about this:
Oopsie…
Slide
Perhaps that is because conservatives are 100 times more likely to make excuses for repressive and totalitarian tactics. You know… like torture…. secrecy….. warrantless searches…. violating habeas corpus… lying about the reasons to go to war… declaring people “enemy combatants” without a hearing… rendition…. secret gulogs… kidnapping people in friendly countries and spiriting them away… spending hundreds of millions on propaganda… having the military spy on domestic peace groups…. buying journalists to support your policy… making fake news reports without acknowledging they are government made….
you know.. small things like that… seig heil
Slide
Is BUSH a CRIMINIAL? Maybe.
.
Seems like the Supreme Court and Congress has ruled pretty decisively on this issue.
OCSteve
Not quite the same thing ppGaz. It is not the concept of what is or is not classified that I’m complaining about. My problem is with officials in our intelligence agencies that influence policy by selectively leaking. They are not our elected policy makers. Their job is to implement.
How large an ego does it take to decide it is OK for you to leak classified information because you really know what’s best? These people take an oath for christs sake.
When people inside had issues with the policy and raised flags, changes were made. That is how it is done – not leaking to the press and losing yet another tool to catch these scum.
Slide:
They aren’t monitoring me. My phone number didn’t show up in Abu Zubaydah’s cell phone’s recent calls list. If your email address is found in Zubaydah’s in-box they had better damned well be reading your mail.
I seem to remember something about the “common defense” in there too.
Yeah, that’s the exact same thing.
Ain’t that the truth. I remember a day when democrats supported freedom around the world.
wrong.
Through no option C – yes.
Jason Van Steenwyk
The article seems to suggest that we get a lot of these email addresses and phone numbers from captured enemy cell phones and computers.
If so, and depending on the information that we find on the computer (say, email archives), you could argue probable cause. A cop walking the beat doesn’t need a warrant to follow a blood trail or the sound of a screaming woman.
Further, noncitizens abroad are not entitled to constitutional 4th amendment protections. The NSA and other agencies have a compelling interest in monitoring the conversations of suspected terrorists abroad.
Even domestically, if you get a wiretap order, you don’t have to simultaneously get a wiretap order on the suspect and EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD who could conceiveably call him or he could conceiveably call.
Maybe time is of the essence. This information is highly perishable, once it gets out that the phone number or email address has been compromised. And one of the things they’d be looking for is any message informing contacts that the information has been compromised. If the same message that goes out to a known contact also goes out to a suspected contact, that tells you something about the suspected contact.
There’s a long history of case law recognizing exceptions to warrants if circumstances dictate that the delay in obtaining a warrant would be contrary to the public interest.
It’s not something that should be abused, but the particulars in this instance don’t bother me.
If you’re so tight with Khalid Sheikh “Homeslice” Mohammed that he’s got you on speed-dial, I think you can pretty much assume that you have no expectation of privacy in your international calls.
Slide
Criminals. Nothing but criminals running this country right now. Shameful.
Ancient Purple
That’s great, Steve. Then they can monitor your communications all they wish. However, I demand they get a court order (per the U.S. Constitution) to monitor my communications.
BTW, Steve, is there any particular reason why you have drapes or blinds on your windows? What are you hiding?
Al Maviva
>>>What I do not understand is WHY they need to conduct this surveillance without a court order. Does that mean this surveillance is taking place randomly and haphazardly, without any reason?
5 year-old mentality answer: Bush hates sex and wants to snoop because he’s eeeee-vil.
Adult answer: Monitoring overseas origin and destination communications is one of the backbones of U.S. intel efforts, dating back decades. See, e.g. The Puzzle Palace.
There are no laws per se prohibiting such monitoring. Whether or not existing laws – the wiretap act of ’68 and subsequent communications related bills such as the Electronic Privacy Communications Act do so is an open question. Generally speaking, that which the law does not expressly forbid, so I’d argue that the general national intelligence and security powers delegated to the federal government authorize the exercise of such a power.
Second point, and more to the point. If this is being done pursuant to intelligence activities, and not law enforcement activities, it is sort of irrelevant. The intel world is about “black bag jobs” involving listening to other people’s phone calls and opening their mail and all sorts of dirty tricks. The 4th Amendment does not apply to communications wafting their way between sattelites over Newfoundland, or scooting between phone towers in Tunisia.
The relevant legal question is whether the Constitution provides an expectation of privacy in international emails, phone calls, and similar electronic communications. You can make an argument that for a “U.S. person” it does, but to my knowledge, no court has agreed with you to this point. There is a big difference between a straight up law enforcement wiretap set up by the FBI, and electronic / signals reconaissance conducted by NSA.
The rationale behind not seeking a warrant prior to monitoring, I suspect, is that when listener is noticed of a hot lead, there isn’t time to push for a warrant through the overworked and understaffed (per Wash Post reports) section at DOJ that processes such warrants, thus preserving their efforts for cases where warrants are clearly required, involving U.S. persons on U.S. soil, where the information gathered may be used in criminal investigations and thus must be court admissible.
Watching phone calls and emails originating in, or leading to overseas locations isn’t as clearly controversial as the NY Times’ breathless coverage might lead one to believe. I think this probably calls for more Congressional oversight, if they aren’t too busy saving Terry Schiavo and building bridges to isolated Alaskan Islands, but I am personally not interested in using this nice little Bush bashing opportunity to go through, in nitty-gritty detail, the capabilities of our national sigint infrastructure. That’s precisely how you convince the persons monitored – assuming they are legit targets of intel investigations – to find other more secure (and more deadly to us) means of communications.
