What is your problem with that?
I'm not.
What is your problem with that?
In the context of taps on international communications of those who have had previous communications with international terrorists. Yes indeed.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and it's protections do not extend to enemy combatants, spies or their supporters. Otherwise, if a foreign army took over part of the US, say the West Coast, we'd have to grant all their soldiers the right to keep and bear arms, the right of assembly, free press, etc. We could not conduct raids on their positions without a court order. Patently ridiculous of course, but that is where the logic of extending Constitutional protections to those with whom we are at war leads.
"So you are okay with warrantless wiretaps?
I'm not."
Not only am I OK with the surveilance, I'd be outraged if we weren't doing them. We've been doing this for years {pre-dates Bush}. Don't be naive about what the NSA is doing and has done for decades. It's become a big deal because GWB is doing it.
Nor am I.
And I’m pretty astounded by the number of conservatives who are willing to surrender unlimited power to whoever happens to sit in the oval office for the duration of a possibly endless war (can you imagine a time when there is no one who wishes the US harm?)
My wife's desk is in the Sears Tower - now the tallest building in the country, and presumably short listed by possible terrorists – so I’ve though about this a lot. And my conclusion that in terms of what really matters long term ultimately she's safer there – at least as long as this is a country where there are judicial checks on the legal powers of the executive branch - than in a country where the Maximum Leader makes whatever rules she or she prefers as tribal War-Lord.
At the moment, it’s often hard to get this point across – some people are willing go to just about any length to avoid facing the question of possible abuse of such power.
But IMO when you see people such as Paul Weyrich being derided as liberal lap-dogs, you know the argument is off the rails - the problem with this sort of approach is that you have dismiss the opinions of ever larger numbers of thoughtful conservative commentators; if they are elected they are RINOs, if unelected, “who do they represent?”, if current members of government they are said to be “disloyal”, if they have left government service they are attacked as “traitors”, and so on.
Still, at the moment I’m in the minority, and can only hope that a majority of voters come to their senses before such power is vested in someone really inimical to our traditional freedoms.
Barr has more conservative credentials than 90% of the Couch-Rambos around here. I don't want ANY president to be able to tap phones without somebody outside his office involved. It wasn't right when Clinton did it and it's not right now. Hearing the way the jackals are jumping all over Bob Barr and Grover Norquist's backs makes me question either the wisdom, sincerity or belief in American principals of these people who think they have some grasp on the history of freedom. If it wasn't for Grover Norquist, there's a good chance we wouldn't have a Republican majority and White House today.
I'm not willing to give credit to this wiretapping for the lack of terrorist attacks any more than I'm willing to give Pat Robertson credit for there not being any major earthquakes in the US.
Maybe it's just in the nature of a second-term president to try to grab too much power, or to think a little too highly of his position in the system of checks and balances. Let's hope somebody has a talk with President Bush before he hurts himself. I've been hearing an awful lot of Nixon-speak coming from the Whitehouse lately. And maybe it's heresy around here to say it, but Nixon was a crook, crazy and hurt the Conservative agenda.
I'm not either, conserv13. And I think that some of our leaders are worried that they too were caught in the net somehow. There are rumors that the surveillance wasn't just against terrorist suspects, and that some people on our side were eavesdropped on too.
By both its bare language as well as intent, the Fourth Amendment is not a guarantee to be fee from "warrantless" searches and seizures, only "unreasonable" searches and seizures. While the courts have held that almost always that means a warrant is required, their are constitutional exceptions to that requirement and warrantless foreign intelligence intercepts are one those exceptions. You do not have an unimpeded right to communicate with foreign terrorists.
"However, because of the President's constitutional duty to act for the United States in the field of foreign relations, and his inherent power to protect national security in the context of foreign affairs, we reaffirm what we held in United States v. Clay, supra, that the President may constitutionally authorize warrantless wiretaps for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence."
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"We agree with the district court that the Executive Branch need not always obtain a warrant for foreign intelligence surveillance."
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"Prior to the enactment of FISA, virtually every court that had addressed the issue had concluded that the President had the inherent power to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence information, and that such surveillances constituted an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment."
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"The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent [constitutional] authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information."
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"We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power."
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