Posted on 02/07/2006 8:15:53 AM PST by CyberAnt
Democrats Praise President Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program One Minute; Outraged The Next
Dems Try To Have It Every Way On President Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program:
"[Democrats] Could Pay A Large Price - Though A Political One - If They Do Not Strike The Right Tone In The Debate Over The National Security Agency's Domestic Eavesdropping Program." (Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Balancing Act By Democrats At Hearing," The New York Times, 2/7/06)
"As They Head Into The 2006 Midterm Elections, Democrats, Eager To Pick Up Congressional Seats, Know They Must Look Tough On National Security Issues." (Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Balancing Act By Democrats At Hearing," The New York Times, 2/7/06)
"Democrats Are Both Outraged By President Bush's National Security Agency Surveillance Program And Content To See It Continue. They Are At This Incoherent Pass Because Their Reflexive Hostility To The Program Is Tempered By The Dawning Suspicion That They Might Be On The Wrong Side Politically Of Yet Another National-Security Issue - Thus, "The NSA Straddle". (Rich Lowry, Op-Ed, "The NSA Straddle," National Review Online, 1/31/06)
Dems Praise President Bush And His Terrorist Surveillance Program:
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA): "Now, You [Attorney General Gonzales] Make A Very Strong Case In Your Presentation Here About The Authority In Which You Are Acting On. You Talk About The Authorization By The Congress, You Talk About Inherent Power, You Talk About The President Having The Authority And The Power To Do This." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI): "[I] Just Want To Read Again What You [Attorney General Alberto Gonzales] Said. 'As The President Has Said, If You Are Talking With Al Qaida, We Want To Know What You're Saying.' Absolutely Right. No One On This Committee, I Think No One In This Body, Believes Anything Other Than That, And I Want To State It As Firmly As I Can." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Feingold: "All Of Us Are Committed To Defeating The Terrorists Who Threaten Our Country, Mr. Attorney General. It Is, Without A Doubt, Our Top Priority." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT): "Every Single Member Of Congress Agrees [The Bush Administration] Should Have The Tools Necessary To Protect The American People." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Leahy: "We All Agree That If You Have Al Qaida Terrorists Calling We Should Be Wiretapping Them." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY): "[I] Want The President To Have All The Legal Tools He Needs As We Work Together To Keep Our Nation Safe And Free, Including Wiretapping." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Dems Criticize Terrorist Surveillance Program, Launch Partisan Attacks Against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales:
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA): "This Whole Program Has Been Questioned In Terms Of Its Legality ..." (Sen. Kennedy, Press Conference, 2/6/06)
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI): "[I] Do Believe [Your 2005 Confirmation Testimony] Was Materially Misleading. But I Am Even More Concerned About The Credibility Of Your Administration." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Feingold: "You Wanted This Committee And The American People To Think That This Kind Of Program Was Not Going On. But It Was And You Knew That. And I Think That's Unacceptable." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT): "[T]he Bush Administration [Did] Not Seek Broader Legal Authority, It Kept Its Very Existence Of This Illegal Wiretapping Program Completely Secret ..." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Leahy: "[T]he Press Caught You Violating The Statute With This Secret Wiretapping Of Americans Without Warrants." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Some Dems Even Want Bush Administration To Expand Terrorist Surveillance Program:
Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE): "[I] Don't Understand Why You Would Limit Your Eavesdropping Only To Foreign Conversations ... It's Only Emanating From A Foreign Country, Correct? ... Why Limit It To That?" (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Biden: "Well, The President Said He'd Do Everything Under The Law To Prevent Another 9/11. The Communications That Occurred Within This Country, Not Outside This Country, Which, In Fact, Brought About 9/11 Would Not Be Captured By The President's Efforts Here." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI): "Just To Go Back To What Senator Biden ... Referred To About Al Qaida-To-Al Qaida Within The Country, You're Saying We Do Not Get Involved In Those Calls ... To Those Of Us Who Are Listening, That's Incomprehensible." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Sen. Kohl: "If You Would Go Al Qaida-To-Al Qaida Outside The Country ... But You Would Not Intrude Into Al Qaida-To-Al Qaida Within The Country ... There's Something That Unfathomable About That Remark." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/6/06)
Yes. That is why they have up to 72 hours AFTER they have started listening to get a warrant.
Well I certainly rest easy knowing that you do not run the program if that is the way you would utilize resources!
Worry not. They will, soon enough if they think they can benefit from it.
I would hope so! If the government is going to tap the phones of US citizens talking to Al-Queda then I hope that people at these levels would get involved.
The "FISA warrants are handed out like candy" argument is a pile of rubbish. If the FISA court is a rubber stamp then it's doing nothing to protect anyone's civil liberties. Obviously the judges on the FISA court don't consider themselves a rubber stamp. That's why the applications take so long to put together.
Additionally, the time to get a FISA warrant is only part of the problem. The effort is huge. The applications are an inch thick and take a week or more to prepare. Now we capture a terrorist and his cell phone has 50 numbers stored in it. Do we A) start monitoring those phone numbers or B) create 4+ feet of paperwork and hope a judge approves them. Take your time, there's no hurry.
The Authorization to Use Military Force said the President could kill Al Qaida. Are these Senators really contending that the President can kill them but not listen to their phone calls?