Just my two cents. It’s possible too that the WH is finally onto the issue of trolls who post under false premises, and they are taking it seriously. But I would think that they’d spend their time on more serious endeavors.
Ancient Purple
We were also told that Congress has the same intelligence materials regarding WMD and Iraq that Bush had.
Pardon me if I am skeptical.
John Cole
Thanks Al, much of that makes sense (and I have actually read the Puzzle Palace, although it was a decade or so ago).
Darrell
Al, you have demonstrated yourself to be a fascist criminal who hates the US constitution [/drooling leftist kook]
Slide
OC you are quite the moron aren’t you? How many errors can you have in one post?
OC said:
Its not know what is BEST but what is LEGAL. And indeed they did take an oath.. and that oath is to the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA not to some moron president that happens to occupy the Oval Office at the moment. the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA says it is illegal to do what the adminstration is doing. I applaud the courage of those Patriotic Civil Servants.
OC again:
How the fuck do you know? Those Quakers that turned up on the DOD database for their Peace Meetings how no idea they were being kept watch over. Thats the problem with secrecy, you dont’ have a clue as to what the government is doing.
OC yet again:
I agree 100%. So you go to the special SECRET court set up for this very purpose and you SWEAR that what you say is true and get a warrant. That the purpose of having judicial review.
OC incrdibly has the balls to say this:
So FREEDOM to you is the government doing whatever they want to their citizens without oversight or review? thats FREEDOM to you? Jesus Mary and Joseph. How sad you are with these arguments of yours.
OC is a living breathing example of the fallacy of intelligent design. Nothing intelligent going on here.
Slide
Of US citizens? try the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution on for size.
Of course it does if it originated in the USA. Could the CIA go over to London and read your mail that was being delived to someone in London? (legally that is). Nothing different here. US citizens have the right to privacy.
Perhaps this will clear it up:
.
Perry Como
I don’t see how that can be used as a justification though. The problem with allowing policy changes, like intelligence gathering on people in the US, is scope creep. Everytime something like this comes up, the issue is recycled. It plays out something like this:
Libertarian: If you grant the government more power then they will use that power for things outside of the original mandate.
Statist: Oh, you just have your tinfoil hat on too tight. The government will only use the power against _insert some horrible person_. They would never abuse it.
Libertarian: :::BOGGLE:::
(fast forward six months)
Law Enforcement Official: We will use all of the tools at our disposal including the USAPROTECTION Act to bring non-_insert some horrible person_ to justice.
Libertarian: :::SMACKS FOREHEAD:::
Statist: Well, non-_insert some horrible person_ is bad too! Rah, rah team!
Lather, rinse, repeat. More recent cites for this oh-so-common Statist behavior involve the PATRIOT Act, Vegas, and/or meth.
Darrell
Except we’re talking about an activity which appears to have gone on for decades and with no clear indication that it’s illegal to conduct such data mining if this is true
Leftist: If you do away with 3rd trimester abortions and permit 14 year olds to obtain abortions without parental notification, then they will use that power to outlaw abortion altogether
Lather, rinse, repeat. See, everyone can play this game
Lines
Can someone tell me how the PATRIOT Act allowed the investigators on the Lacy Peterson case to wire tap Scott Peterson’s phone? At least, thats what Fox News reported on the very last day I ever watched it. If I can’t trust the “fair and balanced” channel, who can I trust?
Confederate Yankee
Via The Corner:
Slide, you might be dangerous if you had a clue what you were talking about.
Richard Bottoms
I keep thinking of the senate in Star Wars as the Emperor lays our his plans to curtail the liberties of the people in the name of making them safer to wild applause.
There seems to be nothing George Bush can do to Americans or others in the world that gets more than a head scratch and gosh what’s that about from John and the rest of the rightwing/conserva/theocrat/publicans.
Richard Bottoms
BTW, the issue isn’t about taking prudent steps to look for terrorists. It’s avoiding the judicial oversight that protects our freedoms for no other reason than the distain El Jefe has for such things.
Richard Bottoms
>A FISA warrant is only needed if the subject communications re wholly contained in the United States and involve a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.
Ah Ha! It was the Saudis who killed Lacy Peterson.
Confederate Yankee
Again, this had both Congressional and judicial (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) oversight.
Perry Como
There used to be a group that supported smaller government and less governmental interference. One that supported the rights of invididuals over the rights of the state.
But I forgot. We’re at war. Good thing our founding fathers put that footnote next to the Bill of Rights:
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.(1)
…
(1) – except in a time of war, which will cede Consitutional authority to the President in determination of what rights are retained by the people.
StupidityRules
Darrell uttered:
If you go too far to the right you’ll end up sharing space with Hitler. On the other hand if you go too far to the left you’ll end up with Lenin.
You don’t see many leftist calling people on the right communists, do you? But the other way around is quite common… So I would guess it’s time for a Godwin law regarding the use of communism too…
And about the Socialist bit in National Socialist German Workers Party, we all know that East Germany (German Democratic Republic) had free democratic elections….
Pb
Slide, you pretty much covered it, but one more thing:
OCSteve: I’m not ppGaz.
