[Boot Hill]

Sandy:   "The primary purpose test is dead." (at #200)

Boot Hill:   "Gotta cite?" (at #201)

Sandy:   "Are you kidding? What do you think Sealed Case is about?" (at #202)

Sandy:   "Boot Hill, it was you who went off on the Truong tangent in the first place, not me..."

I don't know what to tell you Sandy, other than you've got a very convenient memory as your quotes above clearly show. (Not to mention that you were also clearly in error when you claimed, "the primary purpose test is dead".)

Sandy:   "The thing you're missing, Boot Hill, is my original point, which has nothing to do with Truong or the primary purpose rule."

Again, you seem to enjoy a very convenient memory, and one that's at odds with the above quotes. If you had some other point to make, you certainly managed to obscure it well through a poor choice of wording.

Sandy:   "Now as far as I can tell, you don't think the administration is wrong at all."

Good grief, you're only just now getting that? After all our posts on other threads?

Sandy:   "Which is why your original statement ('None of it can be used directly in a criminal prosecution.') makes no sense..."

I was having a "senior moment" when I posted that and I didn't pick up on my error till I read a link that Cboldt kindly posted to the U.S. v. Usama case. I appreciated Cboldt's subtle reminder of that fact.

[Boot Hill]

Sandy:   "Now as far as I can tell, you don't think the administration is wrong at all."

Boot Hill:   "Good grief, you're only just now getting that? After all our posts on other threads?"

In retrospect, I feel my reply to you was unnecessarily ambiguous and I wish to expand it a bit.

I believe the President's position is 100% correct in regards the NSA spying controversy. Not because I blindly support the man, that I voted for twice. I support him because the law, the Constitution, (distinguished for emphasis), the history of the presidency, the intent and history of the founding fathers, we well as the realities involved in guarding the national security of this country from foreign threats, puts the President, not just on solid ground, but on rock-hard granite, both legally and politically.

Since, virtually every court that has ever addressed this matter over the last 30 years, both pre-FISA and post-FISA, and notably including even the FISA court itself, has concluded that the President does have the inherent constitutional power to conduct warrantless surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence information, there can be no serious debate as to the present existence of that Presidential power.

[Sandy]

I don't know what to tell you Sandy, other than you've got a very convenient memory as your quotes above clearly show.

No, what I have is a wheel on my mouse which lets me scroll back up to previous replies to read what was actually written. :-) See your first reply to me, #197, which is 4 or 5 paragraphs about Truong and primary purpose.

Here's what happened. I said,

The primary purpose test is dead. If the intercepts don't violate the 4th Amendment or FISA or the Wiretap Act, there is no legal ground for excluding any evidence obtained.

And you read that (incorrectly) as if it said,

The primary purpose test is dead. Therefore, if the intercepts don't violate the 4th Amendment or FISA or the Wiretap Act, there is no legal ground for excluding any evidence obtained.
(As if the truth of the second sentence depended on the truth of the first sentence.)

But all I was saying there (incomprehensibly, apparently) was that the primary purpose rule is history (i.e., irrelevant to my comment, which I then reiterated). But then you asked why I thought the primary purpose test was dead, so we went back and forth on that topic a couple of times before I tried to get you back to my original point. (See reply #206, where I said, "The primary purpose test isn't even relevant to your conclusion. You brought it up, not me." That's me trying to get you back to the point of my original comment.) But you responded with still more carping about Truong (including a comment about my supposed hatred of Truong or somesuch nonsense). I think I gave up at that point.

Maybe a paragraph tag after my "primary purpose test is dead" statement would have spared us this waste of time. Whatever.

I was having a "senior moment" when I posted that

No kidding.