Carter Allowed Surveillance in 1977

The Washington Times ^ | 11 Feb 2006 | Charles Hurt

[seanmerc]

Imagine my surprise!

Would this fall into the "pot calling the kettle black" category?

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Carter's idiocy knows no bounds.

The man is a disgrace...and never should've come close to the presidency.

[SoothSayerONETIME]

carter should be spelled P.O.S.

[saveliberty]

But Carter loves communist dictatorship. Why would he authorize warrantless wiretaps unless VN had a beef with Cuba?

[dirtboy]

. In its opinion, the court said the executive branch has the "inherent authority" to wiretap enemies such as terror plotters and is excused from obtaining warrants when surveillance is "conducted 'primarily' for foreign intelligence reasons." That description, some Republicans say, perfectly fits the Bush administration's program to monitor calls from terror-linked people to the U.S. The Truong case, however, involved surveillance that began in 1977, before the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which established a secret court for granting foreign intelligence warrants.

Carter signed FISA - however, the "inherent authority" was not his to give away, since it is a constitutional power of the executive - just as SCOTUS did not allow Congress to give the President a line-item veto without amending the Constitution.

In a way, this is a good debate - it is educating people about the nature of the relationship of powers between the various branches of government. And it is showing how the Dems politicize everything.

HOWEVER, the middle of wartime is NOT the time to be having such a debate!!!!

[newnhdad]

Jimmy Carter talking about what the president should be doing is like Teddy Fatboy giving driving lessons.

[The G Man]

"If al Qaeda is calling you ... we'd like to know why."

'Nuff said.

[Beth528]

Even the ugly peanut man can get little girls to sit in his lap..

[COUNTrecount]

Does Jimmy even know what the USS Jimmy Carter can do ?

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-529826.html

Some outside analysts and U.S. intelligence officials think the NSA should abandon such efforts in favor of more narrowly targeted intelligence-gathering efforts. One intelligence official estimates that tapping all the world's undersea cables, assuming it could be done, would cost more than $2 billion a year. And no one knows whether the NSA will ever have enough computing power to analyze the resulting gusher of digital data.

Even so, the agency has been pushing ahead. At General Dynamics' Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Conn., the Navy is deep into a five-year, $1 billion retrofit of the USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear-powered vessel that intelligence experts say will be the premier U.S. spy sub when it hits the seas in 2004. Among its many planned features, says one former official familiar with the project: state-of-the-art technology for undersea fiber-optic taps.

The NSA's Lt. Gen. Hayden and Navy officials decline to comment on the USS Jimmy Carter's mission.

[johnny7]

No... more like the cashew calling the macadamia... NUTS.

[Brilliant]

So I wonder why Jimmy did not get a warrant? It's inexplicable.

Is it too late to impeach him?

[O6ret]

Jimmy Carter: the least qualified and most unsuccessful American President in modern times...and undeniably the worst past-President of all times.

A true embarrassment to the Democratic party if not all Americans.

[kitkat]

BUMP

[em2vn]

Multiple repeat of various articles.

[Sgt_Schultze]

A true embarrassment to the Democratic party if not all Americans.

No, that's the trouble. He's not an embarrassment to democrats - he's just an embarrassment to Americans.

[seanmerc]

I did a search for the article's title before I posted it and nothing came up. Sorry for any duplication, but I did try to make sure that nobody else had posted the article.

[inquest]

Administration officials say the president has constitutional authority to conduct surveillance without warrants in the name of national security. The only way Congress could legitimately curtail that authority, they argue, is through an amendment to the Constitution. The administration's view has been shared by previous Democrat administrations, including Mr. Carter's.

The article never backs up the claim that Carter ever agreed that Congress doesn't have poewr to regulate the President's authority.

[inquest]

Carter signed FISA - however, the "inherent authority" was not his to give away, since it is a constitutional power of the executive

And he didn't give it away. He just submitted to congressional regulation. That's not the same thing at all.

[dirtboy]

And he didn't give it away. He just submitted to congressional regulation. That's not the same thing at all.

It's not Congress's power to regulate.

[inquest]

So does that mean the Posse Comitatus Act is also unconstitutional? That regulates the power of the executive.