Jorge
So, if I’m reading the posts here correctly, the government actually decided to throw the fourth amendment away as early as 1968. Also, I’m not seeing how the 4th amendment only applies to law enforcement issues. I don’t see the language as supporting that limitation. It fairly clearly sets the bounds for all of government. I’m also not sure how the 4th amendment allows the government to monitor the conversations of American citizens with out a warrant no matter where they happen.
Sometimes I really believe that we need to throw everything but the Constitution and the Bill of Rights away and start over. We have over 200 years of laws and court decisions mucking everything up.
Richard Bottoms
> We have over 200 years of laws and court decisions mucking everything up.
Yeah that Brown vs. Borad of Education has been a real pain in the ass.
caleb
Apparently, according tothe article, the terrorists have already won.
Richard Bottoms
>Apparently, according tothe article, the terrorists have >already won.
Hopefully an inning rather than the game. Depends on whether John and his buddies start telling the Republican party that police state tactics do more than make them ‘wonder’.
I can’t do it. I am a Democrat and would perceived as being atimatically against an Attorney General writing opnions justifying torture and such. You know, jumping to conclusions and not trusting in GW inate goodness to keep us safe.
srv
Before Patriot Act, the US citizen (local or abroad) had to be identified as an agent of a foreign power, not just that he/she was chatting with a foreign agent/power.
In all cases, the ID of the US citizen was supposed to be scrubbed from all reports, except when counsel agreed that gov’t officials needed that information. It’s alleged that John Bolton had a penchant for demanding this type of info, as someone in the NSA whined to the media about it at some point.
Repudetly (I don’t know if it’s really true or not), because the NSA is staffed with lots of military folks (probably JAG-type lawyers) and career civil servants, they guard the US namelist very, very tightly. They do it because they’re professionals, like to control the data, and worry about getting dragged into another Church Committee like the 70’s.
Today, the definition of a “US person of interest” has been greatly expanded. I don’t have the quote handy, but it’s like everything else in the Patriot Act. It doesn’t say “only in terrorism cases” it basically can be applied to any federal crime.
Like the CIA, Bush will probably start working on the NSA by replacing senior professional staff with political appointees.
Perry Como
I’m an independent, so I can’t do it either. When I complained about Clinton’s draconian policies, I was called a right wing loon. Now that I’m complaining about Bush’s policies I’m called a moonbat liberal.
C Jennings
Confederate Yankee Says:
Actually Don, if you read the Associated Press version of the story, Congress and the courts knew about this:
The Bush 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 handles national security issues.
Oopsie…
Sorry Yank. Members of congress are not allowed to comment on these briefings even if they have serious reservations. Please try again.
Dirk F.
I read about this this morning on Polizoo.com, very interesting take in that there were many people who were pissed off at what they were doing. There must have been some bad business going on there, where it was not one, but twelve whislteblowers. We shall see.
PS. To the folks at Polizoo.com, Elvis was the best musical artist of all time!
ppGaz
If the president did what the story — now being read into the Congressional Record — says he did, you could be looking at the straw that finally breaks this camel’s back. This is has the look and feel of a rather egregious violation of the law.
Can you picture Spud standing in doorway of the helicopter, waving goodbye?
Let’s see where this goes. One thing is for sure, Bush’s “bounce” from the Iraq elections just went out the window. In fact, he may bounce himself all the way back to Podunk, TX where he came from, if he isn’t careful.
Steve S
Honestly. I actually don’t have much of a problem with this.
I have more of a problem with the part of the Patriot Act which speaks to monitoring what books I read at the library.
C Jennings
Confederate Yankee Says:
Actually Don, if you read the Associated Press version of the story, Congress and the courts knew about this:
The Bush 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 handles national security issues.
Oopsie…
Sorry Yank. Members of congress are not allowed to comment on these briefings even if they have serious reservations. Please try again.
ppGaz
“How can I go out and say to the people, we are going to protect the rights of the people under the Patriot Act, when we have this kind of action being taken outside of the law?”
Sen. D. Feinstein, 12/16/05 to the U.S. Senate
ppGaz
FISA, the law that governs here, doesn’t allow for “briefing” anyone as a cover for violating FISA. It allows for departure from its provisions for a period of 15 days immediately following a formal Declaration of War.
That’s it.
Confederate Yankee
C Jennings: there are a lot of defense and intelligence related issues that Congress cannot talk about publicly, in fact it might be the majority of the subject matter in some committees.
Do you have a more intelligent objection, or that the best you can do?
C Jennings
Yank, you were trying to spread the blame by saying that Congress knew what Bush was doing but raised no objections. My response plainly refuted that argument.
If you were aware that congress could not respond publicly about this, as your reply indicates, then why the heck would you have advanced that argument in the first place?
Paul Wartenberg
My understanding of the surveillence (sp?) is that the spying is being done on anti-war activists, peaceniks, groups like that. Not actual terrorists, or bomb builders, or the like, just the damn hippies who show nerve enough to complain when civil liberties are getting shoved out the airlock.
Anyone survey the groups being targeted by the Pentagon and the NSA? Are *any* of them actively threatening the citizenry with violence and bloodshed? Or are they just the ones who dare question the current regime? A full accounting of the peoples being spied on would help determine if this is a justifiable action in the War on Terror or a horrific attack on our freedoms.
Richard Bottoms
>My understanding of the surveillence (sp?) is that the spying >is being done on anti-war activists, peaceniks, groups like >that.
Bet you’ll vote next time hippie.
