Posted on 12/27/2005 10:47:23 AM PST by Pragmatic_View
WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate.
A review of Justice Department reports to Congress by Hearst newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined.
The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.
But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.
In his first election bid, John Kerry and his brother bugged the campaign headquarters office of his opposition. The Lowell Sun.
That is not good enough reasoning to put ourselves in danger because it may be abused one day (or not).
Very interesting and would explain why they were chosen...
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created by section 103(a) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1803(a)). It was originally comprised of seven district judges from seven circuits named by the Chief Justice of the United States to serve a maximum of 7 years.
In 2001, the U.S.A. Patriot Act (section 208) amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to increase the number of FIS Court judges from seven to eleven, "of whom no fewer than 3 shall reside within 20 miles of the District of Columbia."
The day that an unelected, uninformed, unaccountable "court" can give the president orders on how to conduct the national defense is the day I deny their legitimacy. This is not a judicial body, this is a gang of rogue bureaucrats who happen to be shysters.
At least 3 have to reside in or near DC. As many as 8 do not have to. I'm sure this is so that a 3-judge panel can be convened in an emergency.
That is an interesting point to bring up. Which is the cart and which is the horse?
Didn't the President start skipping the court for this surveillance before 2003? If so the conclusion of this article is completely false. I think a better conclusion would be that the judges on the court got upset because they weren't always being consulted. They started messing with some of the applications for warrants as a result.
Again, I would encourage people to read the article. The article contains one fact, the number of modified and denied applications. The conclusions reached by the article are completely based upon the conjecture of an unlisted source, who hates the NSA and compares Bush to Nixon.
My point was that bypassing the court is not something to crow about. I agree the action is justified in this case, I don't believe it's something that should be trumpeted.
Thanks, but I'm making a lot of assumptions. It may be that the panels are not formed at random. They may, for example, have to have at least one DC judge. It's easy enough to check my conjecture if you can match the rejections with the panels that rejected them.
I have absolutely no problem with this.
I doubt that the Bush administration just started to change its techniques and approach some time in 2003. In 2003, three things happened: First, the US went to war with Iraq. Second, a Clinton judge got nominated to the FISA court. Third, Howard Dean got a lot of press and popularity for being an explicitly anti-war candidate.
These Judges take a similar oath. Apparently they had their fingers crossed behind their backs when the swore the oath.
I think they actually posted the government website, which has the info on the FISA judges and how they get there.
"they can not give a "blank check" to bypass constitutional limits."
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Are you saying that the US Constitution has been ignored for the first 200 years, all the way up to the 1970-s? This whole FISA court stuff was only created then, in response to the Nixon scandal.
So the rate of modification increased by 20,700.00% after Bush became President.
"Why didn't Bush say this when he was justifying his actions? He seems to have no interest in defending himself.
"
Nerve racking aint it? The truth eventually gets out.
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