Posted on 01/19/2009 10:17:25 AM PST by thecodont
(01-18) 21:00 PST -- President-elect Barack Obama dismayed civil liberties groups last summer when he voted to authorize President Bush's clandestine wiretapping program after publicly denouncing it.
Now, thanks to a ruling by a San Francisco federal judge, Obama must take a stand on whether the Bush administration violated Americans' rights when it intercepted their phone calls and e-mails without seeking a court's permission.
The Jan. 5 decision by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker revived the last remaining lawsuit against the program Bush authorized after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Without seeking congressional approval or court warrants, the president ordered the National Security Agency to intercept calls and e-mails between Americans and suspected foreign terrorists.
Every other legal challenge to the program has been thwarted by its secrecy and the resulting inability of plaintiffs to prove they were a surveillance target. But Walker rejected the Bush administration's central argument for dismissal in the case being heard in San Francisco - that no one has the right to sue unless the government admits it conducted surveillance - and set the stage for a potentially decisive ruling on whether Bush exceeded his authority.
Now the next step is up to Obama, whose Justice Department will take over the case when he becomes president Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
“The One” might want to tread carefully here. His Big Brother administration is going to need to have access to most of these techniques.
How do you get a Warrant for a Throw Away Cell Phone?
O is in a real pickle on this one. If he cancels, he opens himself to destruction should their be a terror attack in the future. If he does not, he will infuriate his core base who call these ‘illegal’ wiretaps. I am guessing he sticks with it, especially since he voted for it last summer. He may make a cosmetic change to the program to mitigate the damage on the left.
I am sure the Messiah’s @ss puckered a little at Bush’s national security briefing when he was told that the “illegal” tapping had uncovered numerous plots against him and his family.
Platitudes are very nice but reality can be a mother.
How in the hell can some so called Judge from a foreign land make any decision that helps the terrorist enemies of the American People?
Didn’t Martin Luther King’s son excoriate the Bush Adminsitration at an MLK event with Ted Kennedy, whose brothers wire tapped MLK, sitting on the stage?
Like having them wiretap his political opponents, instead of our terrorist enemies.
Didn't you watch the last 2 seasons of HBO's "The Wire"? IIRC, the fictional Baltimore City cops found a judge to authorize warrants on pre-delivered track phones.
'Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,' he [Ayers] said."
August 2001, Chicago Magazine (article: No Regrets)
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/
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"In 2008, author David Freddoso commented that "Ayers and Dohrn escaped prosecution only because of government misconduct in collecting evidence against them", Freddoso wrote" [illegal wiretaps].[24][26]
His minions want him to keep them safe
at all costs. They don't care about rights,
not one little bit.
Didn't you get the memo from the accusatory media?
It's OK for Obama to wiretap without a warrant because he's ...... Obama.... and because he's not an evil world-tyrant racist like GWB.
He didn’t need a court order if the interceptions were conducted outside the country.....but hey...this is “journalism”...right?
Aaaah...the stark difference between campaigning and governing. The inevitable difference between a God and a mere mortal.
“Now, thanks to a ruling by a San Francisco federal judge, Obama must take a stand on whether the Bush administration violated Americans’ rights when it intercepted their phone calls and e-mails without seeking a court’s permission.”
What part of “Foreign” don’t these people get? It wasn’t Americans phone calls being tapped. It was foreign phone calls.
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