OCSteve
I’ll take a mulligan as you are taking it out of context. Do-over:
I remember a day when the CIA and other services were a huge boogeyman to the left. A shadow government, pulling the strings from behind the curtain. Now that they actually are taking direct action in the form of these leaks to steer policy – that’s just fine with the left because it fits their agenda. Yes – we have come a long way.
Darrell
Your ‘understanding’ is wrong
JWeidner
Screw all this. Every home should just have closed circuit cameras in every room that feed directly to a local government employee tasked to watch for terrorist activity. That way, we’re sure to catch anyone who is even contemplating terrorist-like behavior.
ppGaz
We all remember a day when Americans united in solidarity against foreign enemies was pretty much the standard, as opposed to now, when Americans united in solidarity against other Americans has been made the standard by the vapid shitheads on the right.
C Jennings
No, leaks shouldn’t steer policy. An open and honest debate should steer policy. How, might I ask, would one have been possible in this instance?
DougL
“Happy Holidays”
Jorge
“Yeah that Brown vs. Borad of Education has been a real pain in the ass.”
Now, that is being literal to the point of silliness.
Fledermaus
Jason, talk of screaming women and blood trails are all well and good. But why don’t we allow warrantless tapping phone numbers found in a drug dealers phone book? Because surely all those people deserve to be spyed on as well – This is a war on drugs after all, just like the war on terror.
Finally, Jason, if you have probable cause why not get a warrant – they don’t take that long if it’s an emergency.
srv
Thought experiment. Today, an average new-born could likely experience this:
1) under monitor in maternity ward
2) under child monitor at home
3) under covert camera when baby-sitter is over
4) under camera at day-care, so parents can web-browse and fufill their remote parenting desires
5) under camera at Elementary/M.S./H.S. Even in school bathrooms now (see Drudge, he’s had 3 cases this month)
6) GPS tracked pager/cell phone by parents
7) GPS tracked car by parents (and probably State DMV by then)
Now, I know many of you nannyites and so-called conservatives will tell me it’s all for the children.
But in what Universe do you expect these kids to have any concept of privacy that any of you could possibly relate to? You really think they’re going to turn 18 and sponateously think like you do about privacy?
OCSteve
So we should have had an open debate about how and when the NSA can monitor international telcom? What then would be the point of them doing it at all?
OCSteve
Being a vapid shithead, you’ll have to explain to me how it was the right that created this situation. Solidarity lasted as long as it was politically expedient for the Dems. I know – dissent is the sign of a healthy democracy…
Richard Bottoms
>Now, that is being literal to the point of silliness.
For black folks my age it’s not silly at all. Anytime I hear a conservative or liberterian moan about the good old days I just chuckle about how good is wasn’t for a lot of folks.
I’ll take this intrusive, overbearing court system of today over the golden age of our Founding Fathers. Cause we were like slaves then, and not in any figurative sense.
The right to vote was secured in my lifetime thanks to intrusive bastards.
ats
The day is coming, and soon, when the President will issue an Executive Order saying his judgments are right by definition–based on the 1870 doctrine of Papal Infallibility.
John–the President violated the letter and the intent of the law. He seems to believe he can secretly order eavesdropping on, and the torture of, you and me.
This is not the conservatism my late father embraced. This is not the constitution I studied in grade school. This is downright scary.
OCSteve
Just like in every situation, domestic or foreign, the left just wants to carp about what is being done without offering an alternative. So let me ask you (any of the resident lefties here) – what the hell is your plan for winning the war on terror? Don’t tell me there is no war, or talk to me about root causes. I call BS on that before you even post it. So you assume for the sake of argument that there is a war. I’ll assume you actually want us to win it. Tell me your plan…
These are the rules as laid down by the left (so far).
In trying to catch terrorists and thwart attacks:
-Don’t monitor international telcom. Better to let them plan an attack undeterred then to accidentally eavesdrop on Aunt Jane speaking sweet nothings to Uncle Joe who is in Saudi on business. Get a warrant for every single incident.
-The Patriot Act has to go. Don’t be snooping around peoples financial, travel, phone, or heavens forbid library records, even if it does take a court order. The fact that someone might notice that Aunt Jane has been checking out a lot of those soft-porn romance novels overrules that they may notice that Hamid has been checking out chemistry texts and doing research on radiation poisoning while large sums of money appear and disappear from his bank account and he flies back and forth to Pakistan every few weeks.
If you catch a terrorist within the US:
-Treat him to full constitutional rights and due process, even if he is not a US citizen.
Overseas:
-Don’t use rendition, secret prisons, or secret airlines. It should be public information where a captured terrorist is being kept at all times (in case his ACLU lawyer needs to contact him).
Interrogation:
-Any type of coercive interrogation is right out. Treat the terrorist with kid gloves. Panties on head = torture. Fake menstrual blood? Torture. Hot/cold or stress positions? Fugetaboutit. You can ask for information as long as you are polite and say please – and it doesn’t make them late for dinner, bed, or prayer time.
On the battlefield:
-A terrorist is entitled to all the Geneva Conventions even though A) they do not wear uniforms and hide amongst civilians, B) they are not signatories to the conventions nor do they abide by them.
-Don’t use mean hurtful weapons like WP and DU. Try to kill them nicely.
That’s off the top of my head, I’m sure there are plenty more “rules” I’ve left out.
Now within the context of those rules – tell me your plan for winning.
C Jennings
No, you’re right. We should let all law enforcement and security agencies operate under their own secret rules with no government oversight. Do you really want to live in a democracy? I’m beginning to wonder.
