Spinning the Bush wiretap ruling
And whither Obama?
Posted in: FISA, Homeland Security
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Categories: FISA, Homeland Security
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Re: Whither Obama?
There’s always a third option: Not voting on the bill. If I were a betting man, that’s where I’d place my wager…
Pardon me? Who elected this tool?
It should be noted that no Dem is arguing that the wiretap program is anything but the right way to go. The only issue is immunity, which Bush can only care about to cover his you know what and avoid headlines that find the obvious: that he was breaking the law for a long, long time. We have been without the wiretapping program since February not because Democrats don’t want it, but because Bush is more interested in CYA than the rule of law and finding terrorists.
Where’s the outrage about his obstruction?
Michelle, they didn’t get the talking-points memo yet, so they’re all just winging it!
Three versions of the ruling is odd, though not unexpected.
Utter rubbish. Lefties would spend entire careers filing endless lawsuits against the Telcos if no immunity.
ROTFLMAO, you forgot to add the “Sarc” to the end of your post but still very funny. I love sarcasm. You were joking right?
Haha… wait, no. I guess I don’t see what’s funny about wiretapping without a warrant when there’s a law on the books saying that you can’t wiretap without a warrant. I’ll keep thinking, cause I’m sure there’s something funny about the highest elected office in the country wilfully breaking the law for so long. Gimme a minute.
Red State,
I dont know why liberals, or anyone in general, are shocked or amazed that (GASP) the government is listening to their calls.
This has been going on for ages. It’s nothing new. And it will keep happening, no matter who raises cries of protest. And if you’re not doing anything wrong, what’s to worry about right?
Obama assured Code Pink he will vote against the FISA bill.
Maybe because it’s against the law. I guess y’all are just kidding when you get all in a huff about the “rule of law” regarding “amnesty” for immigrants.
Obama doing code pinkos bidding? Big suprise..
I’m sick of being told to bow down at the altar of big government because they can do _______ for me. This is an issue of trust – do I trust the government? Simple answer – No.
If they’re listening to foreigners making calls, what’s the problem? We’ve done that for how many years – you know, national defense. And the NSA does what? Yeah, they listen to electronic communications – that’s why they exist – though occasionally they have a bake sale to help fund the Old Spooks Home.
Red State Skeptic
Wiretapping to protect us from those who would harm us? How can anyone be against that? Are you delusional?
As to snooping on Americans? Come on, your fears would be better placed by worrying about what Google has collected on you. Just wait until they start storing medical records.
Don’t worry, your personal data is safe with them – until it’s expedient to use it otherwise.
The many collectors of data abounding on the internet have more information on you than the Feds could ever garner by wire-tapping your cell phone.
Why is it that liberals are so afraid that the gooberment is “listening in”? The rest of us get it. We are fighting a GWOT and, as AlGore screamed after 9/11, “WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN LISTENING IN!”
Of course on 9/10 ManBearPig was screaming Bush should be hanged for listening to millions of phone calls. I agree. Bush should have been doing his job instead of listening to my phone calls.
/sarc
Was not a section of FISA concerning foriegn peoples on American soil? The whole purpose was to keep foreign diplomats from being able to run once they know they are being listened to since warrants are subject to freedom of information. I’m sure CAIR knows this fact. Warrants filed after the wiretapping took place, the feds can do this, could essentially become public knowledge and anyone who is of interest who was listened to, but did not divulge any terror related info during that call, but is still of interest and could be a well of info in a later call would be tipped off by CAIR or the ACLU and would know not to talk terror related info.
Aside from that, what if they are in the country illegally? 20 to 30 million are, i’m sure some of them are terrorist cell members. They would be fair game under the original FISA bill. This is another case of trying to make Bush look bad and the media has certainly turned themselves into an entity whose intentions should be in question. Abismal fact to what the founders thought of the purpose of the media.
Red State, i am sure this judge wanted badly to be the one to hand Bush his a**, but apparently found the case to be one which could seriously backfire on him.
Dude, we’ve been over this ground on several previous threads. The immunity is for the telecoms, from the dozens of civil lawsuits that the ACLU and other groups have already filed. The telecoms thought they were doing their patriotic duty by giving the NSA records that they asked for. You may disagree, but the Attorney General also advised them that it was a legal request. If the goal is to continue a surveillance program, with the cooperation of the telecom companies, the only way they will do it is to be immune from those civil lawsuits.
