What “warrantless wiretapping” hath wrought
Great post at Protein Wisdom pointing out the contrast between the rhetoric of “domestic spying” and the reality of FISA–that tapped phones on international calls can save lives, stop terrorists, and rescue hostages:
The stunning rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors owed its success not just to artful deception, but also to a five-year U.S.-Colombian operation that choked their captors’ ability to communicate.
Known as “Alliance,” it began with a satellite phone call in 2003, just weeks after the Americans’ surveillance plane crashed in the southern Colombian jungle, according to U.S. and Colombian investigators and court documents.
The call came from Nancy Conde, the regional finance and supply chief for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, whose boyfriend would become the American hostages’ jailer. She was calling confederates in Miami to see if they could supply the rebels with some satellite phones.
What Conde didn’t know was that state security agents were listening.
Now, the article isn’t clear on exactly which state’s security agents were listening, though by the wording of the article I suspect it was Colombia’s. What is clear is an amazing intel coup in which the FBI turned Conde’s contacts in Miami and got them to sell the rebels tapped phones.
Which led, eventually, to the hostages being freed.
Again, not directly applicable to FISA, unless one of the FARC members placed a call on one of those tapped phones into the United States…to another member of a hidden terror cell or to one of their contacts.
Like, for example, Massachusetts Congressman James McGovern, and his aide James Jones.
Oh yeah, Rep. McGovern. Back in April, after that story broke, he was still lobbying hard against free trade with the Colombian government, noting that he had
…visited the slums of Bogotá where the poor and the internally displaced struggle to survive. I’ve spent hours in meetings with human rights groups, with families whose loved ones are held in brutal captivity by the FARC, and with victims of violence by the paramilitaries and the Colombian Army.
And yet Rep. McGovern’s “hours in meetings” about the hostages the FARC held were shambolically ineffective, while the Uribe government’s daring, amazing Alistair-MacLean-novel rescue of the hostages set them free and gives us amazing video like this statement of real moral clarity by hostage Marc Gonsalves.
Maybe it’s time that useless obstructionist Democrats like McGovern and Pelosi got out of the way and let our ally do his thing.
____
P.S. I so admire Gonsalves for taking the time to do a press conference and tell the truth about the FARC. He’s got an amazing story and I look forward to seeing and hearing more from him.
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- July 11th Link Roundup | THE HOT JOINTS
- “Warrantless Wiretapping” Does Work. Ask FARC. | The Sundries Shack
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Bush Spies, Al Qaeda Dies.
The obstructionist Democrats don’t want America protecting itself from terrorists.
The precision of the rescue is astounding–Thank you-Columbian gvt. and Columbian spcial forces….
To my fellow Californians –HOW long are we going to allow the Pelosi types to be elected???!!!!!!
To the rest of the country—McGovern ISN’t from CA SOOOO How long before all of us U.S.citizens to say –ENOUGH
Count me as a vote against Pelosi, CS! Walter Moore for Mayor too. We need to get rid of Via gra Grossa.
I was always puzzled that this was referred to as ‘wiretapping’…or ‘eavesdropping’. Stop and think about how many phone calls are taking place in the USA at any given moment. It’s probably in the high thousands. (….could be millions….) But let’s say there are thousands and thousands of telephone calls taking place all-of-the-time. Now lets think about the amount of people required to ‘eavesdrop’ on all of those phone conversations all-of-the-time. Does anyone really believe that there are thousands, perhaps millions of people just sitting around listening to ALL of the phone calls coming in and out of the USA? And what happens if the load becomes too big? What happens if the amount of calls exceeds the number of those who are ‘eavesdropping’? Does the government then record all of those conversations so they can monitor them at a later time? But then wouldn’t that result in a backlog of calls whose data would then become outdated? (I use the term ‘eavesdropping’ because that’s how the media referred to it. And I use the scenario of ‘people sitting around listening’ because that’s exactly how the media portrayed it.) This news - and the outcry afterwards - depressed me because it showed that people were letting the media do their thinking for them. I didn’t read any news articles where people said: “Well, wait a minute now. Let’s do the numbers, shall we?”