Richard Bottoms
We have always been at war with Oceana.
srv
First, a bunch of strawmen. Nobody is talking about overseas monitoring. They’re talking about unregulated monitoring US citizens, domestically, by fiat.
Uh, why don’t you tell us your plan? Something, say more sophisticated than “whatever GW pulls out of his ass”. Like, we’re supposed to have this thing called Congress, which votes on things of importance. And they debate about those things publically.
Here we are, and gov’t is actually debating the Patriot Act. Woo hoo. How nice that they got around to it.
You just want a secret war, and whatever GW does is swell. Well, if you want a Monarchy. GTF somewhere else. Or when Billary takes over, we’ll see just how comfortable you are with those powers.
Pb
OCSteve reveals his plan for whining. If you want an honest dialogue, why don’t you make an honest effort to start one.
Perry Como
Their plan is to make sweet, sweet love to the terrorists and raise terrorist babies. Then they can put the terrorist babies through public school and teach them to be good little terrorist lefties and ban Christmas and the baby Jesus from ever being displayed. Any terrorists caught on the battle field will be sent to a Ramada Inn and they will have a mint on their pillow every night, so they can rest their precious terrorist heads as they dream about killing the infidels. Zarqawi will be given the Medal of Freedom, at which point he will invite bin Laden to the Lincoln bedroom where Hitlery will preside over the gay marriage of Zarqawi and bin Laden. Then the terrorist lefties will lock all of the Christians up in FEMA prison camps and make them produce Korans bound in the skin of aborted fetuses.
That’s the leftist plan to win the War on Terrorism.
Pb
My plan for winning the “War on Terror” involved going after those who attacked us on 9/11, catching Osama, dismantling al Qaeda, not invading Iraq, not torturing people, not holding US citizens indefinitely without trial, and not spying on US citizens. So, you know, obviously I’m a crazy person.
Oh yeah, and internationally–cracking down on the arms trade, drugs, and money laundering, and securing nuclear materials would all be good things to combat terrorism. We should try it sometime.
Davebo
Hard to read these idiotic apologists and not think of Osama smiling his ass off realizing he’s won.
Jeez, climb out from under your fucking bed for just a second and at least pretend like you’re an American.
OCSteve
Srv:
Did you even click the link and read the article? The entire thing was about monitoring INTERNATIONAL calls/email. Eventually the NYT got around to telling you there was really no change domestically. They buried it way down as usual to go with the spicy headline, but sheeesh.
Pb:
That was an honest effort – those are all rules the left wants us to follow. Disagree? Given those rules, the challenge was, tell me your plan to win. All you did is evade the premise.
OCSteve
BTW – you lefties got your wish. Welcome to Sep 10, 2001.
Patriot provisions set to expire
Perry Como
My description of the left’s plan to “win” the War on Terror is perfectly reasonable.
rilkefan
White-hot post by Hilzoy.
Pb
OCSteve,
Not hardly. I suppose you can find quotes from “the left” to support your ridiculous characterizations? Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
Two can play at this game. Given that “the right” is in power, and is working to impose a dictatorial, theocratic, plutocratic police state with no regard for The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, habeas corpus, presumption of innocence, international conventions, or indeed any classical notion of civil rights whatsoever, all in the name of keeping us “safer”, tell me how the terrorists haven’t already won?
Now answer the question, don’t try to evade! Or: please go back under whatever rock you crawled out from.
StupidityRules
Hopefully those mind reading microchips will be finished soon. Then when the government knows what everyone is thinking we’ll all be free and happy.
Remember, only those who have something to hide would refuse the government to read their minds. So they are probably guilty to something or will be in the future. It’s better to be safe than sorry so they probably should be sent to jail right now. Or Executed.
Al Maviva
Hey, the grandstanding is pretty nifty.
I’d just like to point out that the alternative is to tell NSA “you can monitor the half of a communication to or from abroad by terrorist suspects, but you can’t monitor the half of it that occurs within the U.S.” Oh yeah, that’s workable.
Pb
Perry Como,
Your answer was at least as reasonable as the question you were answering.
srv
The targets were domestic. No FISA. No warrant. by Fiat. They say they still get a warrant for domestic-to-domestic, but I believe that like I believe we don’t rendition. You really think secret legal opinions by John Yoo that we can’t read say “If he calls Osama, no warrant, but don’t record when he calls for the Muni schedule?”.
Think about the technical issues of that and get back to us with your policy.
We who believe in the constitution and representative gov’t have gotten our wish.
Pb
Al Maviva,
See above. There is already a process in place, to be followed. It’s called a court order. What we don’t need is activist fat-cat executive bureaucrats circumventing the law of the land because they think it doesn’t apply to them.
JWeidner
Typical right wing scare tactic bullshit. Raise the specter of 9/11 to frighten everyone into line.
What really sucks is that it sounds like you’ll happily turn over whatever liberties we have left as a country so long as it is framed as vital in the war on terror.
We have always been at war with Oceania.
srv
The alternative is to have a f’ing policy in which our representatives (or committees) get some minimal import. If you believe in the Unitary Executive Theory, and it applies in the War on Forever, just say so.
Under your logic, FISA (for the last 30 years) has no place.
Davebo
No, the answer is to get a warrant, or go ahead and do the wiretap but apply for a warrant within seventy two hours. If you get the warrant you can keep on tappin, if not, you can’t.
There are procedures in place for emergencies that don’t hinder the NSA, or anyone else at all.