Oh, i get it. A Congress full of democrat attorneys smell $$lawsuits$$….thanks Ragman.
Please allow me to make proper introductions. Sen. Obama, to your left is Mr. Rock and to your left is Mr. Hard Place. Now, with that done, I am going to take my leave and enjoy the show.
Well, dang! Regulus just pre-empted my enjoyment of the show with a dose of reality!
To quote myself.
If you simply read what i typed here, you’ll notice i said nothing of legality or anything else. I simply said I can’t understand why people are surprised its going on in the first place.
Does this make it right. Of course not.
Is it legal. No.
I’m just pointing out that groups of people get all shaky in the knees and whine when they hear we’re being listened to over the phone. It’s not a surprise, its not a shock, and its not going anywhere anytime soon. As much as I would love to see the practice stopped, I just highly doubt its going to anytime in the near future.
We usually agree. When I read that, the only thing that comes to mind is – so do the terrorists.
This is laughable. Do you really think that the telecom lawyers (who if they went to law school, can read the law) thought they were obeying the law? There really is no legal basis whatsoever for believing that the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program was legal. None. All that the great legal mind, Alberto Gonzales could say after they were exposed was cite a Supreme Court decision that was issued after the program started, which dealt with something else entirely, as precedent.
All this said, if you care about saving American lives, would you have vetoed a bill (or effectively killed a bill by threatening to veto it) that granted the wiretap powers the government needs to spy on those trying to kill us, just because it didn’t grant telecom immunity? The bill has been lapsed 5 months now thanks to Bush’s stubbornness.
I can listen in on any cordless phone in the neighborhood with a $50 scanner from Rat-Shack. My neighbor who does not like me let’s his dog poop in my yard. He gets really mad when the poop goes back in his yard…he suspects I’m doing it…so he tells his buds on the phone. He thinks I am a jerk for doing that. I’m supposed to just let his dog poop in my yard I guess.
Funny as hell…
OT
AP – Democrat Barack Obama is opening the door to altering his Iraq policy. Campaigning in North Dakota, Obama says his upcoming trip to Iraq could alter his plan to bring U.S. troops home within 16 months. The Illinois senator says it all depends on what he hears in consultations with military commanders there.
Flip-flop
Would you effectively kill the bill by authoring one that tells businesses (telecoms) that you can cooperate and help the government, but you do so at your own peril. Help us, but be careful of the ACLU and CAIR…They are going to be gunning for you and will litigate you to death.
I don’t object to wiretaps if the target is a suspect in an actual criminal activity. I would object to being disallowed from encrypting or destroying my communications – after all they are mine. I would also object to telecommunications companies being forced to store messages in the event of a crime happening. But if someone is suspected of a crime, then go ahead and tap them.
For example, if police suspect a certain area of the city has a lot of drug trafficking, why do they need permission to capture communications that lead to arrests? My point is that the suspicion of a crime should be the initiator of surveillance. Stopping someone for a speeding ticket and using that event to cut the person’s car in half to look for drugs is an abuse because the person is not initially suspected of possessing drugs. If during the traffic stop the police become suspicious of drugs, then they would be justified in searching the car.
In Michigan, if police pull over a teenager for a traffic violation, they’re allowed to search the car for no reason. They cannot do the same for a non-teenager, which makes this outrageously unconstitutional and abusive.
If that is the case, why has nobody been arrested? We’re only talking civil lawsuits against the telecoms for alleged damages.
That’s a good question. I suppose I would if I expected the telecom companies to continue to support the program. I can only speculate that there must be other sources of intelligence that haven’t been published in the NYT (pa-tooey!) that are yielding good results.
Do people here realize how much of your data is processed in other countries? Your medical records, your billing for various services, your x-rays are analyzed by jr. docs in India, all the travel and finance charges for the company I work for are processed in India and China. THEY, being other countries not subject to our laws or Constitution, have more data on you than our Gov’t does. That scares me one heck of a lot more than wiretapping which can at least be challenged in our courts.