Please allow my appendage: Bush Spies, Al Qaeda Dies, Democrat cries.
Haven’t you heard? Liberals think all conservatives and republicans are lackeys of the government. Therefore all these “people just sitting around listening to ALL of the phone calls coming in and out of the USA” are conservatives and republicans just doing the bidding of the government in their spare time. //sarc off
pelosi is filthy rich which is part of the problem. Money does equal power, even when it comes to elections unfortunately. Also, don’t forget to which district that elects her..whacknut san franciscans. The same people who support folsom street nude sex acts in public among children.
http://americansfortruth.com/news/tolerance-gone-wild-in-san-francisco-as-cops-stand-by-amidst-folsom-street-fairs-public-perversions-and-widespread-nudity.html
Yes these pathetic wretches are the people who vote this syria loving witch in. There are worse pictures out there but I truly was too sick to keep the link.
Like we have absolutely nothing else to do with our time.
JA I totally agree!! the VVVV man HAS to go!!
Democrats: Proving the truth outlined in Coulter’s TREASON once again.
That’s why I get to stay home everyday, I am secretly montoring and hacking into liberal computers and phone conversations so my handlers know what they are up to at all times. Ooop’s I guess it’s not a secret anymore.
Re: your PS, see-dubya:
I agree. The video of his press conference was poignant and stark. I hope we get to learn more about his experience.
Whenever I encounter one of these hysterics shrieking about how, “The government is SPYING on us, mang! We’ve lost our FREEDOMS, mang! Where is our PRIVACY, mang?!?”, I calmly ask them - after spraying Lysol in their general direction first - “What makes you think anyone cares what you’re talking about? What are you doing that you don’t want anyone to know?”
I’m as concerned as the next guy about privacy and don’t want anyone snooping into my business, but on the other hand, what if they were; what would they hear? My girlfriend and I discussing our days, planning our weekend, bitching about whoever or whatever we had to deal with at work, blah-blah-woof-woof? I feel sorry for the spook (note: that means a SPY, not a black person! Too much freaking out over words these days…) who has to listen to that drivel. (It’s bad enough I’ve got to say this stuff, much less have to listen to it?)
People act as if their pizza orders, political bitching and philandering is all being logged to be held against them at a later date. Since a basic symptom of liberal insanity is their chronic projection of what they’d do upon conservatives, they are paranoid that someone is listening to them because that’s what they’d do with such power. If Barry O’Bama gets elected, watch all mentions of the need to repeal wiretapping to vanish as they get to do some genuine domestic spying on top of using the IRS to harass political enemies.
Why would congressmen and in fact, ANY public official except one operating under orders of the President, be in contact with any group like FARC? Is it illegal and/or unethical for congressmen to be running their own independent version (and vision) of national policy?
Is it illegal and/or unethical for congressmen to be running their own independent version (and vision) of national policy?
It wasn’t for Nancy Pelosi, so why should it for any other Democrat?
Not only that, the warrantless wiretapping that they said was for international eavesdropping of terrorists *gasp!* actually listens in on terrorists, not the paranoid liberals who are afraid that teh evil Boosh is listening in on them and their dealer they like to claim.
Exactly.
Former F.B.I. Agent Recounts Activities at the Clinton White House
Ssssshhhhhh, You don’t want to lose your VRWC card.
I bet we are going to start seeing a lot of individuals the State Department has allowed into our country who should have never been allowed in.
I suspect a lot of the Mosques in Deerborn, MI., and the east coast has just had their comm cut. That is the first thing you do in combat. Cut the enemys comm. Where is cry baby CAIR on the issue?
In the name of fighting terrorism…
anything is possible.
Bush Spies, Terrorist Dies, Democrat cries, Military thrives, USA survives!
A little more appendage on my part.
On July 11th, 2008 at 7:20 pm, John Ansell said:
Count me as a vote against Pelosi, CS! Walter Moore for Mayor too. We need to get rid of Via gra Grossa.
I got a mailer today from Dana Walsh asking for a donation. Can you or anyone else tell me anything about her?
A shining example of Democrat involvement in foreign policy they shouldn’t be involved in. They accomplish nothing and only exacerbate the situation. Yet, somehow, magnificently, letting professionals do their jobs results in lives saved.