This administration decided to ignore all that and break the law, something you aren’t allowed to do with an Executive Order secretly or otherwise.
So, since you don’t even have to request a warrant until you’ve been wiretapping for 3 days, explain to me why this is necessary?
Unless of course you know that no judge in his right mind would give you a warrant to tap the communications of thousands of randomly selected US citizens.
Davebo
As I said before.
Cowards? Most likely.
Fascists? Possibly.
Americans? No fucking way.
pharniel
9/11 happened because we are a free society.
when it happneed the entire world, with few notable exception, was schoked.
we COULD have used that to eliminate and terminate just about everyone who cheered, while the goverments of the world slapped us on the back and said “nice work” because we were seeking just retribution for a heinous crime.
instead we start trading liberty for ‘security’
because, y’know, the fbi’s new task force on ‘unacceptable porn’ is a good use of resources.
We have always been at war with eurasia
Andrew J. Lazarus
Non-citizens are most certainly entitled to due process. If my British brother-in-law (a resident alien) is arrested for running a red light, do you really wish to argue that he may be held in violation of the Bill of Rights? Are you also going to argue that the Thirteenth Amendment doesn’t apply to non-citizens, and we may enslave tourists?
Ignorant bozo. Even in the Gooperjugend your future is limited.
slide
Confederate Yankee quoting the lying sack of dog manure Mark Levine said this nonsense:
.Really? Well, the law actually says just the opposite. This is what the law says my friend:
Wow….. thats almost 180 degrees oppoostie of what the lying sack of dog maure said isn’t it
Jason
Oh, you’re right. After all, from a risk/reward analyst’s perspective, a stoner getting a 30 dollar score so he can smoke a doobie in the parking lot with his buddies should be treated, by policy, exactly the same as an organization which has already brought down two skyscrapers, several train stations, a bunch of synagues, murdered thousands, and pledges to murder thousands more.
The two are exactly the same and your comparison is dead on.
Jason
er, that’s “synagogues.”
Jason
That depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to see whether the US subject might be aiding and abbetting an unknown conspiracy to commit or support terrorist activity at some unknown future date, and you want to build a criminal case against the US resident, then it makes sense to get a warrant.
If, on the other hand, you want to use the information to get a satellite lock on the location of an Al Qaeda member’s phone so you can rip a 10 digit grid and raid his house, or launce a missile strike before he switches phones like he does every few days, and are not contemplating using the information to develop a criminal case against the US resident, then it may be an undue burden to have to seek a warrant.
StupidityRules
Well, since the Patriot Act mostly seem to have been used for non terrorist cases… …Lets say that I wouldn’t bet against people getting tapped cause they got their numbers in a drug dealers phone book…
slide
you know what gets me is that the morons keep suggesting that this is about coddling the terrorists. The reports said thousands of Americans were spied on. Does al Qaeda have that many sleeper cells in the USA ya think? Wow, we really are in a bad way. I think we should declare Marshall Law. Yep. Its just too dangerous not to. Lives are at risk here. I want every true american to report on his neighbor. I want surveillance cameras in every bedroom. You NEVER know where a horrible terrorist plot may be hatched. Can’t be too careful now can one. If you have nothing to hide why not?
What a bunch of freakin idiots. Remember when everyone was saying after 911 that if we do this or that the terrorists win. you know.. if we didnt’ go to the yankee game the terrorists win, dont’ go shopping the terrorists win. Well, guess what, the terrorists HAVE won. We now torture, we now spy on our own citizens, we now have trashed the bill of rights and all in the name of fighting terrorism. Yep, they have won mightly because of the cowardly and weak right wing that is afraid of their own shadows. So scared they are that they are willing to give up their Constituitional rights. Let big daddy government protect them all from the boggie man. These bed wetting “patriots” are pathetic.
StupidityRules
The people on the right hate Hollywood, yet they all love Hollywood terrorist scenarios….
They should be glad that Hollywood is there for them to give them stories to help them sell the erosion of freedom….
Davebo
As I pointed out above, this is BS. You’ve got 72 hours to tap without a warrant. You can start the tap, request the warrant two days later (even using information you learned from the first two days of tapping) and have one in hours well under the 3 day deadline.
There is, absolutely, no reason or need for this. Unless you know a judge will laugh your warrant request out of chambers.
slide
Jack Cafferty was on fire today:
slide
I haven’t used this word before but its time. IMPEACHEMENT. These are high crimes and misdemeanors if ever there was one. Time to seriously talk about IMPEACHEMENT for the CRIMINAL PRESIDENT.
Perry Como
Bwahahaha. You looney liberals. The President signed a secret Executive Order that states he cannot be impeached. Get with the program! We’re in a War on Nouns!
Jackmormon
Even if the monitoring only concerned US-to-foreign calls, how many of us, realistically, doesn’t that describe? Okay, if you have no friends outside the US with whom you might have discussed politics every once in a while, think about how many websites you may have visited that are located overseas. Think about your own website’s hitlogs: how many of them came from overseas, suspect countries?
I’m pretty sure that my stupid, piddling, weblog got CIFA.mil hits on my meter back when I was checking it obsessively, but of course I have no proof. I post mostly about books and recipes–oh yeah, I once hit 400 hits in a single day for my Orientalist reading of Sheikh romance novel, which got picked up around the MENA-type blogs–but really, I’m absolutely nobody.