Applying FISA to a wartime enemy is absurd. If an old-fashioned invasion were taking place would we really stop listening to the enemy radios once their troops reached shore? Of course not. What we have today is a blurrier case of the same thing. Some of the enemy have come ashore but they're not wearing uniforms or contained in a Forward Edge of a Battle Area.
All the pundits, scholars and officials have spent about two months arguing over the legality of this program. Could you imagine the stupidity of delaying counter-terrorism efforts for that long after 9/11? We'll go after Al Qaida as soons as the lawyers and politicians figure out what we can and can't do.
The whole thing is absurd. In wartime you intercept the enemy's communications. If they happen to talk to fifth-columnist in our country, it's imperative we find them. If innocent conversations get picked up too there is no harm, none. If the NSA picks up two U.S. persons talking to each other the contents are thrown away and the accidental intercept is logged and reported to the fools in Congress.
Half the calls we make today have that stupid "this call may be recorded for quality purposes" anyway. May the corporate Q/A departments should outsource the work to the NSA.
My argument only applies to US citizens in the US
If --- and that's a big "IF" -- the law requires a warrant for what the NSA is doing, then I agree that we either need to get a warrant or better yet, we need to change the law. Think of the situaton this way: In the two minutes that I used to type this post, the NSA could have intercepted 100, 200, perhaps even a thousand or more phone calls originating form different sources. Obtaining a seperate warrant for each one could takes several hours or even several days. By the time the warrant is issued, the person making the phone call is using a different phone, with a different number from a diffeent location so that the warrant is now pretty much worthless.
"I would hope so! If the government is going to tap the phones of US citizens talking to Al-Queda then I hope that people at these levels would get involved."
I would certainly hope NOT! So basically you're saying that if we suddenly have reason to believe a known terrorist in another country is about to make a call to the U.S. we should basically wait for 24 hours or so as the process winds through a bureaucracy of lawyers by which time the call would have taken place and we will not have heard any details? Gee, that's really brilliant. Seriously. Furthermore, how do you know that the people on the phone in the US are even citizens? Most of them are likely visa holders, green card holders, or illegal immigrants.
Why would it take 24 hours? All it should take is couple phone calls. "Mr. Atty Gen, one of our agents in the field has reason to believe...
Most of them are likely visa holders, green card holders, or illegal immigrants.
You know that how? My arguments only apply to US citizens in the US.
I have a problem with people spouting off without knowing what is really going on.
This program has been vastly distorted by the media and Democrats.
There is no 'wiretapping Americans'.
Then you are right. No problem. All Gonzalez has to say is "We have not intercepted any phone calls to or from American citizens without a warrant."
If he says that I will be satisfied. He has not said that.
(Non-support of the troops will be another biggie.)
.
Excuse me, but if we are intercepting the calls from AQ's #2 is it accurate to call that 'wiretapping Americans' even if he calls an American phone number?
Why repeat the distortions about the program?
Think about it.
"Why would it take 24 hours? All it should take is couple phone calls. "Mr. Atty Gen, one of our agents in the field has reason to believe..."
Ahem, you spoke of need for warrants. A *Judge* gives a warrant, not the AG.
And, yes, this is Govt. Red tape takes time. It's why Moussaoui's computer wasn't searched even after he was picked up (but prior to 9/11). The time and effort it takes hampers investigations.
These programs are fishing expeditions to find possible clues among 'suspicious' communication patterns. The 'probable cause' is tenuous at best, but disallowing this is like deciding to tie one hand behind your back.
"Liberty" and "privacy" are too different, vastly different, things. The ACLU wants 'privacy' for those doing illegal things, and for arrested criminals (eg drug tests), but wont defend the LIBERTY of citizens wrt our own property.
You have no privacy when you are in a public restaurant having a conversation; people can snoop. But you have liberty to say what you please.
The NSA program is pro-liberty, since it defends our liberty from terrorism.
I agree with you. If we are intercepting calls from AQ and any of the calls go to the US, we should listen in on that call AND then start listening in on the phone of the American that they called. All I am saying is get a warrant.
Okay, fine. Call the judge and get a warrant. Police do it all the time.
If the US citizen in the US is talking to an Al Queda member not in the US, can we wiretap the Al Queda member?
You have missed another facet of this debate. There were statistics on this board to show that the FISA court had changed the way it approved warrants recently. It had "altered" many more warrants than were altered previously, and turned many more down, making them a check against the Presidential power to conduct a war. I don't think the Constitution gives Congress the power to legislate away the President's Constitutional powers.
Of course.
"Why would it take 24 hours? All it should take is couple phone calls. "Mr. Atty Gen, one of our agents in the field has reason to believe..."
Uh, wrong again. It is NOT as simple as a series of phone calls. A phone call wouldn't cut it. Lawyers have to sign off on this. A lawyer would NEVER sign off on something without reading and understanding it. As I stated before it must go through NSA lawyers, then DOJ lawyers, and then the AG. Then we can start listening. Maybe it won't take 24 hours. Maybe it will "only" take 1 hour. In either case the result is the same. We will have missed an opportunity to listen in on a conversation with a known terrorist if we followed your idea to its logical conclusion. The NSA often needs to act with ZERO delay. Fortunately both the Constitution (Article II Presidential powers) and even FISA itself (with its statutory exception) allows for warrantless surveillance in a time of war.
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