It’s amazing the 1984 mentality (nevermind 9/11) of these self-preserving idiots. I agree, why do people think their everyday convos are being monitored? Isn’t Bush too stupid, according to the left, to do anything with it anyways? I love how they think he’s so stupid, yet, cunning and strategic enough to pull of these amazing feats of political espionage, not to mention 9/11.
Paranoid, but you can bet that Bush knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake…
On July 11th, 2008 at 7:30 pm, Ron Rockstar said:
Actually, since Obama vowed to filibuster any bill with telecom immunity in it, it should read:
Obama lies, Bush Spies, Al Qaeda Dies, Democrat cries…
Does anyone doubt for a second that some Democratic Judge would not tip off the press or even the terrorist group if he/she were called upon to pass on a warrant? In Wash DC, Detroit, Phil it is impossible to get warrants issued without the beans being spilled. Anyone?
Tony Snow has died, RIP
Godspeed Tony
But what about next year? IF FISA is about foreign calls no honest person should have a problem. But soon we will have one of two men President of the United States who have shown themselves to NOT be concerned with civil liberties and American Rights. It will be we, the Conservatives, whose phones are tapped, bloggs monitored. Senators McCain and Obama would have no problem with the Fairness Doctrine, database building and such.
Excuse my paranoia but it In God I Trust, others need not apply.
For the libs it is see no evil, hear no evil and when speaking, do not expose any evil. In other words, put you head in the sand and hope that your butt is still there.
Michelle,
So, lets have the Pajamas Media do an interview with him.
Guitarguy etal
on # of people required to monitor phone lines…not so many as you’d think, computers have come a long way baby (to steal a phrase) Russian/East German monitoring of phone calls between then West Berlin and the rest of the world was done mostly by computers, using voice recognition tech and looking for key phrases.
Yes, they’ve got people listening too, but the ‘puters helped to screen all the calls.
As to America and the Bush legislation - international “wiretapping” has been going on for decades, slam Bush slam Clinton, Reagan, Carter, LBJ, Kennedy etc.
Regards
From the article:
The FISA law then in effect allowed the government to get a warrant after the wiretap started in cases like these. There is no excuse for the Bushies to violate the law.
nlebou, google her…there’s quite a bit there on her.
The “Bushies” didn’t violate the law.
I bet during WWII lgm and the other liberals would have required the USN to get warrants for each and every Japanese transmitter just prior to the Battle of Midway. And then because we couldn’t - and didn’t need to legally - we would have been caught totally off-guard by the attack. Midway would have been celebrated as a major Japanese victory.
My insanely liberal brother called to let me know he had a heart condition.
I suggested that he simply surrender.
Why fight an enemy he cannot obviously defeat. No need to get bogged down with the effort. After all it really wasn’t worth it.
Besides if he did fight and win he would just have to return to his masters and serve their needs for his living.
In the end though, I told to take an anti-acid as he probably just had heart burn from worrying that the Bush administrations spying efforts were penetrating his tin-foil hat.
He certainly has given me enough of that over the years.
When I was a kid most telephone lines were party lines.If you wanted to you could listen to anyone that was on the phone on your line.I don’t rmember any lawsuits or people fretting about it.
If you are not doing something wrong then you should not worry who listens. Makes me wonder what Democrats and liberals are so worried about…..hhmmmm
1. Why would a US warrant even cover a phone conversation, half of which is in Columbia?
2. Should Columbian authorities obtain a warrant in US court to tap a conversation, half of which is in Columbia?
What it hath wrought is a trampling of freedom, liberty, and the Constitution.
I publish an Iranian expatriate woman political refugee, virulent anti-mullah dissident, with many direct contacts inside Iran.. She has exposed at least three Iranian government “moles” who were invited by State Department, thereby embarassing and earning the enimity of some powerful Washington players. Her phone and faxes are monitored and interfered with. She says she has nothing to hide and if it will help catch baddies has no objection.
It’s a given that a surveillance society is safer than a free one. No argument.
Your wiretapper…Israel.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=24988781