Think about it, though: nobody’s communications are purely domestic any longer. For all you or I know, Balloon-Juice could be routed through Vancouver or Norway. I’m really not sure what protections against surveillance we can hope for today, but we’d sure better fight for warrants while we can. What with technological change (and habituation) and the expanded search powers of this War on Nouns, the idea of privacy is just about gone. This is a society-wide, global phenomenon, but strangely, it’s more often the left these days who’re shouting “stop.”
Richard Bottoms
Privacy may be gone, but we sure demand someone justify invading it to SOMEONE if it is the US government doing it.
The Disenfranchised Voter
I didn’t view the comments but let me guess…the knee-jerk Bush defenders (Darrell, Stormy, Mac) all argued that this policy is a-okay, because unless people have something to hide, they wouldn’t have a problem with this.
So how did I do?
DougJ
911 changed everything. We learned that oceans do not protect us. We learned that only big brother could protect us and that we should forfeit all rights to privacy.
DougJ
I am not Perry! Have John check the IPs if you don’t believe me.
Jon H
“especially given that warrants in these cases are almost always granted”
Actually, the FISA court has never turned down any of the thousands of requests it has heard since its creation.
Bob In Pacifica
Spying by the government has been going on since the revolution. When Congressional overight has gotten tight, it’s just privatized. James Hougan’s SPOOKS is a good look into the government/private spying that goes on. The ACLU wrote a good report on B’nai B’rith’s spying op used against student groups, labor unions, public television stations, anti-apartheid orgs, etc., using government intelligence agents. It’s just another wrench in the toolbox to screw citizens.
Bamford’s book about the NSA, THE PUZZLE PALACE, talked about the “Jew room,” where MI5 agents spied on American citizens, presumably liberal Jews were targeted. Because it was illegal for the NSA to spy on Americans, the MI5 did the work for them, and then shared what they got. Nice little legal workaround, eh?
I think more shocking is that Bush called the Constitution a “Goddamned piece of paper” when told that the spying was unconstitutional. Considering that Bush and God talk to each other, is Bush saying that God is against the rule of law? Is this a religious pronouncement?
Bob In Pacifica
WASHINGTON Dec 17, 2005 — President Bush said Saturday he personally has authorized a secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks and he lashed out at those involved in publicly revealing the program.
…
“This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power, under our laws and Constitution, to protect them and their civil liberties and that is exactly what I will continue to do as long as I am president of the United States,” Bush said.
…
Appearing angry at times during his eight-minute address, Bush left no doubt that he will continue authorizing the program.
“I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al-Qaida and related groups,” he said.
+++
Except, of course, that illegal spying is not “under [Bush’s] under our laws and Constitution.”
Okay, which clowns still support this guy? Can I hear it from the 35% out there?
GTinMN
There’s too many fools out there. He’ll always appeal to his fellow cowards and bullies, and those chickenshits like him who can never admit to making a mistake. Oh, and all those faux Christians out there, the ones who aren’t aspiring to be anything like Jesus (that flaming liberal socialist), the ones who cherry-pick only the passages of the Bible that justify their hatred and fear.
slide
IMPEACH THE CRIMINAL PRESIDENT
Al Maviva
Slide, your name calling is charming, but the Administration’s legal rationale isn’t even half as sketchy as you and the other name-callers make it out to be.
Detailed response relating to the contents of FISA and powers granted here: http://coldfury.com/index.php/?p=6116
Your serve, Slide.
Brett
Why avoid the courts? One possibility–time. The phone numbers and emails would quickly become inoperative when it was discovered by the terrorist suspects that their security had been compromised.
Courts can take too much of your own sweet time.
Brett
Oh, and Godwin’s law is bunk.
slide
no problem bro. Dont’ know how come you right wing apologists have a problem with reading comprehension. The law is clear. Very clear. Lets take is slowly for our challenged right wing wingnuts. The LAW:
ahhhh.. ok.. there ARE circumstances where the president can authorize electronic surveillance without a warrant. Ok, lets read a bit more shall we:
ok.. so now in order to do these warrantless surveillance the AG must certify in writing, under oath that…. ok.. this is where it get good. Now pay attention. Put down your Ann Coulter blow up doll and use ever ounce of your gray matter.
ok… so one requirement: communications must be EXCLUSIVELY between or amoung foreign powers. NOPE. Don’t apply now does it if they are tapping into the phone of some guy in Detroit talking to Tehran. Gotta be EXCLUSIVELY between foreign powers… ok…. lets read on, maybe there is an exception.
Nope… no go here. More.
Damn.. thats pretty clear. NO COMMUNICATIONS to which a person in the United States is a party. Pretty clear to me.
oh.. but what have the courts and congress said on this matter? Lets look:
. Not a lot of leeway there.
Pretty clear there.
. hmmm… sounds like they knew Bush was coming down the pike
. Fuck… not any wiggle room.
Ok…. but what about Congress:
.
Ok… I think I returned your served.
searp
This is patently illegal, and I am sure that a court challenge will find it illegal. It will be challenged and the administration will lose.
I’d love for the light of day to shine on some of this stuff. I bet of the thousands of people monitored only a handful posed even a potential threat.
DougJ
Look, extreme rendition is an important part of our anti-terror policy. And there’s no way we can be sure who to apply rendition to if we can’t listen to what they’re saying. Would you rather that we grab innocent people and fly them off to Egypt to be questioned?