There are cases of entire software products being stolen by ‘offshore’ workers in China and India. Guess what…the US based companies that had them stolen were told to go suck it by China and India. At least here in the U.S. there is a path and method to bring justice.
Red State Skeptic, Was illegal when Clinton did it?
I think it’s clear that our government really doesn’t care about our security – if they did, in the least, the border would have been closed down long ago. The border issue really does destroy their credibility as protectors.
The government wants to expand their control into many areas of our lives in return for their word they will protect us, yet they haven’t even attempted to secure our own homeland!
The above quote is a good look at exactly what the priorities are of our government – not security, but control and immunity.
Conservatism requires a distrust of government, as bloated bureaucracies have always impeded our liberty and security. It seems though, that because the current President has an (R) next to his name, conservatives have lost that oh-so-important distrust of government. I wonder how the tone of conservatives will change when Obama is in control of all the power we have all too willingly given to this government.
A more important question John Ansell: How did conservatives feel about the program when Clinton was the leader of this country?
Soory, lad, but when you’re chatting with Al-Qaeda about taking out bridges or bombing buildings – now that’s against the law.
I assume “This is not the Terrorist Surveillance Program I knew.” will be his statement.
Nope – it’s an irrelavent question, Lion. While liberals make decisions based on their “feelings”, conservatives rely on good ol’ fashioned common sense.
#40:
And what about those who aren’t chatting with AQ?
we still are..i’m just in a hurry…work has me swamped these days
jlibertarian sums it up for me basically…i dont have a problem as long as its in the interests of conducting an investigation. In those cases, and in the cases of calls going overseas or being traced between people of interest, I’m all for it. I just dont like the practice that *everyone* has their calls tapped, if nothing else but for record keeping.
OH OH OH, I hope they don’t tell Sally what I said about Jane. LOL
I can’t bring myself to care too much about this particular law, no one seems to mind that illegal aliens are destroying this country.
Either we are a nation of laws or we are not, THEY can’t have it both ways.
And neither can you. As you say, either we’re a nation of law or we are not.
I agree with statement 100%. It’s too bad there are very few conservatives that actually make any decisions.
The question was not irrelevant however, a conservatives’ feelings toward government power grabs should not change with whoever occupies the Oval Office.
A problem there – and I highlighted it, are terms which indicate a conclusion based on feelings rather than fact, Lion.
Common sense (the “ol’ fashioned kind”)depends on reasoned thinking and employs the old proverb “The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.”
Related – “A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the online video-sharing Web site, owned by Google, has to turn over all its user logs to Viacom, the mega-corporation that owns MTV, Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central and VH1, among others.” (From Foxnews.com)
Do you care that Google and Viacom are spying on you?
My point is not that the Gov should spy willy-nilly on US Citizens, but when an “interesting” overseas call leads to the US they should be able to follow the trail. The people who disagree (terrorists and their lackeys among others) would like the telcos to not cooperate and to force that they want to apply financial heat in the way of lawsuits. Giving them immunity is a common-sense measure.
As for the government getting bigger or more intrusive, don’t conservatives think national defense is truly one of the responsibilities of the Federal gov?
Did I read this right? A judge in California sided with the administration. I suppose stranger things have happened.
Yup – and I doubt the Gov’t had much interest in listening to Aunt Berta swap fruitcake recipes with her friends anyway.
That’s actually much more scary than paranoia-inspired notions George Bush is spending his days listening to my phone calls. (Besides he’d be bored to tears after about 3 minutes, lol.)
Well, to say that would imply that I am making my statement based solely on how I feel about the government’s actions. Now, feelings many times can be based on the facts of a situation. Such as a wife who decides to divorce her husband because of the fact he’s cheating on her. Her feelings regarding that situation led to her decision. I guess I can rephrase my original point this way:
I feel betrayed because of the fact that a so called conservative president now has the power to do ________.
I leave it blank because I’m guessing that this is where we differ. I believe the assorted Acts, Executive Orders, Signing Statements and growth of government are the facts supporting the “government power grab” statement. You think otherwise.
Absolutely.
Of course – they can start with securing the borders.
That’s not unreasonable, Lion. But applied to what we’re talking about here and what fills in the blank, quite specifically:
(SFGate)
“A federal judge in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday that sought to prove President Bush acted illegally in 2001 when he ordered the wiretapping of phone calls between Americans and suspected foreign terrorists without court approval.”
