THANK YOU FOR WIRETAPPING There is no evidence that the President's wiretaps on al Qaeda suspects

ncpa.org ^ | Friday, December 23, 2005

[InvisibleChurch]

After a recent leak about National Security Agency wiretaps on international phone calls involving al Qaeda suspects, members of Congress and the media claimed the wiretaps were illegal. The truth is closer to the opposite, says the Wall Street Journal.

The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that President Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. However:

No Administration then or since has ever conceded that the Act trumped the President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it. FISA established a process by which certain wiretaps in the context of the Cold War could be approved; it was not a limit on what wiretaps could ever be allowed. In several cases, a special panel of judges heard FISA appeals and found "the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information;" and, "FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power." The evidence is also abundant that the Administration was scrupulous in limiting the FISA exceptions, says the Journal:

They applied only to calls involving al Qaeda suspects or those with terrorist ties. Far from being "secret," key Members of Congress were informed about them at least 12 times, says the President. The two district court judges who have presided over the FISA court since 9/11 also knew about them. These wiretaps were not used for criminal prosecution but solely to detect and deter future terrorist attacks -- which is precisely the kind of contingency for which Presidential power and responsibility is designed, says the Journal.

Source: Editorial, "Thank You for Wiretapping," Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2005.

For text:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113503784784326861.html

For more on Terrorism:

http://www.ncpa.org/iss/ter/

[InvisibleChurch]

[FairOpinion]

An excellent editorial on this subject, with specifics:


Wiretaps for me, not thee?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1546024/posts


Can Democratic presidents order wiretaps on U.S. soil without a court order, but not Republicans? We ask because that's the standard critics appear to be using against President Bush over National Security Agency surveillance of al Qaeda operatives. Every president, Democrat or Republican, has exercised this authority since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act became law in October 1978. But it appears to be deemed problematical only for President Bush, whose wiretaps are said to have caught Iyman Faris, a naturalized U.S. citizen who wanted to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge.

[Boston Blackie]

[P-40]

No Administration then or since has ever conceded that the Act trumped the President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it.

The 911 Commission Report says that part of the problem was that FISA was too rigid and kept the CIA and the FBI from communicating. I seem to recall the New York Times mentioned that a time or three also...