GTinMN
Debunked upthread
There’s no legal justification for this. The laws were of course written with the probable need for urgency in mind. This is looking to be just another naked power grab by the most corrupt and incompetent administration in several generations.
chefrad
As Nietzsche said, “is there any up or down left? Are we not straying through an infinite nothing?”
Conservative now means big government, massive debt, foreign national-building, and spying on our own people without easily availible warrants?
Actually, today’s conservatism means, ” we got ours, at home and in the world, and we plan to keep it.”
The World Bank, Globalization, Leaning Forward, are all just euphemisms for Fortress Gat 9, sitting on its golden eggs. Nothing wrong with thinking that way either, but don’t try glossing Social Darwinism with “best for all concerned” ideology. Herbert Spencer’s been there, done that. Dickens painted that picture.
slide
IMPEACH BUSH… this will be my mantra…. IMPEACH BUSH… enough is enough…. the WORST president ever is now a bona fide criminal. IMPEACH the little shit.
Perry Como
Al Maviva Says:
You are right Al. The Administration’s legal rationale has a lengthy history in the thoughts and political positions of Carl Schmitt.
Al Maviva
Okay, slowly for you.
Section 1801 deems “any person” acting on behalf of foreign terrorist organizations openly sponsored by a foreign government or a national faction (see, e.g. Al Qaida (still claim governance of Afghanistan), Hezbollah (openly sponsored by Iran, Syria), engaged in operational activities, are deemed to be “agents of a foreign power”.
Section 1802 permits the monitoring of communications between agents of foreign powers (which would include their overseas calls and emails to handlers/co-conspirators) without a warrant, upon the certifications and pursuant to the procedures detailed in that Section. If a terrorist conspirator (an agent of a foreign power) is communicating with a collaborator abroad (another agent of the same foreign power) then the communication is exclusively between agents of a foreign power. NSA naturally catches more than just the two conversations if a particular individual is singled out for monitoring; the agency (per Executive Order 12333 and internal classified regulations) has a sorting out procedure to evaluate intercepts for the presence of U.S. persons, and to purge such records (per NSA testimony). Again, according to published NSA testimony that pre- and post-dates 9/11, that is their standard practice.
I’m actually looking forward to this one getting to court. The more I look at the plain face of the statute, and the logic chopping you need to use to get to your position, and the more I think about where Bush stands on this (500 people, over 4 years, focused on terror suspects, pretty decent legal basis) the more I’m confident y’all lefties should make this a big, big, big campaign issue. Go ahead, make my day.
Y’know, I’ve been on the plaintiffs’ side in a number of civil liberties cases, yeah, shocking, even though I’m a conservative. People on the left that shreik and scream about everything the government ever does as being the gotterdamerung (that’s just for you, Perry, or as we abbreviate it in AOL speak, it’s FU) of civil liberties, makes it difficult to build broad based support for civil liberties across the spectrum. More conservatives would make protecting civil liberties a priority if civil libertarianism didn’t come with a smelly reputation of opposition for mere opposition’s sake.
You want to argue that the definition of terrorist organization is too broad under FISA? I’m with you on that. You think that retention/purging standards should be statutory and subject to more oversight, fine, I’d agree. But if you insist on hammering every round fact into the Mannichean Bush=Hitler narrative, we can’t even discuss it, you’ve moved into political total war territory.
Perry Como
The politics of Carl Schmitt are well represented by the writings of John Yoo. People like Yoo believe executive power is an absolute, something that cannot be questioned by either the legislative or judicial branches in a time of war — declared or not. Policies like extraordinary rendition of foreigners, or the ability to imprison US citizens indefinetely without charge, have been carefully crafted by Yoo. These policies could be called the highest form of administrative justice; or höchste Form administrativer Justiz, if you prefer the original.
Ryan Waxx
Well, bully for Carl Schmitt and John Yoo. Except that we’re talking about Bush, and not either of these people who are totally irrevelant to the discussion.
Unless you want me to start attacking Michael Moore’s positions as your own?
Perry Como
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with who John Yoo is, or more importantly what position he held.
PaulB
Al Maviva wrote: “Section 1801 deems ‘any person’ acting on behalf of foreign terrorist organizations openly sponsored by a foreign government or a national faction (see, e.g. Al Qaida (still claim governance of Afghanistan), Hezbollah (openly sponsored by Iran, Syria), engaged in operational activities, are deemed to be ‘agents of a foreign power’.”
Since Al Qaeda has never ruled Afghanistan and quite clearly does not rule it today, I’m afraid your argument is moot, even if you could substantiate that it has indeed claimed to be the legitimate and legal government of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is nothing more than a loose affiliation of various terrorist organizations. To pretend that it is a “nation,” as required by FISA, boggles the mind.
You’re on just as weak a ground with Hizbollah, since the language of the statute is “directed and controlled,” not “sponsored” or “supported.” And it must be so acknowledged by those governments, which quite clearly has not happened in the case of Hezbollah.
In short, you’ve got nothing. The tortured language and “logic chopping” are all on your side of this debate, Al, not on ours.
PaulB
Al Maviva wrote: “the Administration’s legal rationale isn’t even half as sketchy as you and the other name-callers make it out to be.”
Then why aren’t you discussing the Bush administration’s actual legal rationale? Instead of wandering off into irrelevancy, shouldn’t you be talking about the specific legal claims that the administration has made?
The Bush administration has stated that what it is doing is legal because of the powers authorized to the president by the U.S. Constitution and because of the Congressional Resolution passed on September 14, 2001. Shouldn’t you be discussing those issues?