Especially considering the group, the “Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation”, is recognized even by the UN as a Taliban-associated group:
list of individuals belonging to or associated with the Taliban
As I said, I just don’t believe the Govt has a great driving desire, much less the time, to tap the billions of calls made each day to listen to Joe & Jane Schmucks debate on whether they should order pizza or Chinese for dinner.
Agree, both physical and electronic.
We were far more concerned about the political use of hundreds of FBI files of leading conservatives/Republicans and the political use of the IRS to harass conservatives in the media and elsewhere.
Most of the comments by the left seem to center on monitoring of domestic communications. That isn’t what NSA does. The FBI does it, only with warrants. NSA monitors foreign communications. That falls strictly within the purview of the CinC, and historically was no business of the courts until FISA. FISA still, to the best of my knowledge, has no jurisdiction in exclusively foreign communications. The big controversy has been not about domestic communications as the left would have you believe, nor even about communications between a US entity and a foreign source. It has to do with communications between foreign entities that are routed through US communications links, such as cell phone companies. The complaint has been that since the communications are routed through the US, they should be considered domestic. They aren’t, but domestic cell phone providers can and have been providing information on the calls to the US government and that’s partly what the law is about.
On July 3rd, 2008 at 4:28 pm, Ahh a Lion! said:
A more important question : How did conservatives feel about the program when Clinton was the leader of this country?
True. And had Clinton been interested in keeping as “ear on” Islamic terrorists plotting on the fones it’s likely 9-11 and attacks on American interests (e.g. embassies, the Cole) could have been stopped while they were in the planning stage.
I am unclear as to how preventing immunity to the telcoms for doing what the government asks them to do, will save a single soldier’s life.
What it does is open the door to endless class action suits and ancillary litigation which will feed the lawyers that give so “liberally” to the Democrats each election.
What it does is make the telcoms justifiably apprehensive about doing what the government requests of them (which is not what we are arguing, according to your entries here), doubtlessly causing delays due to consultations with their lawyers etc., which will be far more likely to cost military or civilian lives than your scenario.
Now that is an superb point! If the Dems and Repubs cared enough to put the country first, and stipulated that the borders must be controlled in return for the ability to monitor these communications, I would be on board in a New York minute.
I won’t hold my breath…
JTFC, this is war. We’re fighting Al Qaeda to the death and RSS and Lion are mincing around playing lawyerball and soiling their panties because the trial lawyers can’t get a blood meal from the telecoms. Boo freaking hoo.
I give up more details of my private life to the IRS every April 15 than the NSA could get from monitoring a lifetime of my phone calls.
Get a grip you Nancies.
by Die Hippie Die
You said it, DHD. what amazes the hell out of me about the left is that they view these aliens and islamiscists as if they have rights just like us when they show absolute derision for our way of life and Constitution.
What really still gets under my skin is how they view illegals, atheists,and islamiscists as having (more than) equal rights and validity to the rest of us who do play by the rules, but also how the left were also remarkably cold towards Randy Weaver and the Branch Davidian’s constitutional rights even neither of them committed-nor planned- any form of attack or assault prior to the ill-fated raids on both homes (which the MSM called “compounds”).
I say this even though I do not share their particular religious viewpoints.
The remedy for warrantless wiretapping is the same as for not mirandizing a suspect. The judge will throw out evidence gathered improperly and it cannot be used to prosecute the suspect. An arresting officer who forgets to give the miranda warning is not prosecuted.
Has evidence collected during the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping been used to convict anyone in a court of law? If not, then the remedy is working as designed.
Second, what gives any judge in this country the right to decide whether the NSA can listen to a conversation in Pakistan? It’s outside the jurisdiction of US judges. The constitution gives wide powers over foreign affairs to the President, not the courts.
Listening to calls of citizens is another matter. But, as I pointed out, the remedy is to throw out the evidence gathered improperly. I think that is how Obama’s longtime friends Ayers and Dorn avoided prosecution. A judge ruled that the FBI’s evidence was collected improperly and threw out the case. But the FBI officials involved were not prosecuted for the alledged abuses because that is not called for under the law.